COSÌ E' SE MI PARE

My feelings about this album are quite controversial: it's probably the most "celtic influenced" album released by Branduardi during his whole career. Also his violin sounds like a fiddle. The fact that Angelo is back to play violin on an album is surely a good thing as this is his main instrument and he's a very skilled violinist.

"Gira La Testa" is a ballad full of violin with an Irish flavor. I don't know what's this "San Gemolo Celebration" of the title but the lyrics don't have anything religious. It's a love song good for a celebration even if more in Ireland than in Italy. I'm surprised by the fact that Angelo's voice is not changed during all those years.

His vocals have the same tone of the beginnings and this is even more evident in the second track "Barbriallen" (aka the song of Barbara Allen) which is a traditional British (likely Scottish) ballad with origins in the XVII century, but is well known throughout Europe Italy included. I've also found on youtube a demo recorded by Simon and Garfunkel whose main difference is the tempo that's more country-oriented, but the song is almost the same. It's a very sad story of love ad death.

The it comes a very unusual thing. Branduardi is used to reinterpret and arrange medieval or traditional songs, but this is one of the few covers, I think the first after the Donovan's cover on the Yeats' album. "Il Lungo Addio"(The Long Goodbye) is nothing else than Elvis Costello's "The Scarlet Tide" arranged like a song from the Renaissance with "pizzicato" strings and piano plus a bit of classical guitar.

With "Una Vigile Stella" (A Wakeful Star) Branduardi is back to the dreamy fairytales of the first albums. Also this song has a strong British flavor. It makes me think to Pentangle and thinking better, it's quite similar to the Clannad's "So Early In The Spring". The arrangement is progressive enough anyway. A very good song of a kind which seemed disappeared from Angelo's chords many years before.

Now the surprise: a cover of Pogues' "Fairytales of New York", almost identical to the original and translated into a very raw language (Italian can be very very raw) that appears very inappropriate with Angelo and his music. Also I don't think anybody was needing another cover of this song which in Italian doesn't sound much well. This album is short enough without having to skip one track.

"La Ballata Del Tempo E Dello Spazio" (The Ballad Of Space And Time) is a sort of hymn to the spacetime and it's not written by Branduardi, another unusual thing. The song is written by his long time guitarist Maurizio Fabrizio with the lyrics written by Walter Tortoreto who's a teacher and musical critic specialized in music and poetry of the 13th Century. I don't know what to think of this song. The lyrics are surely more relevant than the baroque music.

It's a partial return to the origins, out of the Futuro Antico series, and probably the first true Branduardi's album after "L'Infinitamente Piccolo", at least for half of it. A bit more than 3 stars, not enough to rate it with four, specially for Sean McGowan's unhappy translation..