Calcutta - Underground Mainstream

Hi, I'm Calcutta and I'm from Latina…

“I spit on today's youth”: that's what Afterhours sang back in 1997 on their manifesto album “Are You Afraid of the Dark?“, in what became a kind of anthem against the limp-wristed, faux-left-wing posh kids who'd spend their weekends out on daddy's sailboat. Years have passed, Manuel Agnelli keeps making ambitious albums while also establishing himself as a talent-show judge. Yet in the new millennium there are still plenty of good reasons to dig into the lost values of post-adolescents — except now it's their own peers who have to speak up, addressing the young audience with a fresh language, tackling subjects that can range from eternal job insecurity to the absence of certainties, from deep loneliness to the small hassles of everyday life.

Many bands of the new generation have focused on these themes: every year in Italy we witness a new “case”, from Lo Stato Sociale to I Cani, right up to the explosion of fame and recognition that has hit Edoardo Calcutta, uncannily well-timed in making the right record at the right moment, a figure it's impossible not to warm to, clothed in that same fragility shared by the fans who follow him with boundless affection. A guy who, with disarming and contagious simplicity, has built easy, direct songs, winning over everyone — not just the teenagers (or barely older) depicted in his lyrics, but also older listeners, who find him a skilled songwriter, all the way up to seasoned music critics who see in him the ability to fully translate onto record the best possible expression of youth in the present day. Sincere songs, because the author is an integral part of the reality he describes, micro-snapshots that have come out of his bedroom and become everyone's shared heritage.

Calcutta, born Edoardo D'Erme, was born in Latina (known to most simply for its reclaimed marshland, for Tiziano Ferro's hits and coming-out, and for Manuela Arcuri's boobs) in November 1989, and grew up living the reality of chronic provincial life: Rome is a stone's throw away and draws everything to itself, for better or worse, leaving the surrounding areas in an endless standstill. He started playing guitar early on, self-taught, and tried his hand at various musical projects that invariably sank without a trace. Calcutta is a melancholy, singular character, often wandering the city alone, even late at night, observing, reflecting, and starting to write his little sketches of lived life, steeped in an unusual realism, crystal-clear snapshots of our present day.

Legend has it that in 2007, before he was even of age, Edoardo and a friend started the Calcutta project, a duo aiming to blend an indie-pop approach with the melodies typical of the best Battisti. There's no point asking him why he chose that name: everything in his story seems to have happened by chance, and he himself always seems continually surprised by whatever is going on around him. Lucio Battisti, as mentioned, has always been cited explicitly as one of his own points of reference, alongside Luca Carboni, Lucio Dalla and Caetano Veloso. But it's best never to take any of Edoardo's statements too seriously: he's very good at muddying the waters to keep the curiosity about his persona running high.

Early Recordings…

From 2011 onward, the name Calcutta identifies Edoardo's solo project, ready to carry on in perfect solitude, gradually becoming one of the defining singer-songwriters of his generation. People around town start to get to know him, and a little cassette titled The Sabaudian Tapes ends up circulating: just a few dozen copies that outline his musical aesthetic, small tales of provincial life that start sealing his fortune.

But the long-awaited debut album doesn't arrive: it takes Edoardo years to bring it into the world, held back by his shyness. His friends come to the rescue and, convinced of the worth of his songs, decide to cover his tracks in order to put out a tribute album. A tribute to a musician who had never released anything. A brilliant idea, which unfortunately (or luckily?) never came to be, but which turns into the decisive push that convinces him to record and fix forever onto tape twelve tracks under his own name.

Twelve extremely fragile songs collected on Forse…, released by the enterprising Geograph Records in 2012. On it, Calcutta perfectly captures the changing times, with that (non-)musician's approach that will quickly become his unmistakable trademark. Arriving like an unprecedented tidal wave, Calcutta helps to shake up the average listener's settled certainties, becoming a crucial piece in a radical shift of perspective, one that draws far more on punk aesthetics than on those of Italian singer-songwriters. Forse… is the lived life of the average provincial kid. If you're a lover of formal musical perfection, or of lyrics crafted to represent some form of “high” literature, or supposedly so (like the Baustelle of “Fantasma“), you'd better barricade yourself at home with your record collection and never come out again, because Calcutta embodies an attitude that's downright revolutionary (or that at least evokes 1977).

The guitar is played in the most basic way, at times almost off the beat, the uncertain, lurching delivery of the vocals, dragging and listless, gives rise to verses that seem to have been written by some distracted, confused high-schooler, constructions that barely seem to hold together. But in the end this “insecure” approach leaves its mark, turning apparent weaknesses into devilish virtues, into genuine strengths, into essential traits for interpreting a crooked, ramshackle brand of songwriting. A new way of making music that doesn't necessarily presuppose knowing how to sing or play — quite the opposite, in fact. But listen a little more closely, and anyone can realize that Calcutta is in fact capable of both, even if he very cleverly wants us to believe otherwise, couldn't care less about the rules, and has fun pulling our leg, establishing himself as the young rising star of new Italian songwriting.

It's getting rarer and rarer to come across a new musical figure who hasn't emerged from a talent show, yet who manages to stay uncontaminated even while edging closer to the mainstream. Calcutta turns out to be a pleasant exception and becomes the tangible sign of a wind beginning to change direction. Calcutta doesn't go looking for gigs, they rain down on him, and he finds himself playing on major stages, even abroad. Calcutta doesn't go looking for collaborations, yet his email and his phone are on fire. Calcutta doesn't want to make an album, so his friends make it for him. On Forse… Calcutta conveys simple emotions, poured into fragile sketches that seem to barely hold together, deliberately left in a semi-embryonic state, so quirky and ordinary that they end up feeling even more true and original. Voice and guitar up front, everything else in the background, decorating without ever stealing the scene: flashes of oblique electronics, the odd scattered percussion, fleeting sparks of genuine electricity that are never too intrusive.

At times he brings to mind Other, elsewhere he seems like an even more disintegrated Vasco Brondi, because of his particular way of being a singer-songwriter today, with that indie-loser poetry in which many young people (and not only them) can easily recognize themselves. Summer memories, unrequited love, troubled relationships, teenage angst, surreal touches, simple, ordinary stories that start out from Italy's chronic provincial towns and end up becoming universal. Call it, if you like, “cosmic provincialism”. Behind him stands a rising label, one of those that genuinely looks after its own artists, Geograph Records, the same one that puts out the surprising Eva Won, who lends a hand on Forse… alongside labelmates Grip Casino, Manuel Cascone and Trapcoustic. This is music for the new generations, a kind of new punk for larynx and strings — if you're over forty and don't like it, all things considered, that's probably as it should be.

I drew a swastika in the middle of Bologna, but it was only to pick a fight…

The name Calcutta starts to establish itself as a minor national phenomenon (even if, for now, strictly within a niche circuit): Forse… is only the first, somewhat timid chapter, but within it lie seeds ready to sprout and grow into something significant. In 2013 he is by far the most sensational of our homegrown next big things. Meanwhile, when he's not spending his evenings in Pigneto, he's touring up and down the peninsula, a guest of anyone willing to host him, playing wherever there's a potential audience ready to listen to his fragile stories set to music.

In mid-2015 comes the single that will change this guy's fate, “Cosa mi manchi a fare”, along with its music video, massively clicked on YouTube, in which the protagonist is a Sri Lankan boy. Suddenly Calcutta's fairy tale takes a fairly unexpected turn. From an obscure provincial bard, he rises to the role of star of the national glossy magazines, where in the solemn “Culture and entertainment” pages people write about him, interview him, dissect him as a public figure, and his songs win people over, more and more so, with an audience that, as the months go by, becomes increasingly cross-generational.

In December 2015 Mainstream comes out, the album that seals his national breakthrough. Calcutta decides to (pretend to) go "mainstream", but even as he scales up into ultra-pop territory, he remains firmly rooted in the underground, his natural habitat, one that's now starting to feel a little too small for him, but from which he can best describe that "healthy" provincialism, made of small stories that sketch out a reality of irreversible precariousness. These are tales that, once they leave the author's own sphere of reference, become universal, in which today's young people see themselves reflected perfectly, with faint satisfactions (Frosinone in Serie A for the first time) that show the mark of changing times, but can't be strong enough to overshadow the discomfort of crumpled-up loves and endless loneliness, even when it's eternally comfortable. The night is spent eating a pizza alone, and who knows where you'll end up sleeping, maybe you'll watch a film, but the director's name will fade from memory, blurred into recollection — still, you feel free to wash the dishes without Svelto detergent, and that helps you feel better, feel unshackled from a daily routine you never want to be too in line with.

Cosmic provincialism built on small suburban stories, and in 2015 Calcutta nails the right record, keeping the same DNA as his debut: that spontaneity hasn't dissolved, even though the songwriting comes across as more "deliberate", the arrangements are more complex and polished, the overall approach less lo-fi, thanks to having a band behind him now, able to supply a fresh burst of energy. Snapshots of city life that are musically steadier than those populating Forse…, a concentrate of "realist surrealism" in which any young person of his generation can find themselves, pieces of a trendy puzzle, songs dressed in just the right way, worn by the perfect character for the occasion, an alternative mask that knows how to make them work at their best.

Milan, Bologna, Pesaro, Peschiera del Garda, Frosinone — it all seems to come from travel notes, jotted down while on tour, since Calcutta keeps making himself available to play anywhere, whether in major venues where established musicians perform, or in suburban basements, in people's homes, wherever there's an audience willing to listen. A bit Rino Gaetano, a bit Alberto Ferrari, a bit Lo Stato Sociale, a bit both Vascos (Rossi and Brondi), emphasizing even more than before that pop attitude deeply rooted in his DNA, blending it all into the 2010s present of a generation that "survives" without certainties anymore, without a steady job, disillusioned early on but not yet defeated. "Frosinone" and the opening one-two of "Gaetano"-"Cosa mi manchi a fare" turn out to be the most successful tracks, where the deliberately listless attitude of Forse… fades in favor of sharper songwriting and greater calculation.

Flashes of electronic experimentation surface in the two short interludes that split the tracklist into chapters, and in the hypnotic "Dal verme", until the brief "Barche" — two minutes of just guitar and voice — closes the album with that intimate feel built on faint everyday flashes, bringing to mind things like early Carboni's "Gli autobus di notte". The album's ironic title plays on today's tendency to want to classify everything at all costs, but Calcutta, despite the "fake effort" to "pop-ify" his songs (adding instruments and polishing the mood), remains an unclassifiable figure. He's simple and sincere, and one can only hope that time and the people he meets won't normalize him, since he couldn't care less about any of that and will keep writing other wonderfully offbeat little songs. The live setting will reveal whether the "gain" found while listening to Mainstream will translate to the stage: no longer alone with an out-of-tune guitar, but as leader of a real band.

I didn't wash the dishes with Svelto: that's my freedom…

And the verdict is absolutely positive, every doubt dispelled — over the winter straddling 2015 and 2016, Calcutta fills live clubs all over Italy, racking up one sellout after another, culminating in a packed house at Atlantico in Rome on February 23rd, where he shares the stage with I Cani, finally closing a kind of circle with his friend Niccolò Contessa. Together, on the same night, the two biggest independent musical success stories to emerge in Italy in recent years, finally front and center, adored by fans singing every single word in unison of songs that are becoming symbols of a generation. Calcutta sings leaning on his guitar, backed by synth, bass and drums, and sets off without fear, slotting in right away the best of his Mainstream, namely "Frosinone" and "Gaetano": the crowd sings in unison, showing they feel perfectly represented by lyrics that tell the story of their own days, describing unease and uncertainty, dreams and struggles.

The real surprise — though I'd dare say confirmation — of this tour is the man himself, shy yet able to face huge crowds as though he were still in a friend's farmhouse, trying to string together a few words between songs, and if the emotion is strong enough to break his voice, it hardly matters — everyone's there to hear his songs and belt out the much-awaited "Cosa mi manchi a fare".

Calcutta proves to be a sort of modern-day minstrel, able to turn feelings and slices of lived experience into words and music, shedding the singer-songwriter's solitude to bring his new arrangements to the stage at the head of a band.

Concerts up and down the peninsula keep multiplying endlessly throughout 2016, a year that also sees him headline many of Italy's major festivals — just to name a few, Siren in Vasto alongside Editors, Kula Shaker and Thurston Moore (!), or Roma Incontra il Mondo, in the gorgeous setting of Villa Ada. But before the summer run of shows, two new songs arrive. In May 2016 "Oroscopo", presented by the artist as a simple divertissement among friends, becomes one of the songs of the summer. On June 10th of the same year the deluxe edition of Mainstream comes out, expanded with the previously unreleased "Albero".

When, a few months later, Liberato — a new "anonymous" singer — appears on the national indie scene with immediate success, helped along by a couple of hit videos directed by Fabrizio Lettieri that go viral online, many initially think Calcutta is behind it, and he skillfully plays along with the planted misunderstanding. Only a few months later, when Liberato takes part in some major festivals, such as Club To Club in Turin in November 2017, will the rumour be put to rest.

Thanks to his very distinctive style, Calcutta starts being sought after as a songwriter for other artists too: he co-writes two songs for Fedez and J-Ax's 2017 bestseller, "Milano intorno" and "Allegria", the latter featuring none other than Loredana Bertè. He also writes and duets with Francesca Michielin on "Io non abito al mare", which in November serves as the lead single for the young Veneto singer's third album.

Meanwhile Calcutta works on his hotly anticipated new album, unexpectedly previewed on December 14, 2017 by "Orgasmo", a new track that confirms the singer-songwriter's growth, now ready to swap embraces for bolder, more carnal situations. Backed by a viral campaign, complete with mysterious posters plastered around Milan and Rome, "Orgasmo" — released right as the winner of the 2017 edition of X-Factor is being announced — confirms Calcutta as one of the leading figures among Italy's new generation of young singer-songwriters.

You know that if you take two Tachipirina 500s, they become a thousand…

Accompanied by a video once again directed by Fabrizio Lettieri, "Orgasmo" — followed in the following weeks by "Pesto" and "Paracetamolo" — paves the way for the release of a new album, Evergreen, out on May 25, 2018 and containing ten new hits. The Calcutta phenomenon doesn't deflate, as many had too rashly predicted in the wake of "Mainstream" — quite the opposite, it keeps spreading, no longer a passing trend but a true singer-songwriter, like the models he's always drawn inspiration from. But without dwelling too much on Carboni or Dalla: he's been smart enough to find a personal path that no one else could have carved out but him, with his knack for being at the center of the scene in a way that always seems so apparently casual. The bet has paid off; the passing fads were all those who, emerging after him, burned out in the sun within a few weeks of exposure, swallowed up by premature oblivion. He's seen the cameras on Corso Sempione, and jokes about it — though maybe not entirely — singing in "Rai" that he no longer wants to leave ("voglio restare qui", he declares, echoing the national treasure Vasco).

Success in music today no longer pads your bank account the way it once did, but seeing thousands of young people sing your own songs is a drug, an adrenaline rush you can't give up once you've tried it. Calcutta always teases us a little: he projects a rural soul, posing for the cover photo surrounded by a flock of sheep, anticipating the bizarre ideas later voiced by mayor Raggi and beating to the punch the opening image of Sorrentino's new film. Staying "Evergreen", aspiring to simplicity, nurturing loves and telling them in everyday words, without reaching for philosophical hyperbole or literary devices. "He speaks as he eats", as they say out in the provinces, and words are firmly at the heart of his idea of music — words that describe small everyday realities, alternating with situations bordering on the surreal, where reality becomes surrealism and surrealism becomes real. Like "la nebbia nei risvolti", like "mangio il buio col pesto". And then the generational slogans, fired off at the heart of the choruses, like "sento il cuore a mille", "Ué deficiente" and "E' un sacco che non te la prendi, un sacco che non mi offendi", poured respectively into the three instant classics "Paracetamolo", "Pesto" and "Orgasmo".

There are the lyrics, which make Evergreen more of a dance record than its predecessors, but there are also meticulously crafted arrangements. One example is what happens at minute 2'10'' of the opening "Briciole", the track that gives the album its decisive initial push, or those moments when an unexpected guitar pops up out of nowhere, or an unforeseen drum pattern appears elsewhere. Some ideas remain minimalist: "Saliva" foregrounds the ups and downs of the vocal line, "Dateo" works as a sort of instrumental coda to it, a small electronic divertissement gone slightly askew. Elsewhere new solutions are tried out, opening up interesting sonic prospects for the future, as with the flanger that wraps around "Nuda nudissima".

The tender-hearted Calcutta no longer exists, the one who only wanted to "disappear into an embrace" and "learn to walk again", let alone the lost boy who wanted to go home but wasn't quite sure whose home it was. The kid is growing up, having orgasms on staircases, and between kiwi fields he'd like to be buried in and binoculars for looking more closely into each other's eyes, he keeps churning out infectious choruses. He speaks the same language as his peers and captures the precarious contemporary existence of today's youth ("you'll call me from a call center") in images that blend tenderness and insolence ("in my eyes there's a leaking barrel", "I'm wasting the wasted time I feel like wasting", "It's been ages since you've spat at the mirror to wash your face") in which today's teenagers can once again see themselves reflected. At one point he draws a parallel with footballer Dario Hubner, from Trieste, another figure who grew up in the provinces and who, after years of toiling in the lower leagues, went on to win the Serie A top scorer title.

July 21, 2018: the triumphant return to Latina…

Throughout 2018 only two full-length summer concerts are scheduled: one at the stadium in Latina, his hometown, the other at the Arena di Verona. For Edoardo, the evening of July 21, 2018 is one of the most emotional nights of his life, the proverbial acid test needed to show strength to those who keep questioning him, the perfect setting to take his revenge on gossips and the envious. He performs in the city where he was born and grew up, in that very stadium where, until three or four years earlier, even imagining performing there would have seemed sheer madness: at most he might have gotten in to watch a match of the local team, which has since crashed down into Serie D following the club's recent bankruptcy.

It's a memorable evening for Latina, which experiences the event with amazed participation; around here people have never been too used to experiencing big events, so unused to having them at home that some complain about four streets being closed to traffic, or about the influx of young people who will flood the provincial capital (it's said that only 2,000-3,000 tickets out of the 15,000 sold were bought in the city itself), also because — alas — Calcutta is one of those many cases where you can genuinely apply the old saying "no one is a prophet in his own land". For the occasion, Bomba Dischi turns the show into a big label celebration, bringing onto the stage before the headliner the roster's own Mèsa, Francesco De Leo and Frah Quintale, each spaced an hour apart.

Until, at 9:50 pm, he walks on stage, visibly moved, initially leaving it to the screens to speak on his behalf, as during the opening of "Briciole", when the giant words "Welcome to this concert" appear. Calcutta has grown, a lot: he rattles off the new tracks alternated with those from "Mainstream" and a few picks from the earlier "Forse…"; these are the songs of a generation, which the whole stadium sings back by heart, and he focuses on his singing, using guitars and synths much less than in the past. Behind him a real, sizeable band moves about, complete with backing singers, a percussionist and two guitars. An hour and a half of songs, all his own, with no covers thrown in as filler — they're not needed, no one misses them.

The sloppiness and the almost half-hearted attitude that marked his early days have been replaced by truly professional conduct: always in tune (helped also by the vocal coach looking after him), no cigarettes, no alcohol, visibly slimmer, days of rehearsals, isolation in the hours before the show — a performance that puts front and center that urban poetry capable of breaking out of the provinces to become universal, poetry that today comes back home, to the environment where for the most part it was conceived and built, where it feels even truer, especially for those who find themselves here for the first time. "Orgasmo", "Paracetamolo", "Cosa mi manchi a fare" are the standout moments of a first half of the setlist that also makes room for more intimate passages and picks from a past that now seems light years away.

A few moments are designed to hint at interesting future developments, such as the electro drift (almost his own take on the Chemical Brothers) of "Dal verme", followed by a "Nuda nudissima" where the guitars (one played by Giorgio Poi) take over for once. For "Oroscopo", Tommaso Paradiso comes on stage for a surprise duet, a great gift for the fans; during the show, the young singer-songwriter from the Pontine area also provides moments of hilarity, like when he invites the crowd to shout "Ciao Nonna" in unison, aimed right at Calcutta's grandmother, who lives just a few blocks away. In the encores, the sequence (one can already fairly call them true generational anthems) "Gaetano" / "Frosinone" / "Pesto" confirms once again just how famous Edoardo has become.

The feeling is that many of these songs are destined to endure, like "50 Special" by Luna Pop or "Alba Chiara" by the nation's own Vasco: in twenty or thirty years they'll be remembered as shining examples of that It-Pop which was so successful in the 2010s. Calcutta now has a duty not to lose his way, to keep disproving all those who predict he's a shooting star destined for an early fade-out: instead he'll still be there, we're certain of it — he has already taken giant strides, and just a few days later the Arena di Verona will confirm the Pontine musician's definitive consecration. When the stadium lights came back on, he, and only he, could say he had won: Edoardo was good, credible, showing how simplicity and modesty can challenge and even defeat envy and skepticism.

The only other date scheduled for 2018 will also go perfectly: on August 6, at the Arena di Verona, a sold-out show announced months in advance, with guest appearances from Francesca Michielin and Dario Brunori. The evening is captured by director Giorgio Testi, who will turn it into the concert film "Tutti in piedi", shown in Italian cinemas for three days in December 2018.

At the same time, a reissue of Elisa's hit "Se piovesse il tuo nome" (already included on her recent album "Diari aperti") is released, turned into a duet with Edoardo, who is also invited to take part in the new version of Tiromancino's "Strade", included on "Fino a qui".

As further confirmation of Calcutta's rise into the pantheon of his generation's most beloved young singer-songwriters, that summer a full-page article appears in the prestigious French newspaper Le Monde, presenting him as a symbol of Italy's new quality pop.

2019 is devoted to touring: in the early months of the year it's arenas and indoor venues, all sold out, in summer open-air arenas and festivals. In June an expanded version of Evergreen also arrives: Evergreen…e altre canzoni. It's a double album featuring the original tracklist on the first disc, while the second holds a series of bonus tracks. Besides the two new singles "Due punti" and "Sorriso (Milano Dateo)", it also includes four live tracks recorded at the Arena di Verona on August 6, 2018 ("Fari", "Paracetamolo", "Nuda nudissima" and "Saliva", the latter performed with Dario Brunori) and demo versions of the hits "Orgasmo", "Briciole" and "Paracetamolo". It's the same path Mainstream had followed a few years earlier, first released in a standard edition, then as a deluxe, and finally in an even richer third edition, renamed Mainstream +.

At the end of the year, on the occasion of the Pontine singer-songwriter's first European tour, a Spanish-language version of one of his biggest hits, "Paracetamolo", is released, which for the occasion becomes "Paracetamol". This could be the first decisive step toward another future goal: breaking into foreign markets.

And now… a little Relax…

In 2021, Calcutta recorded the single "Blue Jeans" with Franco126, featured on the Roman singer-songwriter's album "Multisala", duetted with Davide "Tropico" Petrella on "Non esiste amore a Napoli" and with rapper Marracash on the track "Laurea ad honorem", included on the album "Noi, loro, gli altri". Another move by the singer-songwriter from Latina was the launch of the Friuilli project, set up together with Davide Panizza and Niccolò Di Gregorio of the Pop X collective, debuting with the single "Gabbiano".

In 2022 he wrote the hit "Litoranea" for Elisa, included on the successful album "Ritorno al futuro/ Back To The Future"; the following year he co-wrote, alongside Dardust, the song presented at the Sanremo Festival by Ariete, "Mare di guai", which definitively launched the young singer-songwriter into the national spotlight.

The promotional campaign that marked the build-up to Relax (2023), his return to recording after five years away, was disorienting and original: it kicked off with an arena tour announced several months in advance, at a point when the existence of new songs could only be assumed. In an era of relentless singles, Calcutta released Relax on 21 October 2023 in one go, in full, avoiding a piecemeal rollout, announcing it only ten days ahead of time and giving fans (just 24 hours before) nothing more than the lyrics whispered by a girl filmed in an ASMR video posted on YouTube.

The weekend before the arrival of "Relax", Calcutta strummed away with his band inside an installation set up in Rome by Nico Vascellari, while another installation in Milan, in one of the buildings overlooking the Darsena, decorated with sheets hung from the balconies, served as a megaphone for the Milanese mayor's call for a "slower", more relaxed city. A live performance on the roof of Rai's Rome headquarters on Via Asiago, inspired by the Beatles' "Let It Be", rounded off a crash course in marketing that will very likely find imitators.

Anyone expecting a "strange" album from a maverick like Calcutta will be only partly disappointed, finding something to chew on in the peculiar approach taken for "Coro", the opening track, built entirely from vocalizations with no instruments at all, reworking an Alpine military choir (or Apennine folklore, take your pick) with lines that magically stretch out to evoke the typical arrangements of early Battisti (listen out for the moment he shouts "Piango un po'"): a feat that's not exactly simple to pull off. And indeed, Lucio Battisti is the single biggest source of inspiration in the compositional process behind the ten songs on Relax (plus one instrumental interlude that surgically splits the tracklist in two). This is the Battisti of the second half of the Seventies, the one keen to experiment with electronics: just listen to some of the sounds dressing "Giro con te", not too far removed from those that made "Sì viaggiare" immortal. Another detectable reference is Dario Brunori, with whom Edoardo shares a bond of mutual esteem and affection: a track like "Tutti", an ode to the failures of Generation Z, could easily have come from the pen of the Calabrian singer-songwriter. In his attempt to exorcise his unease and suffering, numbing it (though certainly not defeating it) much like the dental session pictured on the cover, Calcutta also throws in plenty of other ingredients...

There's a lot of synth-pop in Relax, and the tracks that hit the mark first are the more rhythmic ones, in a style I wouldn't hesitate to call disco-funk, "Controtempo" and "Loneliness", danceable moments delivered with that thread of melancholy that never leaves Calcutta's songwriting. There are also "played" tracks, in the analogue sense of the word, like "SSD", fleshed out with guitars that have a distinctly eighties tone. Relax is also a deeply autobiographical work, even more so than usual, with the singer-songwriter from Latina once again finding the simplest, most effective words to describe the unease felt during the pandemic ("L'anno passato è stato uno schifo / E ancora qui crolla un po'" is one of the lines in "Giro con te"), the feeling of being an alien far from home (he has long since moved to Bologna), recounting both great and small solitudes, even hinting at subtle political stances ("Guerra persa / Non ero mai finito a letto con una di destra", he sings in "Controtempo"), plus a tender memory of his mother, who passed away only recently, whom he longs to hug again for just a minute in "SSD". Fewer slogans to chant in stadiums or scrawl on walls and in diaries, more sophisticated and varied arrangements: a project that may not hit true creative peaks, but maintains such a consistently high standard throughout that it stands as his best album to date, thanks to the absence of filler and a meticulous attention to detail like never before.

Clumsy, crumpled, sincere. Now on his fourth album, Edoardo displays a style that remains unmistakably recognisable: a commendable achievement that puts him in a privileged position compared to the rest of the players on the it-pop scene, for whom an album like Relax can only open up a chasm, a clear and unbridgeable gap. It's not yet his definitive work, his manifesto, but he's getting there, step by step, shedding the shyness of his early days to pursue an ever more mature exploration of words and sounds.

Imitating him will become even harder for all those who have followed in his wake, never managing to come close to his level of success or the immense devotion of his fans. Five years of silence would be an eternity for anyone else, but not for him, and Relax now offers further proof of its author's talent, an ever more important and significant figure in Italian pop as a whole, whether he likes it or not, thanks to his innate ability to decode the emotions and moods of his generation, of which he stands as one of the most credible spokespeople. Because Edoardo, as will now be clearer to many, isn't here by chance — he's here to stay, for a long time to come.

I met Calcutta one evening; he confessed to me under his breath, "I'll make one more album and then quit, since by now I know how to write a good song." And yet it won't be his last album — if anything, it was the trickiest one to make, given all the attention trained on him. But he couldn't care less about any of that, continuing to churn out new hit singles with Swiss-clock punctuality, never losing an ounce of freshness, urgency or easy attitude.

They'll keep plagiarising him, and that can only be a point of pride for him. More genuine and less calculating than the various Giornalisti types out there, for now he remains a cut above all those aspiring to become the next Calcutta. Those waiting to catch him out will have to wait at least one more lap by the river.

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