Zibba & Almalibre
Una cura per il freddo

I am preparing for the first time to face the arduous task of reviewing a music album to fill a serious (in my opinion) gap: Zibba is by now much more than an emerging reality in the Italian music scene (rightfully so, I’d say), it deserves a space here on DeBaser as well and I hope it will capture a minimum of attention through my words.

That said, I must tell you a bit about how I came to know this friendly big man all bread and music (I might even venture a couple of extra lard and egg pizzas judging by his waistline, but let’s not get lost in details). It was a warm summer evening in 2011 and with the gang we had planned a "quiet" reggae night in Lugano (Sud Sound System, if that interests you). At the end of the highbrow musical trip, a solitary individual armed with only an acoustic guitar was invited on stage. First logical thought: oh no, not another singer-songwriter inducing irreversible sterility, for heaven's sake. However, since prejudice is not part of my cultural baggage, I left a mental door ajar. The big man burst through it with the force of a tank, embracing me with the charge of two really engaging pieces like "Margherita" and "La fine di un se" (part of the previous album, "Senza smettere di far rumore", a good work but to be listened to only after becoming familiar with this artist through later material); a flash, before being forced to leave the grandstand heading to the Emergency Room (nothing serious, don’t worry, my mother has a tough skin), but taking with me the absolute certainty that that idea of music (and that voice) would have a future in my life.

Biographically speaking, Zibba & Almalibre were born still at the end of the past millennium from the encounter between Sergio Vallarino (alias Zibba) and the drummer Andrea Balestrieri in Genoa, the birthplace of some of the greatest heroes (allow me the consciously forced term) of our songwriting tradition. And although geography can certainly not be a criterion of musical qualification, it will be precisely from the singer-songwriter undergrowth that the Almalibre will take their steps: a project that starts right from the grassroots, from the small venue where you face the variety of life and the everyday, but that has an inherent original seed, supported by a blind conviction in the value of music, its languages, and its personality. Outside of any mercantile or prostituting logic. Without boring you more in general, let's delve into this "una cura per il freddo", dated 2005.

It opens with "Mahllamore": an intro for sax escorted by a minimal offbeat drumline, slow, almost sluggish, but what on earth are we about to exclaim, then down the seventh and off to ride a village fair rhythm, sax and violin alternate with a hoarse laugh in defining the slightly musically surreal mood. And here starts a voice, that voice, warm and hoarse, deep yet fresh and bright, to illuminate a frivolous or cheeky text if we want to indulge, very oriented towards the pleasures of the "rosy flesh" as much as the much-desired parliamentary quotas to be direct. The guitar accompanies insistently on the upbeat until the chorus, the violin peeks in here and there as if to remind us that here we are in the worst dance halls, no kidding: choirs and electric guitar provide the backdrop for the chorus, to season a piece with a simple structure, without pretensions, but that will hardly be driven out of your head. Personally, I love the ending with solos in question and answer between sax and violin.

For the second track, the register is overturned. This will be a characteristic of the whole CD, a continuous crossing of genres and musical styles will be the fundamental matrix of the album, to affirm the absolute primacy of music in all its declinations as a means of communication, as a cultural trait d'union, as an instrument cognitive reality but also very simply as a "weapon" to have fun and entertain. "Ordine e gioia" thus becomes almost a recitative, a prayer supported by an impalpable piano and a dusting of violin.

Which catapults us to the planet of "Una parola illumina", for me a memorable track, oscillating between jazz cadences, rock notes, and an unmistakably reggae rhythm (the interventions of Raphael are no coincidence here, and in the official video, of Bunna of "Africa Unite"): a triumph of styles that does not clash at all, a kind of miracle for my ear eager for genre mingling. A song more than love, intended to produce a collage of sensations, of situations. Fantastic. Too bad for the slightly drawn-out finale.

The fourth track, and we are increasingly lost: a desperate harmonica opens the "Saga di Antonio," a xylophone tells the story of a musician with "nine children to feed, with nine daughters each to marry" who looks at the world with the critical eye of someone who already feels departed (as a passage almost like a funeral band emphasizes). Zibba's voice scratches superbly as if he were really an old drunkard, involves and envelops, it could fill the entire track alone (musically quite minimalist but by no means obvious): a voice that many not wrongly associate with that of Fred Buscaglione.

"Ammami" is almost a counterpoint to the opening track, vulgar to the right degree or in surplus it doesn’t matter: both the plot and the harmony are simple to intertwine, but challenging is the radical archiving in the darkest cranial recesses.

And then "Dauntaun", something phenomenally experimental: opening blues riff, a voice "mentalized" as I say structured more for dialogue with one’s psyche than for conversation, enters an unusual drum hitting on the weak beats with an 80s electronic sound, over which a synth and a sax appear to make the track a sort of jam session, then for the finale, a instrumental crescendo provides a real rap regression on the theme of social decay in the metropolitan suburbs. A track to understand, not easy on the first listen, but the more time passes the more it gives me satisfaction, it may have flaws in structure but it should be read precisely in the perspective of a "street jam" to avoid superficial devaluations.

Without going on and on and not to take away from you the pleasure of discovery, I invite you to go and explore the other nine tracks on the album, which through ups and downs become a tool of a sincere message: we like making music, we like doing it our way and we are more hungry for knowledge than for money, say Almalibre in this album, the first step of a career that will lead them to win the Bindi Prize in 2011, the Tenco Prize in 2012, and the critics' award at the Sanremo Festival in 2014 for the newcomers category. Of the lads you will hear more about, I am certain, and in any case, I will continue to talk to you about them (but I will also talk to you about other things, do not fear, as you start to flee in terror) until I shatter your distinctive genitals. Ave.