Baustelle - Restless adolescence in the chronic provinces

Between mysticism and ghosts: the Baustelle's compositional maturity

I mistici dell'Occidente (2010), produced by the Irish Pat McCarthy and, for the first time, by Bianconi himself, has a different kind of catchiness than in the past — at times unmistakably Anglo-Saxon — with arrangements increasingly geared toward internationalism and mass appeal. A solemn organ serves as a prelude to "L'indaco", a heartfelt incipit vaguely reminiscent of Pink Floyd; an ideal thematic introduction to "San Francesco", which bursts in with a distorted riff, followed by the inevitable string section. A troubadour-style guitar arpeggio, on the other hand, underpins the verses of the title track, drawn from a philosophical essay by Elémire Zolla. The rejection of reality as salvation from civil society — reduced, without mincing words, to a "bunch of assholes" — is the central theme of the grandly orchestrated chorus.

The bucolic atmosphere of "Le rane", a bitter reflection on the loss of innocence, is followed by the lead single "Gli spietati": an easy melody, ready to lodge in your head and stay there. The tragic ballad "Follonica", one of the album's finest moments, paints a picture of a decayed central-Italian landscape alongside the squalor of a love adrift. Past the halfway point of the LP, more predictable tracks emerge ("La canzone della rivoluzione") or ones lacking bite ("Groupies"). Bianconi's vocal tone openly draws on De André, whose forelock he stopped being the only thing he envied some time ago, and reaches peak intimacy in the lyrics of "Il sottoscritto". I mistici dell'Occidente marks another step in the trio from Montepulciano's increasingly complex path, both musically and lyrically.

In December 2011, following the resolution of certain contractual issues, the debut album Illustrated Primer of Youth, long out of print, is finally reissued. The reissue comes in two versions: one identical to the original, the other a deluxe edition in a lavishly produced special box set, complete with illustrations by Alessandro Baronciani. For the occasion, a successful celebratory tour is staged, built around the songs from "Sussidiario", and a new version of "Gomma" is released, with an accompanying video, which gets solid radio play.

Two years later it's the turn of the Baustelle's other long out-of-print record, La moda del lento, to return to shelves, thanks to a newly authorized pressing.

The second half of 2012 is devoted to writing and recording (partly in Montepulciano, partly in Poland) the band's new album, which in December is previewed by the single "La morte (non esiste più)". The hotly anticipated record, released on 29 January 2013, is titled Fantasma and stands as their most ambitious work yet. Bianconi's drive toward a pop perfection steeped in classicism reaches its peak here. It's an album structured like a film, complete with opening and closing credits, that can be read at once as its own imaginary soundtrack — deeply symphonic in scope, dense with esotericism, spectral sounds, and literary and cinematic references. Everything is soaked in that strain of the damned descended from Baudelaire and Edgar Lee Masters's "Spoon River Anthology", the perception of ghosts as mirrors reflecting our own selves, and the conclusion that often the most fearsome specters are ourselves. But it's not all dark cosmic pessimism — the themes only seem heavy on the surface: it takes just a little digging to see that what truly triumphs in these lyrics is hope, love, life. Even in "La morte (non esiste più)", the precious instant classic that preceded the album's release by a few weeks, the protagonist finds comfort in a pure, otherworldly vision of love, managing in this way to push back the fear of dying.

The album's incipit recalls the theme written by Ennio Morricone for "L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo," Dario Argento's 1970 film. Elsewhere the band draws on Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, and a wealth of 20th-century music and literature, conjuring baroque interludes thanks to the contribution of the Film Harmony Orchestra of Wroclaw, recorded directly in Poland, where it was a short step to resurrect the story of Olivier Messiaen. "Il finale" is a tribute to the ghost of the famous French composer: arrested during the Second World War and interned at the Gorlitz camp, he wrote a theme for trio that he was allowed to perform in 1941 in the prison yard, in forbidding weather conditions and with makeshift instruments. The trio from Montepulciano produces music of powerful emotional impact, feeding on ghostly images and turning the most disparate situations into poetic flights, as in the sudden apparitions of "Diorama," a story concerning very particular ghosts: instants fixed forever, moments permanently unchangeable, with Baustelle managing to illuminate, through splendid lyrics, things lost and now fossilized.

Milan's Cimitero Monumentale instead inspires "Monumentale," one of the album's most intense moments, where the icy and seemingly detached Rachele Bastreghi takes center stage: here it's the ghosts animating the silent tombs of a cemetery that suggest the story, mysterious interferences that inevitably connect us to the past. Ghosts can be hidden in our inner abyss ("Cristina," the most exuberant episode) or be depictions of ourselves in moments we lived through in the past (the touching "Il futuro," which tells all the disillusionment of someone living with the consequences of important choices). Worth noting is the careful work on the titles ("Nessun muore," "Primo principio di estinzione," "Secondo principio di estinzione"), focused on building the very solid fil rouge that ties the entire tracklist together. There's no shortage of references to the current political situation, expressed through a "non li voteremo più" sung in "L'estinzione della razza umana," or in a veiled hint at someone (Berlusconi?) handing out contracts at Rai in the lyrics of "Nessuno," plus jabs at a society that even today doesn't always accept diversity ("La natura").

And still more ghosts of tormented loved ones who will haunt us forever ("Contà l'inverni," in which Bianconi takes the opportunity to try his hand at Roman dialect), sudden rhythmic awakenings ("Maya colpisce ancora"), and closing reflections on the search for good within horror and for the eternal within age ("Radioattività"). The orchestral scores were written by Enrico Gabrielli, a musician who with Calibro 35 has for years been pursuing a philological approach to film music, in that case the poliziotteschi of the Seventies. The album was recorded for the most part in the halls of the Fortezza Medicea in Montepulciano and in other spots around the small town in the province of Siena, the band's hometown. A work that is deeply classical yet at the same time avant-garde, one that definitively establishes Baustelle as one of the most significant Italian bands of the new millennium.

Fantasma was an important, even "overbearing" album, a work that confirmed the depth and substance of Baustelle's songwriting, capable of producing a concept album with the kind of gravitas rarely seen anymore, one of those cornerstones destined to endure, dense with meaning and cross-references, in a way few artists today would know how to achieve.

That album was taken on tour for months up and down the country, backed by an entire orchestra conducted by none other than Enrico Gabrielli. During those shows, alongside the songs from Fantasma, the band reforged tracks pulled from earlier albums: some of these, having changed shape somewhat over the years, are precisely what form the backbone of the Montepulciano group's first live release.

From three shows held in the Italian capital between 2013 and 2014 in three different settings (Auditorium Parco della Musica, the former Mattatoio di Testaccio, Auditorium Conciliazione), with three different orchestral setups (symphony orchestra, horn section, string quartet), the setlist of Roma Live! was extracted and assembled, released in November 2015, which from Fantasma lets only "Nessuno" surface, deliberately leaving room for the rest of the discography. Fourteen tracks in all, favoring the older material (even from I mistici dell'occidente just one song), which on one hand has the merit of letting us savor a different side of Baustelle, but on the other doesn't always manage to assert itself as the best possible selection.

Two covers are included: "Signora ricca di una certa età" and "Col tempo," both well grafted onto the context of the "Fantasma" live show, a concept centered on the inexorable passing of time. The first is a transposition of "A Lady Of A Certain Age" by Divine Comedy, the second is the Italian-language version of Léo Ferré's "Avec le temps," previously performed by Patty Pravo. It opens with "La guerra è finita," one of Baustelle's first real hits, but the album only truly takes flight around the midpoint of the setlist, with the pairing of "La canzone del parco" (ever intense, here benefiting from a successful anti-aging treatment) and "Le rane," with its fine instrumental tail where Claudio Brasini's guitar finally gets its due glory. Also particularly successful are "L'aeroplano," with Rachele Bastreghi's voice in fine form, and the inevitable closer "Charlie fa surf," their hit par excellence, here in splendid bare-bones form. For the rest, things coast along, between a forgettable "La moda del lento," an always tear-jerking "Alfredo," and an overworked "Il corvo Joe," which Bianconi never seems to be able to resist performing. Roma Live!, according to the Tuscan trio themselves, closes the first act of Baustelle's career, one rich in satisfaction and accolades: curtain down, for now.

Meanwhile, Rachele Bastreghi makes her solo debut a reality, following a television event: her appearance in an episode of the TV drama "Questo nostro amore 70," in which she played a French chanteuse named Marie, taking on "Mon petit ami du passé," a very Serge Gainsbourg-esque song, delivered with a vocal theatricality worthy of Milva in her golden years. And it's precisely in that measured balance between Italian singer-songwriter pop and chanson française that Marie holds together, released on Warner, the first solo chapter from the Baustelle frontwoman, for the first time without Francesco Bianconi's authorial trademark.

The voice that made every Italian teenager's heart flutter with "La canzone del parco" brings together six tracks plus one instrumental, also relying on a couple of well-done covers: "All'inferno assieme a te" is a 1970 song made famous by Patty Pravo, while "Cominciava così" is a 1969 track by Equipe 84, originally released as the B-side of the single "Tutta mia la città," and later included on the album "Casa mia" a couple of years afterward. But it's already the opener "Senza essere" (co-written with Baustelle guitarist Claudio Brasini) that sets the mood, with strings and piano as the great protagonists. Unsurprisingly, as already happened on "Fantasma," the devotion to Ennio Morricone's work soon makes itself felt, especially on "Folle tempesta," also rendered in an instrumental version at the end of the tracklist.

Marie is an elegant, never over-the-top album, where disillusionment over failed loves often takes center stage. It's a showing that gives Bastreghi full marks among the leading ladies of contemporary Italian song. Among the excellent musicians involved, at least worth mentioning are the presences of Mauro Pagani, Fabio Rondanini (drummer of Calibro 35) and Sergio Carnevale of Bluvertigo. Produced by Giovanni Ferrario.

A pop explosion

The next chapter bearing the Baustelle name kicks off on October 21, 2016, when "Lili Marlene" is released, a track given away online to fans, which won't be included on the new album L'amore e la violenza, released on January 13, 2017. In the few interviews that preceded its release, Francesco Bianconi described the legacy of "Fantasma" as "overbearing," which triggered the vital need for a "return to origins," a sudden change of course to bring their sound back to the freshness and rhythm of their early days. The first association that comes to mind when listening to the lead single, "Amanda Lear," is with the playful, synthetic sounds of "La moda del lento," an approach light years away from the symphonic, operatic ambition reached with "Fantasma," a firm swerve toward more "adolescent" songwriting, yes, but one that has no intention of giving up the "highbrow," cultured, refined poetics typical of Bianconi's songwriting, now intent on alternating grim topical themes (the idiocy of our times) with vivid snapshots that capture everyday life for all of us, lining up jihadists and swingers, terror attacks and discos, teetering governments and addictions, wars and sex, violence and love. For these reasons L'amore e la violenza (ten tracks plus two brief instrumental interludes, "Love" and "Continental Stomp") is a disorienting album, because for the first time Baustelle aren't trying to raise the bar toward unexplored shores, but instead choose to go back over territory already skillfully covered in the past, maintaining their obsessive pursuit of the "perfect song," but risking turning off those fans who in the meantime have grown up alongside them and might no longer recognize themselves in certain structures that once again turn "youthful."

The reference points remain more or less the same as in the past, the ones where Baustelle remain top of the class: plenty of Battiato in the chorus of "Il Vangelo di Giovanni" (confirming the usual mystical-religious references), the school of the finest French chansonniers in "Lepidoptera" and "Ragazzina," the choruses that give lift to "La vita" and the moving "Betty," the irresistible synth-pop of "Amanda Lear" and "L'era dell'acquario," the sensual, old-fashioned vocal delivery of Rachele Bastreghi on "La musica sinfonica" and "Eurofestival" (with only the ending by Claudio Brasini), the never-dormant childhood memories resurrected in the "Sandokan" theme sampled in "Basso e batteria," complete with Daft Punk-style vocoder à la Daft Punk. L'amore e la violenza is a "sticky" album (they themselves have amusingly called it "obscenely pop"), and one imagines they had a ball writing and playing it; it revives the great mystery of Baustelle's winning formula: how is it that you find yourself inexorably humming them in the shower even if you usually don't care for "easy listening" and overly facile choruses? Baustellismo has spawned imitators, but only the originals manage to balance commitment and frivolity so well, and even if this time they don't objectively pull any particular strokes of genius out of the hat, they hit the mark through a process of simplifying structures, trimming away anything superfluous to aim straight for catchiness, crafting what we might call a "weighty lightness." In the Eighties (and why not, the Sixties) L'amore e la violenza would have been a greatest-hits collection; today it's a work that strongly confirms Francesco Bianconi's determination to renew the great tradition of Italian singer-songwriting, much to the dismay of its many detractors.

The colorful tour that follows confirms the enormous popularity the band has by now achieved, further certified by the publication of the authorized biography L'amore e la violenza: una biografia dei Baustelle written by Federico Guglielmi, director and offscreen voice of a work in which the story is told by its direct protagonists: besides the official members of the Montepulciano outfit, musicians and industry figures who have been close to the band also take part, twenty-four people in all who in various capacities contributed significantly to the group's artistic journey.

But it's not long before a new piece is added to the puzzle: 2018 brings the release of L'amore e la violenza Vol. 2. Even as Baustelle describe their own work as "obscenely pop" or made up of "twelve new easy pieces," even when the musical wrapping around Francesco Bianconi's lyrics veers toward lightheartedness, even when the trio lets itself be swept up by an unprecedented compositional urgency, their projects remain loaded with references, dense with citations, only seemingly simple to decode. The flight from the monstrous solemnity of an album as demanding and imposing as "Fantasma" could not be exhausted within the span of a single album: the Eighties-rooted pop sparkle of "L'amore e la violenza" quickly finds, as never before, within the space of barely a year, a brilliant continuation in Volume Two. The idea of a double album seems to have been brewing for a while, since already during last year's tour the Montepulciano band unveiled a new composition announced under the title "Veronica, n. 2," a track that makes immediacy its stylistic signature, one that feels like early Baustelle right down to the bone, even more so than "Caraibi" — dating back to the days of "Sussidiario" — which finally finds a home on this very album. "Veronica" is the bridge song, the one tasked with guiding and introducing us into this new chapter, an album about love and absence, about loves left broken, which evolve into separations, then turn into melancholy and regret, eventually leading the protagonists to the intention of starting over, repenting for breakups caused or suffered. Even when Rachele Bastreghi masterfully sings "A proposito di lei" (round of applause), one of this album's many potential "classics," she does so with the unwitting intention of salvaging a relationship, to the point of exhaustion, even where the odds reasonably look like zero, because he is too caught up with someone else (but how many men can write a woman's point of view as well as Bianconi?). All this happens in a track with a jaunty gait, yes, because over the mournful, at times bitter lyrics that characterize Volume 2 of "L'amore e la violenza," the lights come on both for the most hummable pop ("Jesse James e Billy Kid") and for the "alt-rock" urgency of "Tazebao" or the glorious chorus of "Lei malgrado te" (applause again, even louder this time). The musical coloring seeks out the light that the lyrics deny, in a stylistic game that pairs the synth-pop of the previous volume with ideas that reach unexpected destinations, see the rap insert on the cathartic "Perdere Giovanna" or the Gilmour-esque guitar closing out the more structured "Il minotauro di Borges."

The guitar is the returning protagonist, ready to reclaim center stage with real composure, alongside the walls of synth manned by the band, and it's clear right away, over the almost five minutes of the opening instrumental, "Violenza", where echoes of Morricone, Carpenter and Simonetti are enriched by the electricity of Claudio Brasini's amplifiers. Instrumentals that this time don't play the role of brief filler, but rather aspire to be recognized as "real" songs, as confirmed further on by the aching, almost glacial "La musica elettronica". Baustelle had never taken so little time to make a record, perfectionists and sticklers that they are, a sign of just how much Volume 1 had failed to contain the band's overflowing inspiration: there was more to say, more to let us hear, and only now can the project satisfy its need for total completeness. The shorter time available to polish everything - not that one could ever speak of a punk attitude with Baustelle, let's be clear - hasn't in any case undermined the care the band has always put into every single detail, both lyrical and musical. The lyrical side is never secondary: it's on that front that Bianconi lays his cards on the table to aspire to the role of modern chansonnier, to qualify as one of the musicians of our era who deserves to be handed down to posterity. Narrating the noble sentiment of love - but in his own, decidedly "alternative" way - in a new "concept" free from the most obvious rhymes and overused subject matter, he builds microcosms with a disturbing, subtly perverse allure, as happens in the case of "L'amore è negativo", where a relationship falling apart is compared to a world without peace (nothing new for him: remember the love-as-landfill parallel in "Follonica"?) - cue thunderous applause once again. Bianconi is diabolical: he has engineered a perfect mechanism in which everything aspires to be iconic (just think of the album covers, or Rachele's role), refining over time a style that has become a "classic", utterly recognizable, even when Bianconi is writing for other artists. More than being out of time, Baustelle's songs are timeless, traveling wrapped in a space-time cloud that fuses Pulp with the Italian melodic tradition, 70s harmonies with contemporary electronic music, along with the many mystical references that have always enriched them. In the second and final chapter of "L'amore e la violenza", fans will find a new handful of swooning songs to hold close to their hearts, the very same songs that will fuel the widespread skepticism of the many unconvertible detractors.

Solo Work

After the synth-pop binge of the last two records, in 2020 Francesco Bianconi made the predictable decision to test himself on his own. In mid-October he released Forever, a deeply introspective, essential, solemn, cultured work, steeped in spirituality, romanticism and death, crafted to have a classic, timeless sound, with a dramatic architecture and a shadowy mood. A pure record with a well-defined personality, recorded betting everything on the "artistic" side, showing itself thoroughly reluctant to include any kind of "commercial" impulse. Ten tracks completely stripped of drums, which might have softened or lifted certain passages, with no bassline at all, the rhythm entrusted solely to the string movements of the Balanescu Quartet or to the sublime piano lines drawn by Michele Fedrigotti and Thomas Bartlett. An album made with the valuable contribution of Enrico Gabrielli but without Claudio Brasini's familiar guitars and even without the iconic voice of Rachele Bastreghi.

A bold project, enriched by the presence of major guests whom Francesco knows well, admires, and can now afford to invite. Guests who give "Forever" an international edge: Rufus Wainwright on "Andante", Kazu Makino on "Go!", Eleanor Friedberger on "The Strength", Moroccan singer and actress Hindi Zahra on the mantra-like "Fàika Llìl Wnhàr" all lend a welcome break from the overall tone, offering plenty to be interested in. But the core of the album, produced by Amedeo Pace of Blonde Redhead and recorded at Real World Studios in Bath, remains in the tracks Francesco sings alone. First and foremost the opening two, "Il bene", which strongly recalls "Nessuno", with piano and violin building toward emotional apotheoses, and "L'abisso", the true masterstroke, with an orchestral swell powerful enough to bring you to tears. But the mission is accomplished too in the Californian dreams recounted in "Zuma Beach" and in the half-hearted crusade against the record industry launched over the course of "Certi uomini".

As usual, Bianconi makes lofty and vulgar references coexist: Schopenhauer and the Pixies, Babadook and Leviathan, Casanova and Joan of Arc, psychiatric drugs and doctrines, blood and pussy, expressing himself (a trait that's anything but common in Italy) in a multiform, polyglot language, mixing Italian, English and Arabic. The lyrics are laid over modern classical orchestrations, composed with a truly rare sensitivity, which swell to give maximum force to the endings and to those glorious choruses that have always been the unmistakable trademark of the entire Baustelle-esque catalogue. The very same choruses that many have tried to replicate without ever even coming close. The end credits of this new imaginary film are entrusted to the instrumental title track, unmistakably Felliniesque in character. After all, film scores have always been an obsession for the Tuscan musician.

Even allowing for a few naive moments and some excess verbosity (in a couple of cases, trying to say too much, he gets tangled up in the meter - an effect surely intentional, since we're talking about a perfectionist craftsman, but not entirely successful), Forever is the missing piece needed to unanimously and definitively acknowledge Bianconi's high artistic worth, something he has always pursued, and in some way even claimed for himself, albeit with polite discretion. Among the few of his generation destined to endure, to leave an indelible mark, he shows once again that he can move with ease across completely different compositional registers, alternating "shamelessly pop" works with others built on complex, sophisticated orchestrations. A rare gift, one that places him among the finest Italian singer-songwriters of all time, alongside De André, Fossati, Tenco, Battiato and very few others. The very same artists he has, by his own admission, always drawn inspiration from.

Just one year goes by, concerts halted, banned by decree, and in April 2021 comes Rachele's second solo effort: Psychodonna. Snapshots caught during moments of reflection, frames portraying a domestic everyday life - that's how "Poi mi tiro su" opens, a track with a compelling crescendo that kicks off the record, arriving five years after "Marie". Even if concealed behind her well-known mix of melancholy and shyness, Bastreghi once again proves sensual and transgressive, revealing a decisive influence on the architecture of her main band: Rachele is the playful, rhythmic, unhinged soul of Baustelle, and Psychodonna has the power to substantially change how many people perceive her actual role within the songwriting process of the band from Montepulciano. In these new songs Bastreghi takes us by the hand and leads us into a colorful nightclub, where the themes that win out are diversity, freedom of expression, inclusion, and the need for love.

Killer Baustelle-ism shows up loud and clear in tracks like "Lei" and, even more so, in the warm embrace of "Come Harry Stanton", but what really defines the whole record is above all the inserts of powerful electronics, strategically placed to create little plot twists within individual songs. Tracks that express not just brilliant synth-pop (as in "Penelope") but even a spirit of exploration, pushed all the way to the edges of avant-garde territory in episodes like the retro-futuristic "Not For Me". There's also a notable cover, "Fatelo con me", a song written by Ivano Fossati in 1978 for the early punk-era Anna Oxa. Actress Silvia Calderoni guests on "Penelope", Meg and Chiara Mastroianni on "Due ragazze a Roma", plus the collages of female voices assembled on the title track and in the intro of closer "Resistenze". There are many women in Psychodonna, and Rachele gives them all the vocal parts. Then there are also plenty of male friends, tasked with contributing on their instruments: Roberto Dell'Era, Colapesce, Fabio Rondanini and Marco Carusino, quite a lineup, plus Mario Conte at the helm, arranging and producing everything.

It's a meaningful date that Francesco Bianconi's management chose to release Accade as a surprise: January 28th, four days before the 2022 edition of the Sanremo Festival, a musical showcase perfectly suited to his songwriting. We could read it as a kind of challenge, a way of showing that the best Italian singing talent is out here, not within the walls of the Teatro Ariston. An album with no advance notice - as we said - released right before already-announced new label commitments, and just over a year after "Forever", followed by the deluxe appendix "Forever In Technicolor": a creative bulimia that makes clear just how far his work outside Baustelle is from being a casual whim. A shame, because despite the excellent craftsmanship of their respective solo output and the many genuinely inspired moments, Bianconi and Rachele Bastreghi, when they record under the same roof, turn out to be far greater than the sum of what they can produce apart. Accade only reinforces this feeling: take, for example, "I capolavori di Beethoven", revived from the catalogue of Mario Venuti (who recorded it together with Franco Battiato), and tell me if you haven't already heard all this before, but with far greater emotional depth, on the monumental "Fantasma". A cover, like the rest of the "Accade" tracklist, on which Bianconi also quietly lets in three songs he had "gifted" in the past to Irene Grandi, who turned "La cometa di Halley" and "Bruci la città" into major hits, and Paola Turci, who performed a much more rhythmic version of "Io sono".

Francesco's reworkings are stripped of everything: no guitar, no drums, zero beat, for a record of refined, auteur chamber-pop centered on voice, piano and orchestra. A compact work, an intimate Bianconi, skilled at picking songs to immerse himself in to the point of making them his own. At times he wears them by imitating the vocal lines of the originals, as happens with his revisiting of "L'odore delle rose" by Diaframma, written by Federico Fiumani. Or he steps into a female point of view, as in "Domani è un altro giorno", made a hit by Ornella Vanoni in 1971, itself an Italian adaptation of "The Wonders You Perform", written the previous year by Jerry Chesnut for Tammy Wynette. Other respectful tributes are aimed at Francesco Guccini ("Ti ricordi quei giorni") and the duo of Ennio Morricone and Luciano Salce, who crafted "Quello che conta" for Luigi Tenco in 1962. There are two guests: Baby K on the already-released "Playa", and his friend Lucio Corsi, who lends momentum to the opening verses of "Michel" by Claudio Lolli. Cultured singer-songwriter fare, dense with stories and meaning, free from the banalities of too much trap and it-pop, a "bare" work held together by a Bianconi who is realizing his original dream of being considered the De André of Generation X (or Z, if we're talking digital natives). Perhaps his "citation at all costs" approach is starting to show a bit of wear, but credit must go to Francesco for being one of the very few musicians of his era to have given rise to a subgenre with a life of its own: Baustelle-ism. Many bands have tried to follow in his wake over the years, almost always fading away before their time; Francesco is still there, now mature enough to secure himself a place among the all-time greats.

The Comeback

2023 opens with "Sali (canto dell'anma)", a song performed by Anna Oxa at the Sanremo Festival, with less-than-stellar results. Among the song's writers is Francesco Bianconi, once again writing for a female performer, by now a constant in his career. At the same edition of the Festival, Baustelle take part in the duets night, pairing up with Coma Cose, performing their own version of "Sarà perché ti amo" by Ricchi e Poveri.

A few days earlier, right at the start of the year, Baustelle had released "Contro il mondo", the single previewing their new album, titled Elvis, slated for release in April. For the making of Elvis, the Montepulciano trio arrives having completely replaced the lineup of their backing band: in place of the seasoned musicians who had been accompanying them for years, in come Lorenzo Fornabaio (guitars), Milo Scaglioni (bass), Alberto Bazzoli (keyboards), Giulia "Julie Ant" Formica (drums), plus the horns of Pietro Lupo Selvini, Giovanni Sgorbati and Alessandro Marzetti.

The new lineup gives the sound a decidedly more "rock" edge, so much so that it's easy to call Elvis the most guitar-heavy record in Baustelle's history. After all, by choosing a title like this, the band itself opts to label its own work as rock'n'roll oriented. Take a track like "Betabloccanti Cimiteriali Blues" and you'll be amazed to hear a genuinely renewed sound: a driving blues song, with horns and guitar chasing each other through the closing solo. An album - though we're still talking pure pop here, let's be clear - that arrives with great timing amid the current sixties/seventies revival, which is having its moment not just in music but also in fashion and film (anyone say "Daisy Jones & The Six"?). Zero electronics, everything played like a real rock band, something Baustelle hadn't done since the days of "Amen".

"Amen" indeed stands out as the clearest point of reference: "Contro il mondo" is the new "Charlie fa surf", "Los Angeles" somehow recalls "Colombo", though this time the track that will really prick up every fan's ears is "La nostra vita", built on one of those killer choruses that have helped shape a widely-imitated style known as "Baustelle-ism". Elvis also contains a fresh tribute to Milan, the city that adopted them, always so present in their songs, which this time becomes the "metaphor for love". In the writing of Elvis there's room for themes that recur again and again in Bianconi's poetics, such as youth, war, diversity and mysticism - the latter present in nearly all the lyrics and in a couple of instrumental passages, from the "Christmas-like" hint that opens "Andiamo ai rave" to the second half of "Il regno dei cieli". Far removed both from the orchestrations of "Fantasma" and from the synth-pop of their more recent work, Elvis stands as a transitional work pointing the way toward a new chapter in Baustelle's story, a band always determined never to stand still.

On the adrenaline-fueled wave of the tour supporting "Elvis" came the songs that make up El Galactico, released in early April 2025, which confirm a confident rock-oriented push, this time aimed at late-sixties-rooted sounds, somewhere between Rickenbacker guitars and jangle-pop constructions, dreaming of California, in particular the beaches around Venice Beach. Elements absorbed from the Byrds and the Beach Boys can be heard in tracks like "Giulia come stai" (the vocal opening recalls "Antropophagus") and even more so in "Pesaro", which, placed at the start, immediately sets the tone for the album, a snapshot that captures Bianconi on the seafront of the Marche town, just after learning of his father's death, which came suddenly a few months earlier. The record's "sunny" surface is not meant, then, to hide content that in many cases is anything but cheerful: emblematic in this sense is "Filosofia di Moana", in which, over a brightly colored musical texture, lies a lyric that lucidly narrates the final days of the famous porn star, by then confined to a hospital bed, pairing cynical realism with subtle irony. Even more moving is the story behind "Una storia" (the album's true instant classic), which renews the series of narratives centered on a wretched adolescence, a series that was already inaugurated at the band's debut by "La canzone del riformatorio". Francesco Bianconi coldly sketches (from the girl's point of view: hardly an easy task...) an episode of violence that plays out in the back seat of a car: it doesn't end in femicide but in a video recording that will end up online, a story of shame, of resignation, a story that hurts, like so many that fill the evening news every day. So the typical subjects of Baustelle's poetics return: death, violence, decay, as well as religion, mysticism, escapism, approached as always from unconventional angles, freeze-frames pulled from the screenplay of an imaginary film, a terribly raw film-as-truth.

The sound of El Galactico comes across dense and layered, a well-produced and well-structured work, with excellent organization of space and guitar work that's perfect for giving killer choruses their punch ("Spogliami" and "L'arte di lasciar andare" are among the most effective), another constant in the songwriting of the band from Montepulciano, even if this time their lyrical excess makes for songs that are less easy to memorize. The album's closing stretch is surprising, with the muted orchestration of "La nebbia" and the instrumental "Non è una fine", which has a very exotica feel, recalling the atmospheres of "La moda del lento". The other wordless track, "Per sempre", draws on an Ennio Morricone-like sensibility. Having reached the milestone of their tenth studio album (not counting the soundtrack to "Giulia non esce la sera"), it's only natural to take stock of the band's first 25 years. Francesco Bianconi continues to refuse the reassurances of much contemporary pop (he tells us as much in "L'imitazione dell'amore"), seeking instead to spark reflection, even on political and ecological themes (as happens in "Canzone verde, amore tossico"), delivered within lean compositions with an accessible sound. Bianconi hasn't managed to reach the most ambitious goals he set himself: he hasn't (yet) become the new De André, he hasn't (yet) become the new Gainsbourg, and he could have — the groundwork was more than solid. Up through "Fantasma" he won every round, then he started finding it harder to widen his fanbase, and chose to embrace a more (apparently) "lighter" mode, while keeping hold of an enthusiastic audience that follows Baustelle with boundless affection. Rachele Bastreghi and Claudio Brasini remain central to the band's musical balance, while Bianconi splits his songwriting between his own solo albums (into which he's been funneling his less effervescent compositions) and writing for others, strictly for female voices. The most recent case is "Ho provato tutto", written for Patty Pravo, lyrics so autobiographical that not even the singer herself could ever have written them. All to keep paving, with pride, his path as a "modern chansonnier".

Contributions by Veronica Rosi (in the first part, up to "Amen") and Michele Palozzo ("I mistici dell'Occidente")

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