Amor Fou - A Little Pop Fable

From journalist to musician

The story of Alessandro Raina resembles a novel in many respects. Born in Voghera in 1977, he grew up in that small town in the province of Pavia, and in his early twenties began writing about music for several major Italian publications, including Blow Up, Rockstar and Rumore, as well as for the literary criticism magazine Pulp and the Italian edition of the London magazine Time Out.

At the same time, Alessandro showed he wanted to be a protagonist on the other side of the microphone too: the first crucial encounter in this sense came with Giacomo Spazio, founder of the independent label Vox Pop, who in 1999 helped him release his debut under his own name – Colonia Paradi'es, featuring old recordings and photographs telling the story of Montalto Pavese – further cementing Raina's bond with his homeland and his roots.

But the real turning point came a few years later, when Alessandro brought to life the fairy-tale trajectory of the music journalist who, through dealing with his own idols (the musicians), eventually ends up doing their job himself. One day he found himself interviewing Giardini di Mirò, who were so impressed by his qualities that they invited him to join the band, which at the time stood as the absolute beacon of post-rock in Italy.

Raina abandoned any journalistic ambitions and joined Giardini di Mirò, contributing to the band's second album, "Punk... Not Diet!", released in 2003. Years later he would recall the events in these words: "Working with Giardini di Mirò was an experience somewhere between a dream holiday and an internship. It was a great prologue, a huge privilege that allowed me to understand what the most suitable approach was for my way of thinking about music, and to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of the Italian scene".

Amor Fou blossom

A dream, yes, but Alessandro was already looking elsewhere. Driven by differences of opinion with the band's founding core – normal dynamics between an already tightly-knit group and a new member still taking his first steps, without the time needed to grow together and develop a shared language – he began seriously considering a different path, one more rooted in singer-songwriter music. Perhaps by putting together a band he could feel was truly "his own", where he wouldn't feel like a guest. Raina and Giardini di Mirò nonetheless remained friends, and their paths would cross again in 2007, when the former journalist appeared among the credited writers of "Broken By", featured on the excellent "Dividing Opinions". But life is made of encounters, and Alessandro also collaborated on the ambitious electro-acoustic project nOOrda, devised by Cesare Malfatti and Gionata Bettini, writing lyrics in English and French.

It was the former La Crus member who pushed him to try his hand at Italian. And this would prove to be the definitive choice, materializing in 2007 with the release of the first Amor Fou album, a sort of "supergroup" made up of Raina and Malfatti himself, alongside two musicians who had already worked with the latter in the past: Leziero Rescigno (previously with Soul Mio) and Luca "Lagash" Saporiti. Raina would confess years later: "Amor Fou was born out of the collaboration between a former journalist/writer, still very green artistically, and musicians of enormous calibre, extremely skilled and versatile at every level, from performance to production. In this respect, talking, composing, recording and playing alongside artists like Luca Saporiti or Leziero Rescigno was an incredible school for me, as well as a constant spur to keep learning and refining my style".

The Season of the Cannibal, released in October 2007, is an album marked by electronic textures recalling the work of Notwist and Lali Puna. But above all it is a concept album, a bold and demanding choice given it was conceived in a world that by now shies away from complexity. Starting from a tragic news event, the Piazza Fontana massacre, it surveys forty years of Italy's social life: stories, people, events that Amor Fou felt they had to confront, as artists, as chroniclers and as ordinary citizens. Against the backdrop of such an emblematic chapter of history, the pieces of a long and troubled love story are assembled. The lyrics and titles are the fruit of everything absorbed through films, books and newspapers, in an effort to bring into focus the reality around us. There's a nostalgic, atmospheric undertone, and a succession of things left unsaid, left hanging – the story of a love that ended and was never rekindled.

The Season of the Cannibal unfolds like a feature film, starting from the rounded sweetness of "Il periodo ipotetico", suspended between songs of pure beauty such as "I ritorni" and "Cos'è la libertà" (conceptually and stylistically pure Tenco). "Ore 10: parla un misogino" recalls the Notwist of "Neon Golden", "Due cuori una dark room" the Blonde Redhead of "23", while "Se un ragazzino appicca il fuoco" drinks from the well of pre-Panella Battisti. A descent into hell that closes with the anguished "L'anno luce" and the instrumental "La strage". The cannibal of the title is nothing other than a society that has devoured itself, in years of death and division that annihilated an entire generation now standing in front of the mirror, asking itself the reasons for its own failures. With a work of such scope, Amor Fou proved they possessed the genetic code needed to aspire to turning back the clock, to the golden age of the finest Italian singer-songwriter tradition, bringing it back to the front page. A theatrical adaptation of the album would be presented in a double performance at the Piccolo Teatro Campo d'Arte in Rome.

In 2008 Raina released three English-language tracks on a self-produced EP, The Puritans, issued under the name Casador, a moniker devised to tackle the European market. Raina felt it was inappropriate to present himself abroad singing in Italian, and chose to let his new project grow with the patience needed to make it absorbable within a dense, chaotic and extraordinarily rich international scene.

Casador was well received on the independent circuit, even beyond Italy's borders, and the resulting tour took in – besides Italy – Germany and Luxembourg too, even opening a handful of dates for Wilco, Micah P. Hinson, Elvis Perkins, Piano Magic and Shannon Wright. But it was a one-off detour, soon abandoned for good in favour of the main project.

Amor Fou's 2009 opened with two major lineup changes. Malfatti and Saporiti (who would later become the bassist in Marlene Kuntz) left the band, replaced by Giuliano Dottori on guitar (already with the band during the dates of the previous tour) and Paolo Perego on bass.

With half the lineup changed, it was necessary to rethink and recalibrate the band's goals. The first step came in June of that same year, with the release of the self-produced EP Filemone e Bauci, three tracks with clear references to mythology, singer-songwriter tradition and film scores. Among the tracks, besides the title track which would also appear on the following album, there's a cover of Mina's "L'ultima occasione".

The breakthrough

The following year brought I moralisti, Amor Fou's most important record, met with great enthusiasm by critics and fans alike. The revamped lineup focused on a more analog sound, dropping much of the electronic textures pursued on the debut. Once again Raina set his sights on building a concept, based on telling the story of recent Italian history through a string of small episodes involving real people, narrated in a neorealist style - a sort of psychological inquiry calling into question the very foundations of Italian morality. Among these stands out the episode of Enrico De Pedis, boss of the Banda della Magliana crime gang. "De Pedis", despite stirring up some controversy, would establish itself as one of the most accomplished and focused tracks in Amor Fou's entire output, as well as the driving force of an album that would finish third in the "Album of the Year" category at that year's Targhe Tenco.

Stylistically, I moralisti is a kind of constant triangulation with Cristiano Godano, Francesco Bianconi and Federico Zampaglione at its three points. It's modern songwriting with an old-fashioned flavor that seeks out new stylistic avenues, tinged with a vague post-punk feel on "Anita", but letting bright, solemn choruses emerge on "Le promesse". "Peccatori in blue jeans" (which borrows its title from a Marcel Carné film) shows off a radio-friendly flair, "Cocaina di domenica" is pure Baustelle-ism, while "Un ragazzo come tanti" blends pop virtues with melancholy sincerity. The writing is mature, the emotional landscape enticing, especially when "Filemone e Bauci", having run through a gamut of influences (Battisti, Battiato, Gazzé), dissolves into a desolate, martial instrumental closing.

By this point Raina had achieved his goal, now recognized as one of the most sensitive and accomplished songwriters of his generation. After the thousand copies sold of the debut and the five thousand of its follow-up, important new collaborations also came his way. In 2011, between January and February, together with Sicilian singer-songwriter Colapesce he launched a live project called Santiago, which took the form of a tour built around literary readings alternating with songs from both artists' catalogues.

Also in 2011, Raina published his first short story, included in the collection "Cosa volete sentire", published by Minimum Fax. A few months later he contributed to the writing of a book on David Bowie, "L'ultimo dei mariani", edited by Leo Mansueto for Caratteri Mobili.

One commitment after another, but Alessandro is tireless, and in May 2012 Amor Fou's third album arrived, Cento giorni da oggi, recorded with the same lineup as its predecessor. The album marks a sharp stylistic turn, swinging decisively back toward the electronic paths charted on the debut, picking back up that modernist classicism typical of Baustelle's aesthetic. The previously reflective approach, reluctant to veer into easy, over-arranged choruses, changes radically into hummable electro-pop. Traces of a recent trip to Africa surface in the lead single "Alì" and in the closing "Tigri"; no particular exotic musical influences are otherwise detectable, though a hint of Mali timidly peeks through in a couple of afrobeat-tinged choruses.

Cento giorni da oggi gathers authorial reflections on the social and personal state of today's thirty-somethings, both victims and architects of the overwhelming spread of social networks. Facebook and Twitter are proving to be not just tools for feeling like everyone is friends and closer together, but also proactive engines of major and minor uprisings ("La primavera araba") or rapid spreaders of information and lifestyles ("I volantini di Scientology").

Amor Fou leave the door open to influences from the new millennium's indie scene (Arcade Fire, among others), as shown in the opening of "Gli zombie nel video di Thriller". It's auteur pop, right when everyone expected a serious, sulky, introverted record from them: an unexpected evolution that surprises but convinces. "Vero", the album's standout track, is Beach House with sms-style lyrics that sound like they could have been written by Verdena, a dream/shoegaze track complete with an instrumental coda redolent of Deerhunter. Pure Baustelle-ism, if you listen closely, just like "Goodbye Lenin", danceable enough to be mistaken for a hit by some new pop starlet, while still looking to homegrown modern songwriting (Gazzé, perhaps?). "Una vita violenta" doesn't stray far from similar flavors either, complete with a nod to Fidenco and references to plane trees, the market and the Malavita mafia (Bianconi's shadow looms clearly in the background throughout). "Le guerre umanitarie", on the other hand, edges closer to Tiromancino, bringing in finally more aggressive guitars, which reach their peak on the even more direct "Radiante", shaped by the presence of Alessandro Baronciani of Other.

Cento giorni da oggi draws on lyrical and musical content that makes it feel like a sort of "Illustrated Primer of Youth" twelve years on, with those once-restless teenagers now grown into thirty-somethings, more or less disillusioned but not yet resigned, still carrying an intact desire to change the world - and, a little, themselves too.

The end of the story?

At this point Amor Fou are recognized as leading exponents of a pop sound that only seems lighthearted on the surface, but is in fact rich in substance. Their main goal becomes expanding their fan base. Despite the quartet's growing profile, however, the album fails to achieve the success hoped for, and despite a promotional tour featuring keyboardist Michele Marchetti as an additional member, the band would soon decide to call it quits.

The decision was made official on December 12, 2012, right after a show in Ravenna. The terse statement announced that Amor Fou were going on indefinite hiatus for financial reasons. Fresh news wouldn't come until 2017, when they decided to embark on a new round of concerts. It seemed like a new chapter was beginning, but in fact there would be no immediate follow-up, and the latest updates, as well as the band's official social media pages, stop at those shows.

In 2013 Alessandro resumed his collaboration with Colapesce, joining his live band as guitarist and backing vocalist.

That same year he curated "Lische", a segment on the radio show "Sonica", broadcast on the historic Radio Popolare, for which he wrote a short story inspired by a song every week.

But Alessandro Raina's new life is that of a highly sought-after songwriter for hire, a fortunate career path he embarked on in 2012 thanks to a song written for Malika Ayane, "Tre cose". The success it achieved led him to sign an exclusive contract with Universal, officially joining the roster of writers at the major label. In the years that followed he would actively contribute (often alongside other prestigious names) to writing songs for many highly successful performers.

The recipients include Emma Marrone, Paola Turci, Club Dogo, Gué Pequeno, Luca Carboni, Marco Mengoni, Francesco Renga, Raphael Gualazzi, Michele Bravi, Giusy Ferreri, Mahmood, Annalisa, Elodie, The Kolors and many more.

Among the biggest hits he co-wrote, one standout is the summer earworm “Riccione”, written in 2017 for Thegiornalisti. At the 2021 Sanremo Festival he took second place with the song “Chiamami per nome”, performed as a duet by Francesca Michielin and Fedez.

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