Alice - Carla's Songs

Long dark hair framing a proud, beautiful face, wild eyes and disdainful gestures, underscoring the bile-soaked invective sung in her powerful contralto. The woman who takes the stage at the Teatro Ariston on 5 February 1981 isn't exactly what you'd call "a Sanremo singer". And yet it is she, the dark and brooding Alice, who will go on to win the thirty-first Festival della canzone italiana. The credit goes to her, and to a song, "Per Elisa", tailor-made for her by her friend and mentor Franco Battiato. An even more astonishing triumph considering she was up against songs like "Maledetta primavera" (Loretta Goggi), "Sarà perché ti amo" (Ricchi e Poveri) and "Ancora" (Edoardo De Crescenzo), which, besides going on to become future evergreens of Italian pop music, had far more conventional appeal by the usual melodic standards of Sanremo.

Not the usual devoted or hopelessly despondent lover, then, but a strong, independent young woman who spits a flood of rage and demands in her partner's face. Granted, it was 1981, but this was still Italy, and Sanremo to boot, the very temple of tradition. Plenty of people will turn up their noses. Just as they will for debutante Fiorella Mannoia, who, in the same edition, proclaims her sexual self-sufficiency ("Io mi basto da sola") in "Caffè nero bollente".

They just don't make good girls like they used to…

(I Didn't) Want to Be the Pooh

The artistic story of Carla Bissi, aka Alice, however, begins a few years earlier. Her early work reveals her talent as a vocalist, backed by a solid classical background, but doesn't give her the right showcase. It's genuine hard graft, and not the quickest kind either.

Young Carla Bissi, born in Forlì in 1954, made her debut in 1971 at Castrocaro, where she won the New Voices Competition performing "Tanta voglia di lei" by the Pooh. The "title" earned her automatic entry into the following Sanremo Festival with the song "Il mio cuore se ne va", written by Memo Remigi, but it's a flop: she doesn't even make the final. Yet the talent is there, and it's noticed a year later by that old fox Franco Califano, who gives her a song ("La festa mia") that wins her the Gondola d'argento in Venice. In 1973 a third single comes out, featuring "Vivere un po', morire un po'", a cover translated by Giorgio Calabrese of "My My She Cries" by Carole King, and "Il giorno dopo", the Italian version of "The Morning After", the theme from "The Poseidon Adventure": nobody notices.

It seemed like the premature end of Carla Bissi's musical career, as she left the stage behind and withdrew into a design studio.

Two years later, though, comes the resurrection. In place of Carla Bissi there is now the icy (at least in name) Alice Visconti. CBS signs her, but entrusts her to an entourage that doesn't exactly inspire dreams: producer Giancarlo Lucariello and the whole Pooh team, who pin her down to a stale soft-pop formula, exemplified by her first official LP, La mia poca grande età. A concept album about a girl's growth from adolescence to adulthood, in which her voice (the only element worth noting) is smothered by an overblown musical backdrop of strings and heavy-handed melodies. At least one track works, though: "Io voglio vivere", which will become a huge hit in France in Gérard Lenorman's version, "L'Enfant des Cathédrales".

Preceded by two moderately successful singles ("Piccola anima" and "Un'isola"), 1978 brings the follow-up, Cosa resta... un fiore, again produced by the same staff. Another confirmation of Alice's intense interpretive abilities, here also on piano, but with a cloying sound that attempts to turn her into a sort of female version of the Pooh. "E respiro", the single taken from the album, bears the songwriting credit of Riccardo Fogli.

These are two albums that have nothing to do with the rest of Alice's career, which she would go on to describe as "disgusting" to her.

Chansons égocentriques

1980 is the turning point. What launches Alice's career (now without the surname Visconti) is her move to EMI, along with the accompanying change of team.

The decisive encounter is with Franco Battiato and his most trusted collaborators of the period: Francesco Messina, Angelo Carrara and Giusto Pio. The Sicilian composer takes charge of the arrangements, bringing with him his brilliant "pop avant-gardism". It's the perfect fit for the proud, impetuous delivery of the singer from Romagna. A splendid demonstration of this is the single "The Warm Wind of Summer", built in three parts, with a prologue marked by an obsessive rhythm underpinned by Battiato's trademark keyboards, a refrain introduced by timpani and emphatically underlined by organ, and a more conventional coda, with guitar reproducing the chorus. What's more, the song has an instantly catchy hook (another of Maestro Battiato's virtues), which earns it a chart spot and a slot at the Festivalbar.

It's the right single to drive Capo Nord, an interesting album that anticipates many of the innovations the Battiato school would go on to introduce into 80s pop: from the heavy use of electronics to ambitious lyrics and solemn choruses.

Alice is now finally at ease and can fully express her sensibility as a delicate, intimate singer-songwriter, through panels of secluded life and little vignettes of autumnal melancholy (above all "Una sera di novembre", with a beautiful piano arrangement accompanying a deeply sweet melody). Tracks like "Bazar" and "Sera" also reveal her distinctive approach to lyrics, highly sophisticated and often marked by a sharp sense of nonsense.

So Alice of "Per Elisa" was not an unknown, but she wasn't an established star either. The success at Sanremo, however, brings her incredible popularity, almost overwhelming for someone as shy and reserved as her. She will indeed struggle to carry the role, soon retreating back into seclusion, but this time buoyed by a musical proposal that's refined and inevitably more niche.

The self-titled Alice from 1981 is nonetheless a successful album, alternating impactful pop-wave tracks with others more inclined toward experimentation.

The single "Per Elisa" showcases Alice's extraordinary vocal performance, backed by dense layers of keyboards and a sturdy bass-and-drums rhythm section. Drumming that also drives the following "A Te", embellished by a clarinet intro, an instrument that returns to the spotlight on "Non ti confondere amico" too, another perfect marriage of Alice's voice and Battiato's enveloping keyboards. "Non devi avere paura" is another dark, dramatic declamation.

But the record's true added masterpiece is "Una notte speciale": lyrics steeped in Battiato's typical exotic fascinations à-la (“Strane donne col ventre offeso/ danzano sui tacchi a spillo/ Danzano questa notte/ intorno a un fuoco immaginario/ Zingari coperti d’oro/ zingari che sono senza tempo”) merge with a prodigious melody and synthetic arrangements very similar to those that would make "His Master's Voice" a hit a year later. Alice adds her customary spine-tingling interpretation, with her dark, solemn register.

It will be "Una notte speciale" that launches her in Germany, where it will chart for two years and she will long remain a favourite of critics and public alike (perhaps even more so than at home). It's the right occasion for her first European tour.

In the summer of 1982 the single "Messaggio" is released, a power-pop anthem propelled by an unprecedented (and perhaps ill-advised) saxophone, which makes an impact on the charts and paves the way for the new album Azimut. More radio-friendly than its two predecessors, the record doesn't give up on bold ideas, especially on the title track: a pianistic lied with a jagged melodic weave, in which Alice's vocals become even more acrobatic as she narrates a tale of schizophrenic domestic alienation ("Sono l'angelo della casa io/spolvero, rammendo i calzini, cucino… I am the devil of the house / the Azimuth of a cancelled star"). Still, the overriding impression is one of a partial change of course compared to the neurotic wave atmospheres of "Per Elisa". Thus more linear, somewhat trite refrains start to creep in ("A cosa pensano"), along with a repeated use of sax ("Animali d'America") and tighter rock cadences ("Deciditi"). Attempts at "emancipation" from the Battiato-sound that nonetheless seem to distort Alice's very essence.

Better, if anything, are the collaborations with Eugenio Finardi, who handles the arrangements for the ballad "La Mano" and pens the folk-pop gem "Laura Degli Specchi", another classy performance, crowned by a lovely violin finale.

Sealing the by-then three-year-old Alice-Battiato partnership is "Chanson Egocentrique", a tasty non-sense pastiche in synthetic sauce, in which the two sing together for the first time. The experiment is repeated on the other duet, this time more lyrical, "I treni di Tozeur" (also performed together at the Eurofestival), which however will also be the swan song of a collaboration that perhaps gave Alice a career, but which she always experienced as a kind of burdensome "guardianship". Over the years she'll find ways to repay the debt with a series of small "tributes".

Battiato takes his leave, but Alice doesn't remain alone. Backed by the production and supervision of the ever-present Angelo Carrara and Francesco Messina, the singer-songwriter from Forlì releases Falsi Allarmi (1983), her fourth studio work in four years.

There's a clear will to chase new paths, though without a precise direction just yet.

The mid-tempo of "Solo un'idea" turns on vaguely sixties-style melodies, pierced by a swift electric piano solo; "Notte a Roma" is a somewhat glossy ballad, with its mix of acoustic and electronic percussion. More incisive, if anything, is "La canzone più bella": a piano intro, soon replaced by a bleak synth, and another incredible vocal performance, reaching ever steeper, more vertiginous peaks. She also takes a risk with "Il profumo del silenzio", a sinister nursery rhyme, opening with animal sounds before shutting itself away in the dark of an impenetrable room, amid mirrors, books and dolls.

Other tracks spin their wheels a bit more: "Osanna" tries to redo the wave sound with a choir à-la Battiato (featuring Milan's madrigal singers), "Carthago delenda est" pushes toward swaying, joyful Latin rhythms, "Per favore non è amore" is a spoken-word piece set to a steady bass-and-drums cadence. Overall, a record that confirms the compositional maturity achieved by the now "independent" Alice, but which also betrays one or two too many uncertainties.

As if Battiato's shadow still lingered, along comes the covers collection Gioielli Rubati (1985), in which Alice pays tribute to the composer from Catania with a series of covers. "Prospettiva Nevskij", "Luna indiana" and "Un'altra vita" find interesting new interpretive angles in Roberto Cacciapaglia's arrangements. The record earns Alice the Premio Tenco for best performer.

The tribute to the "maestro" marks the end of what had so far been the most thrilling phase of Carla Bissi's career, one that in the space of five years had taken her from a green performer of pop songs to a polished, elite singer-songwriter, loved by the public too. A public that was by now European, as confirmed by the success of "Zu nah am feuer", a duet with German singer-songwriter Stephen Waggershausen that would climb the charts across the Old Continent.

Sounds Without Borders

Alice, who had already — regrettably — turned down an offer from America's Capitol because it would have forced her to stay out of Italy for three years, realizes she now has an international standing. Among her unconfessed dreams is having a record produced by David Bowie or Peter Gabriel. What she perhaps doesn't know is that she will soon find doors opening onto some of the most prestigious international collaborations an Italian singer could ever hope for.

The first "supercast" comes together at the Park Hotel in 1986. There are musicians favoured by Peter Gabriel himself — Tony Levin on bass and Jerry Marotta on drums — and a sacred monster like Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) on guitar, as well as a formidable Italian musician in Michele Fedrigotti (piano and keyboards). All of it overseen by Francesco Messina, from here on the true deus ex machina of all of Alice's productions. What emerges is a new sound, deeper and more percussive, with airy synth arrangements and colourful tonalities, close to a certain strand of world music fashionable at the time.

The album's masterpiece, however, bears the signature of another figure destined to leave his mark on Alice's work: Juri Camisasca. An artist outside every convention, reserved and solitary (he withdrew for 11 years to a Benedictine monastery in Umbria), already a longtime collaborator of Battiato's, Camisasca gives Alice the first of a collection of gems: "Nomadi". The mystical, evocative lyrics find their ideal vehicle in Alice's solemn register, a Middle Eastern-tinged melody unfurls enchantingly, well underpinned by the rhythm section, right up to the instrumental climax of the closing section. Battiato will present it again two years later with new arrangements (more electronic, but just as compelling) on "Fisiognomica". The other tour de force is "Volo di notte", a beguiling ballad wrapped in blankets of synth and arranged with a class that comes close to Roxy Music's "Avalon".

Also refined in sound and lyrics are the opening "Il senso dei desideri" and the crepuscular "Viali di solitudine".

Everything is very light, sober and elegant in form, even when the songwriting is less brilliant ("Conoscersi", "Città chiusa", "Nuvole rosse"). The soft "Luci lontane" had originally been conceived for another collaboration, one that never came to pass: with Kate Bush.

The "new" Alice is a cultured, hermetic chanteuse who rejects the stardom and artifice of the 80s. So Elisir (1987) goes as far as giving a new look to her past hits too, draining them of all emphasis and rearranging them in a style more suited to her current sound. It's a move that earns her the critics' award in Germany (by now her second homeland). Alice also wins the Goldenen Europe, while in Japan another compilation is released, Kusumakura, drawing precisely from her last two LPs.

Even more ambitious is the neo-classical foray of Melodie passeggere (1988), which gathers lieder by Satie, Ravel and Fauré performed by Alice in theatres and conservatories, accompanied on piano by Michele Fedrigotti.

Even the little that was still approximate on Park Hotel turns into magic on Sun in the rain (1989), the album that brings to completion three years of experimentation, standing at the very peak of Alice's entire discography.

Granted, the cast is truly overflowing: Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri (that is, half of Japan), two extraordinary trumpet players in Jon Hassell and Paolo Fresu, Dave Gregory of Xtc on guitar, Jan Maidman (Penguin Cafe Orchestra) on bass, the Turkish ney flute player Kudsi Erguner, and, last but not least, Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator). On top of that, there's the hand of Juri Camisasca, who this time signs almost all of the (beautiful) lyrics.

What dominates is that ethno-world mysticism that was exploding in those years, under the guidance of gurus like Peter Gabriel, David Byrne and David Sylvian. Camisasca's lyrics – close in spirit to those of his contemporary Battiato – represent an original Italian variant of it, in service of an increasingly sophisticated sound, where the ethereal tones of the synths fuse with the dry timbres of the trumpets and Jansen's unmistakably deep drumming. Amid oases of light and oceans of silence, the songs themselves still stand out, all particularly incisive and arranged with rare mastery. The single "Visioni" doesn't give up its pop vein in the chorus, but lets it glide over a sweep of keyboards, accompanying the anchorites' journey through the desert. The title track is an elegy suspended among clouds of synth, marked by tribal African rhythms.

The whole record is a slow ascent from the small things of everyday life to eternity: "Il messaggio è nel silenzio e nella sobrietà" is the lesson of "Il tempo senza tempo", a jewel of rarefied elegance with Alice's warm alto voice serving a shadowy melody that wouldn't have looked out of place among the "secrets of the beehive" of her idol David Sylvian. And another moving stage of the journey comes at the foot of the "lost continent" of "L'era del mito": Gregory's guitar intro sets the stage for another magical ballad, which opens into a very sweet melody, still carried by the guitar, with a tabla solo spiced with the Orient. It's a continuous struggle between the corruption of the world and the purity of immensity: so even "Le baccanti" washing "i capelli scintillanti" while nuclear submarines sink into the depths become an epitome of ancestral purity.

Broadening the range is a trio of more "eccentric" tracks: "Anìn a grìs", a soft reinterpretation of a traditional song from Friuli (Alice's "adoptive" region), the medieval dirge "Orléans" (already revisited by David Crosby on If I Could Only Remember My Name), here in an a cappella version, and the "stretched-out" cover of Finardi's "Le Ragazze di Osaka". "I cieli del Nord", meanwhile, is a new recording of "Le Scogliere di Dover", previously released on the Japanese compilation "Kusamakura" in 1988.

These are original, precious songs, rooted in the Italian poetic tradition, yet with a universal breadth almost entirely unprecedented in homegrown productions. It's no surprise, then, that the album closes with a duet (in English) between Alice and his majesty Peter Hammill ("Now And Forever").

Continuing down the path of musical and literary exploration outside the usual conventions, Alice arrives at Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi (1992). A title borrowed from a painting by Segantini, revealing of Alice's passion for the mountains, the ideal antidote to "urban neurosis" and an ascetic refuge for continuing her spiritual journey "beyond appearance". "We're always drawn to外ward appearances, to showy things, like flowers, but the secret of life is in the leaves", she would say while presenting the record.

Mysticism thus renews itself, despite Camisasca's absence, this time drawing more overtly on Zen philosophy ("Tim", "Madre notte") and on Japanese culture in general (a haiku by the poet Natsume Soseki opens "Luce della sera").

But there's also room for references to Hesse, Handke, Herzog, for a traditional Transylvanian song in Old Hungarian ("In viaggio sul tuo viso"), and for a tribute to Pier Paolo Pasolini on "La recessione", where an excerpt from "La meglio gioventù" is set to music by Mino Di Martino.

The richness of the literary sources is matched by that of the sonic palette: from Tim Buckley, whose "Blue Melody" is reread in a jazzy key, to the electronic pop of Roxy Music, from ambient music to blues and jazz territories almost completely unexplored in her previous work. What remains solid is the rapport with Paolo Fresu, Dave Gregory and Richard Barbieri, joined here by guitarist Jakko Jakszyk.

Overall, though, it's a more hermetic and less focused record than its predecessor, even if still rich in sound and in the performances of its protagonists. More than songs, these are open structures, peculiar constructions. Like "In viaggio sul tuo viso", with its trumpet intro (Fresu), the acoustic guitar caresses and the vigorous rhythm section backing the vocals; "Passano gli anni", a delicate weave of flutes, guitars and voice; and the variations on the theme of "Neve d'aprile", paced by Gavin Harrison's drumming. "Rain Town", written with Barbieri (like the ethereal "Luce della sera"), evokes drizzly autumn atmospheres, while "Lungo ritorno a casa", with Fresu again in the spotlight, is perhaps the most evocative ballad of all.

A long European tour follows, alongside many of the international collaborators who now accompany her as regulars. But the days of chart-topping hits are long gone: Alice has found a balance that lets her produce quality music while retaining a solid following, without being swept up by show-business. In May 1994 she takes part in a series of concerts with the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra for the project (never released) Art & Decoration, featuring music by Fauré, Ravel, Ives, Montsalvage and others.

Sacred and Sanremo

Having left EMI (guilty of releasing a remix of "Chanson Egocentrique" without her approval), Alice signs with WEA, for whom she records the new album Charade (1995). "A reflection on life, which is a puzzle, an enigma, a mystery," is how Alice describes it; for the occasion she bulks up her cast of collaborators with Trey Gunn (King Crimson), Steward Gordon and the California Guitar Trio. The result is a sunnier, more vital record, with personal, introspective lyrics, essential melodies and, as ever, meticulously crafted sounds. The rhythmic sections grow denser, with frequent use of drum machines and near-dance pulses, but the airy ethno-ambient passages and delicately acoustic textures of strings and guitars remain too. This time, though, the songwriting is less inspired, and some tracks suffer for it.

Standing out above all are "L'apparenza", with its driving rhythm and evocative flute parts, "Dammi la mano amore", another superb vocal performance, and sophisticated ballads like "Sotto lo stesso cielo", with its ambient coda, and "Nel resto del tempo", once again on the theme of loneliness in big cities. Also worth noting is the title track, written by Mino Di Martino (ex-Giganti), a parable on the illusion of dreams, with a light, airy refrain.

A transitional record, ultimately, that tries to open new horizons for a sound that had already given its best in previous works.

Increasingly isolated in her home in the Friuli countryside, far from the spotlight of the music business, Alice has nonetheless earned a prestigious role on the Italian scene and considerable fame across Europe. The risk of this phase, though, is that she might get trapped in the cliché of the "erudite singer-songwriter" without managing to turn out any more songs capable of sustaining that reputation. Decline, in short, is lurking around the corner, though more than adequately disguised by collaborations and live performances. So in 1996 comes another major European tour, alongside Robby Aceto, Ben Coleman, Mick Karn and Steve Jansen.

That same year Alice takes part as performer and co-writer on Trey Gunn's album "The Third Star", co-writing the title track.

1997 is another year of collaborations, with Francesco Messina and others on the Devogue project, and on the Bluvertigo album "Metallo non metallo" ("Troppe emozioni").

That same year sees the release of Alice Sings Battiato, which brings together all the "Gioielli Rubati" alongside other songs written with the Sicilian artist over the previous decade.

But the quality of her music is by now in sharp decline. And it's not rescued by the new duet, this time decidedly more in step with current trends, pairing her with Skye of Morcheeba on "Open Your Eyes", once again bearing the illustrious signatures of Camisasca and Hammill. This sinuous, electronically tinged pop that fills the grooves of Exit (1998) is a faded copy of the formula launched with Park Hotel onward, and it ends up in a no-man's-land: neither light enough to hook the mainstream audience (despite the heavy rotation of the "Open Your Eyes" video) nor refined enough to tickle more demanding ears.

Marked by a clear romantic and melodic streak, tracks like the title track or "Dimmi di sì" don't add much to a songbook that by now is also starting to feel a bit predictable lyrically (the usual themes of appearances, the search for individual harmony, symbiosis with nature, a yearning for immensity). More than the presence of Morgan ("L'immagine"), it's Vincenzo Zitello's magnificent Celtic harp ("Isole") that elevates the record.

Right after comes the project God Is My Dj, a path through which the Alice-Francesco Messina duo (by now consolidated for years, both in life and in artistic work) seeks "the sacred in music", including through concerts held in churches. The self-titled album gathers 15 pieces that range effortlessly from Gavin Bryars (the famous psalm "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet", which he recorded in 1973 in Hyde Park, London, sung by a homeless man) to Florian Fricke's (Popol Vuh) "Kyrie", from Arvo Pärt's "Für Alina" to an anonymous eleventh-century piece, passing through Battiato's "Oceano di silenzio" and "L'ombra della luce", the ancestral spirituality of Eleni Karaindrou ("Refugee's Theme"), the eden of Jane Siberry ("Calling All Angels") and the vintage existential doubts of David Crosby ("Where Will I Be?").

Just to convince the record label to release the album, Alice agrees to return to Sanremo (in 2000, with another song by Juri Camisasca, "Il giorno dell'indipendenza", which however passes almost unnoticed) and to put together a compilation, Personal Juke Box, featuring rearranged classics alongside more recent recordings and three unreleased tracks.

A compromise for the singer-songwriter from Forlì, who is more committed than ever, meanwhile, to a series of covers, with the aim of drawing attention back to the importance of poetry in music. The idea takes shape in the live project "Le parole del giorno prima", with a program ranging from Shakespeare to Pasolini, by way of Léo Ferré and many Italian singer-songwriters. The album that follows, released on the independent label Nun, is Viaggio in Italy (2003): a tribute to giants of Italian songwriting such as Ivano Fossati (who writes "La bellezza stravagante" for her), Fabrizio De André, Francesco De Gregori, Francesco Guccini, Giorgio Gaber and the Battisti of the Panella era. "Come un sigillo", already recorded in 2002 for Battiato's "Fleurs 3", celebrates her reunion with her old mentor, twenty years on from "I treni di Tozeur".

In 2004 Alice performs the song "Sospesa", taking part alongside Morgan and other artists in the Zerouno project, with artistic production by Luca Urbani.

Between 2006 and 2007 she holds a series of concerts with the new project Lungo la strada, centered on themes such as love, war, poetry, the search for self, and faith. In 2009 "Lungo la strada" also becomes the first live album by the singer-songwriter from Forlì: recorded at the Basilica di San Marco in Milan, it features both classics from her repertoire (such as "Nomadi" and "Prospettiva Nevskij") and more surprising selections. For the first time Alice presents her own personal version of Franco Battiato's "La cura", pays tribute to her friend and colleague Giuni Russo by performing "A cchiù bella" (the Palermo-born singer, who died in 2004, set this poem by Totò to music together with Maria Antonietta Sisini for the work "Napoli che canta"), and offers her audience another gem, a cover of "Happiness" by the Blue Nile.

EMI has put out a long series of reissues and compilations, confirming a quality that doesn't fade with time. The most thorough and interesting retrospective is undoubtedly The Platinum Collection, compiled in 2011 with the involvement of Alice herself, who personally chose every track. Here you can hear the key songs of an entire career, starting with "La festa mia" (recorded as Carla Bissi), "Io voglio vivere" and "Un'isola" (recorded as Alice Visconti). Among the fifty-four songs in the box set, standouts include the duets with Franco Battiato ("I treni di Tozeur" in its original version and "Chanson Egocentrique"), Morgan (the reinterpretation of Lucio Battisti and Pasquale Panella's "Ecco i negozi"), Peter Hammill and Stefan Waggershausen ("Zu Nah Am Feuer" had never before been included in anthologies made for the Italian market). Another inclusion that makes this triple box set appealing to newcomers and longtime fans alike is a previously unreleased solo version of "Open Your Eyes".

Fragile yet stubborn, fascinating and elusive in her fraught relationship with the music world, Alice continues to explore her own Wonderland through the discovery of sounds and words. Few other Italian singer-songwriters can boast her track record. And her songbook, especially the one from the Eighties, remains one of the most original and refined bodies of work ever produced in this country.

Having apparently disappeared from the public eye, Alice returned in 2012 with a new album of original material, Samsara. A gently pop album that brushes up against the most noble — but also most overused — strand of homegrown singer-songwriter avant-garde. Twelve tracks plus a bonus track, yet aside from the splendid "Un mondo a parte" and "Autunno già", both penned by Di Martino, the remarkable "'a Cchiu bella" by Totò and Giuni Russo, and the surprising reinterpretation of "Al Mattino dei Califfi", it's hard to find any fully successful tracks. It doesn't help that Steve Jansen's production is exasperatingly polished, when not downright mannered, with sonics that already feel well past their sell-by date.

Tracks such as "Morire d'amore", inspired by the figure of Joan of Arc and again written by Di Martino – the only true winner of this album's gamble – "Sui giardini del mondo" by Alice herself and Marco Pancaldi, former Bluvertigo member, and the restless "Eri con me" by Battiato and Sgalambro, are of decent standing, but don't fully convince, due to lyrics that at times feel overwrought or to a studied melodic immediacy, particularly in the choruses.

"Il cielo", Lucio Dalla's famous song, may have been moving in its live versions, but here on record it simply doesn't work.

Alice moves confidently between the tracks, but it's only in the sparer versions that she manages to find the perfect fit, lightness and interpretive grace that maturity has given her. It's no coincidence that the songs mentioned as the most successful are exactly those that find their winning formula in the essentiality of the arrangements. In this sense, the remix of "Cambio casa" is truly embarrassing, attempting a dance makeover on lyrics that are anything but immediate, with disastrous results. The much-touted collaboration with Tiziano Ferro doesn't actually produce anything interesting, apart from the meeting of the two voices on "Nata ieri", the album's first single, which is really only notable for the vocal blend, and which one would hope might have a sequel with the kind of sweeping melodies Ferro has accustomed us to.

A wasted opportunity and a real disappointment, especially given that the previous Exit had been another equally questionable episode in a career we'd rather not see reduced to a glorious, if distant, past.

A Weekend of Surprises

Even with unconvincing results, though, the 2012 project was important because it laid the groundwork for a second life for the historic partnership with Battiato. And proof that it wasn't a flash in the pan came with Weekend (2014), a new self-produced album with Arecibo that had everything going for it to compete even in major-label territory. The appeal rests above all on a killer single that would have thrilled fans of the "Per Elisa" star even back in her years of overwhelming success. Credit goes to Francesco Messina, her lifelong collaborator, who was able to dig up a hidden gem from Françoise Hardy's mature period, "Tant de belles choses", dating from 2004. One of those timeless chansons that shines with an almost supernatural melodic grace: entrusting Battiato with adapting the lyrics into Italian and dressing it in new arrangements, with Paolo Fresu's trumpet taking center stage, proved to be the decisive moves in turning it into a new instant classic for Alice, whose proud, restless voice seems truly made for the song's melancholy folds.

But Battiato's contribution doesn't end there, since the tireless Sicilian bard also put his name to "Veleni", a shrewdly classy song that Fabio Fazio and co. apparently thought best to exclude from the latest Sanremo, in favor of the "masterpieces" we actually got to hear. What's more, Battiato returns to duet with Alice on the splendid "La realtà non esiste" by Claudio Rocchi, in a new version compared to the one already released on the album "Antony/Battiato". And it still sends shivers down the spine, just like back in the days of Tozeur.

More surprising – though only up to a point, if one recalls the earlier duet on "Farfallina" (included on "Fisico & politico", 2013) – is the collaboration with Luca Carboni, who lends his languid voice to "Da lontano", a more conventional ballad, with Fresu's trumpet stepping in to ward off any potential saccharine effect. The tribute to Rocchi is rounded out by the new version of "L'umana nostalgia", already shared by the Forlì-born singer together with the songwriter in his original 1994 version. But Alice doesn't forget her international calling, also digging up a gem by Blue Nile, "Christmas". And while it always makes the heart skip a beat to hear Alice retrace the "Viali di solitudine" from "Park Hotel", the new electro-pop of "Un po' d'aria" (written by Luca Urbani-Soerba) and the closing "Qualcuno pronuncia il mio nome", a polished ballad composed by Mino Di Martino, leave less of a mark.

Nothing revolutionary on the horizon, then, but certainly a stylish return, one that fully hits the mark the Romagna-born singer-songwriter had set for herself: showcasing the full range of her interpretive skills, bringing her voice back to centre stage. And who knows, perhaps it will also jog the memory of all those who have unfairly overlooked her in recent years.

After accompanying her friend Franco Battiato on stage during one of his final tours and paying tribute to him with a further series of dedicated live shows after his death in 2021, Alice returns to performing the Sicilian maestro's songs on a new album titled Eri con me (2022), a project born during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The songs, all written by Battiato, were selected with the help of Francesco Messina, the Sicilian composer's close friend, and recorded in the studio with Carlo Guaitoli (piano, direction) and the orchestra I Solisti Filarmonici Italiani. "These 16 songs are the result of work that began many years ago," Alice recounted. "Since the start of our collaboration I've always felt the pleasure of singing his songs, even bearing in mind my own limits and vocal abilities."

Contributions by Claudio Milano ("Samsara")

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