Ivano Fossati - Me, Mina and the mystery of songs

A reserved, proud and restless spirit, Ivano Fossati has moved through the history of Italian song like a traveller perpetually in search of new routes and paths to follow. "Come posso dire come passa il tempo/ come posso dire come passa lento", he sang in 1990 on one of his key albums, Discanto. An endless span of time on which the Genoese singer-songwriter built a special bond between words and sound, never losing sight of the social and political vein that has always inspired the noble fathers of Italian singer-songwriting.

Genoa, a city steeped in history and melancholy, has always been one of the strongholds of Italian song: from Gino Paoli to Luigi Tenco, from Umberto Bindi to Fabrizio De André, from Bruno Lauzi to Paolo Conte (born in Asti, but Genoese by adoption). Ivano Fossati was born here (on September 21, 1951), in the port area, close to the sea, and his songs bear the imprint of both the old and new Genoese musical tradition. His passion for music was cultivated from childhood: at eight he began studying piano, and soon learned to play guitar, flute and percussion too. He quickly became a true multi-instrumentalist, a trait that would make him one of the most complete musicians on the entire Italian scene.

A Prog Delirium

He wasn't even sixteen when he decided to leave school to devote himself entirely to music. Money, however, was scarce: a classical guitar and an old flute were the only instruments he had. But imagination overcame every obstacle. Old washing machines and any other makeshift device that let him amplify rhythms became Fossati's tools of the trade, and it wasn't long before he turned his classical guitar into an electric one.

Fossati wrote the lyrics, composed the music and sang in small venues around the port.

His earliest experiments were all rooted in progressive rock, a genre he would later drift away from. Though his admiration for Bruno Lauzi and for jazz and South American rhythms left an indelible mark on him from the very start.

It's the early Seventies, and Fossati founds Delirium, a small experimental group. Successful songs follow, like "Jesahel" (even performed at Sanremo, complete with a mystical-hippie look) and "Favola o storia del lago di Kriss" (from Dolce Acqua, 1972), two evocative ballads telling of enchanted places and timeless legends, set to the progressive sounds fashionable at the time: flutes, synthesizers, symphonic arrangements. In Italy, this style would be championed by bands like Le Orme, Demetrio Stratos's Area, Banco and Pfm.

His constant transformations, tied to his restless nature, are also the epitome of the many-sided sensibility of the contemporary musician, called upon to untangle the skein of different, seemingly conflicting sounds, blending them into an unmistakable whole.

"Not easy at all," he sang in "La musica che gira intorno," a line that sums up Fossati's verses. Verses that probe and scrutinize, often through the lens of friendship ("I naviganti," 1993, "La volpe," 1988), but also through work ("Terra dove andare," 1988) or the fear of living through "a reckless age" ("Una notte in Italy," 1986).

Stubborn and restless, he would always go his own way. Never intimidated by success — if anything, he seemed almost to seek out collisions with it. As in 1979, when "La mia banda suona il rock" hit the charts and became a tune everyone whistled. He disowned it, let it die there, and almost never played it live again.

Having thus bid farewell to Delirium, Fossati embarked on a solo career that would see him juggle his own compositions with a treasure trove of songs gifted to other performers: Mina, Patty Pravo, Fiorella Mannoia, Loredana Berté, Mia Martini, Ornella Vanoni, Alice. Not to mention collaborations with esteemed colleagues such as Francesco De Gregori and Fabrizio De André.

The Great Crossing

Fossati's solo debut was a 45rpm single, "Beati i ricchi," the theme song of Salvatore Samperi's film of the same name starring Paolo Villaggio. Fossati sang over music by Louis Bacalov, backed by the Godfathers, one of the many British R&B outfits of the era.

His full-length debut, however, came a year later with Il grande mare che avremmo attraversato (1973), whose title already reads like a kind of "statement of intent" for the artistic path he would go on to follow. The journey — an ever-present theme in Fossati's songbook — is the leitmotif of an album that, despite its unevenness, already reveals a vivid creative gift. The title track, split into two parts that open and close the album, stands out for its already complex themes, its veiled pessimism, and the orchestral coda that adorns its second half.

Literary references already abound (a telling one to Edgar Allan Poe in "Il pozzo e il pendolo"), as do verses devoted to the sea (the single "Vento caldo"), another cornerstone of the whole record. The instrumental "Jangada," "Canto nuovo" and "Da Recife a Fortaleza," meanwhile, already carry the first traces of that musical saudade that would often draw comparisons between Fossati and Brazil — especially its singer-songwriters, from Chico Buarque to Carlos Jobim. An elective affinity here spurred on too by the presence of his friend and collaborator Oscar Prudente. Backing the duo was a handful of top-tier musicians orbiting Lucio Battisti's Numero Uno stable.

Produced, written and arranged by the Fossati-Prudente tandem, the following album, Poco prima dell'aurora, essentially confirms the formula, with a more conventional side A featuring the two ballads "Prendi fiato e poi vai" and "L'Africa" — where Prudente's hand is felt most strongly — and the choral "E' l'aurora," "Ehi amico" and "10 km dalla città," closer to Fossati's own style. Side B, on the other hand, takes more risks — save for the single "Libera amore" — with the experimental verve of "Tema del lupo," "Lo stregone" and "Gil" (voglia di terra), the latter an entirely instrumental piece performed by Fossati on flute.

Still undecided on which path to take, torn between classic pop songwriting and a distinctly 1970s avant-prog ambition, Fossati puts together Goodbye Indiana, an album he would later call "my worst album, with the worst lyrics I've ever written." Hard to disagree, running through the tracks of a flat, pretentious record where, in the end, the only real point of interest is "Harvest Moon", which not only anticipates by a few decades the title of a Neil Young album, but also delivers a striking duet performance with Marva Jan Marrow, another artist on Numero Uno's roster. The Spanish-tinged title track closes out (and not exactly in glory) the partnership with Prudente.

1977 is a year of rupture for Fossati too. Having landed at RCA and put in the hands of producer Antonio Coggio (formerly with Baglioni), the Genoese singer-songwriter takes a first step toward the "rock" evolution that would come into sharper focus in the following years. But the still-unripe La casa del serpente is remembered above all for "Anna di primavera", the first fruit of his collaboration with Mia Martini, one that would go on to yield so many gems for Italian song (Fossati had already written some of the tracks for "Per amarti", the Calabrian singer's debut LP). "Matto", meanwhile, would find greater fortune in the interpretation of a very young Anna Oxa, another singer who benefited from Fossati's pen, thanks above all to the splendid "Un'emozione da poco", with which she made her debut at the 1978 Sanremo Festival.

If his first albums still look like blurred snapshots, far removed from the standards of the following decades, Fossati's gift for songwriting already bursts forth in the trio of aces he plays in 1978. Besides the aforementioned "Un'emozione da poco", his pen also gives life to the aching ballad "Dedicato", for Loredana Bertè, and to the sublime transgression of "Pensiero stupendo", which Patty Pravo's voice would turn into an evergreen of Italian song. A triumph that earns Fossati the Telegatto award for songwriter of the year. Not yet a Targa Tenco (the award he would go on to sweep in later years), but already a sign that the critics had finally discovered him.

My Band (Doesn't) Play Rock

A rock turn was on its way, as noted, and so came the album that would prove both a blessing and a curse for Fossati for years to come. The enormous success of the title track of La mia banda suona il rock, in fact, would stick to him for years like a cumbersome label he would try every which way to shake off. Even at the time, in truth, he had tried to distance himself from it: he didn't want it as a single, and above all not as the album's title. But the record company's stubbornness won out, with undeniable financial returns. By some strange twist of fate, then, Fossati's quintessential rock anthem, as well as one of his biggest commercial hits, would become "the song I believed, and hoped, I had freed myself from." He would eventually perform it live in an unrecognisable piano-and-voice version, before dropping it from his setlists altogether.

Recorded at the famed Criteria Studios in Miami, with musicians from the circle of Eric Clapton and Stephen Stills, La mia banda suona il rock alternates energetic uptempo numbers with classy ballads, such as "Dedicato" itself and "Limonata e zanzare", which flaunts a sharply witty lyric over an almost reggae-tinged backing. It's not yet peak Fossati, the Midas-touch songwriter of Italian female singers and the artist who would go on to produce some of the landmark albums of Italian songwriting, but more than a glimmer of it, even behind this clumsy, unlikely Clash-style cover art, is already visible.

Panama e dintorni (1981) consolidates this style, and even lands a hit with the title track itself, a laid-back reggae number with an entertaining, almost cinematic lyric. "La signora cantava il blues", dedicated to Billie Holiday, is the most "American" song of the bunch, with its refined jazzy shadings, while "Se ti dicessi che ti amo", with its long instrumental coda dominated by flute, dips back into vague prog suggestions. But what really makes the record shine are two ballads above all: the aching "Costruzione di un amore", already recorded by Mia Martini on her best album ("Danza"), and the equally melancholy reflection of "J'adore Venice".

Fossati finally hones in on a distinctive style of writing, able to balance a rock attitude with an intimate, singer-songwriter vein in an engaging musical blend, certainly among the most modern in Italian song of those years.

Dedicated to Randy Newman, Le città di frontiera (1983) marks another step along the path of a songwriting that grows ever sharper and deeper.

"La musica che gira intorno" is a parable about frivolous music, the kind that "has no future" because it "never learned any lesson", and at the same time a portrait of musicians swimming against the tide ("Far from easy/ men so out of step/ you can still call them by yesterday's numbers/ if the night hasn't changed them"), willing to face the frustrations that come with radical choices: a direct, biting lyric that foreshadows the conscience-lashing Fossati of years to come. "Traslocando", meanwhile, is his return to form with yet another gem gifted to Loredana Bertè: a few simple, devastatingly effective lines capturing the melancholy of moving house ("And the moving men had been quick/ to flush my loves out of drawers and tin boxes"). The "youth-minded" "I ragazzi cattivi" instead joins the list of disowned songs ("one of my worst", Fossati would call it a few years later).

A transitional record, Le città di frontiera marks the end of Fossati's rock period, or perhaps the first chapter of the phase that followed. A shift made explicit in the closing track ("Cow Boys"): the line "che non ci prenda per Cow Boys" ("don't mistake us for cowboys") seems to point straight at a move away from American music in its purest form, a move that would take concrete shape in the gradual abandonment of rock idioms and the replacement of electric guitars with electronics first, and ethnic-acoustic instrumentation later.

Ventilazione (1984) is another key step toward that fusion of musical and literary exploration that would come to full bloom in later works. A record harsh in sound and already fairly cryptic in its lyrics, it also includes a rock reworking of Paolo Conte ("Boogie"), an artist always considered, alongside Fabrizio De André, a "brother in notes". Another cover is "La locomotiva" (from Adrian Belew's "The Rail Song"). The single "Viaggiatori d'Occidente" is an elegant, chiaroscuro ballad, while "Il pilota" foreshadows the passion for flight that would come to define Lindbergh.

Mio fratello che guardi il mondo

Two years later, the discovery of new rhythmic structures, inspired by contemporary South African popular music, is the main course of 700 Giorni. Produced by Allan Goldberg, it's an even more experimental record, almost overloaded with sounds and suggestions. The South African dance of "Buontempo", the Celtic folk of "Gli amanti d'Irlanda", the ethnic pastiche of "Non è facile danzare" already point toward the world-music exploration that would reach full fruition in his later work at decade's end. Other tracks ("Dieci soldati", "Il passaggio dei partigiani" and "La casa"), built over an entrancing instrumental backdrop, offer a series of meditations on the DNA of the Italian nation, born of the resistance to fascism and the early years of the Republic.

But the true beating heart of the album lies in the solemn poetry of "Una notte in Italy", a kind of small breviary of our national malaise, forever caught between the pangs of conscience and the demand for a moral life.

700 Giorni was also awarded best album of 1986, earning him his first Targa Tenco.

This marks the start of his golden era. The Tea Plant (1988) is the album that definitively confirms Ivano Fossati as a refined songwriter and a first-rate musician. The clearest proof of how far he'd moved from the angularity of his early work lies in comparing "La costruzione di un amore" in its original, twisted and tormented version with the crystalline, flawless rendition found here — an album that is, on the whole, impeccably orchestrated, alternating original, cultured ethnic touches steeped in oriental spice with more classically Western compositions, all held together by inspiration in a state of grace and an almost obsessive attention to detail. More than enough to make up for the occasional excess of hermetic lyricism that has always run through, and will keep running through, his songbook.

The masterpiece within the masterpiece is the title track itself, "The Tea Plant" (parts I and II), whose nocturnal, lunar, mysterious charm comes from the contrast between velvety Andean cane flutes and insistent, unsettling yet never intrusive percussion. The first part is already stunning, but the second reaches spine-tingling heights, with Una Ramos's flutes unleashing all their magical power, genuinely transporting the listener to the top of some Chilean or Peruvian peak. "La volpe" shares a similarly nocturnal setting, a dark nursery rhyme where even Teresa De Sio's typical bleating vocal doesn't feel out of place, used here as an apt countermelody to Fossati's dry voice. "L'uomo coi capelli da ragazzo" is a moment of deep melancholy, where the mood of loneliness and illness is conveyed even more by the extreme tension of an insistently buzzing bass and the relentless repetition of a keyboard note at fixed intervals — a "dripping-tap effect" that hangs over the entire track.

"Questi posti davanti al mare" is built on an elementary melody, but it's bookended by a ringing fanfare of keyboards; it has a complex yet irresistible rhythm (good luck keeping your hands still), and, as if that weren't enough, it's graced by the participation of Fabrizio De André and Francesco De Gregori. Fossati's other guiding light, Paolo Conte, doesn't appear in person, but he's more than evoked in a delightful little Frenchified vignette, "Le signore del Ponte-Lance", for piano and voice, worthy of similar compositions by the lawyer from Asti.

Even the slightly less inspired tracks always contain some flourish that makes them unmistakable: that's true of "Terra dove andare", with its bold pairing of accordion and reggae rhythm, and of "Chi guarda Genova", whose elaborate rhythm, again Caribbean-inflected, is punctuated by an unusual flute alongside the usual drums. Yet in both cases the result is not only strikingly original but also thoroughly enjoyable. Worth a mention too is the brief closer, "Caffè lontano", where the clear tone of the Celtic harp softens a somewhat plaintive voice. It also contains an illuminating, Paolo Conte-esque line: "Londoners are umbrellas in pain..." Brilliant, like the whole record.

Still riding a state of grace, Fossati offered in 1990 with Discanto another display of formidable creativity, embellished by some knotty literary flourishes, particularly in the lyrics of "Lunario di Settembre" and "Confessioni di Alonso Chisciano" — the first drawn from a 1647 witchcraft conviction sentence, its language somewhere between bureaucratic and baroque, fitting for the period, the second a deep psychological reflection on the visions and torments of a Don Quixote all too aware of himself. In both these ambitious compositions (calling them mere songs feels reductive), the weightiness of the lyrics is more than offset by gorgeous music, and "Lunario di Settembre" in particular contains an enchanting interlude for piano and voice, subtitled "Dialogo fra l'inquisitore e un'imputata".

It's a "learned" record even outside these two episodes: just consider the use of the traditional Portuguese guitar ("breguesa") on the evocative "Lusitania", which opens the album with elaborate rhythmic sequences of drums and percussion, and with a gallery of images that are almost never landscape-like, but always evocative and capable of carrying us to the shores of the Atlantic, facing the mystery of the unknown (“È terra/ Compagni, è terra/ Terra secca da guardare/ Buona per camminarci sui ginocchi/ E per pregare… È terra dimenticata/ Da pagine intere/ Che ancora adesso non ci guarda/ Non ci parla/ E non ci fa sapere…”).

Unusual instrumental pairings return too, like the one between the mournful sound of an oboe and dark yet soft African percussion in the beautiful "Passalento", quite simply one of the most inspired and moving songs of Fossati's entire career.

"Italiani d'Argentina", a lyric charged with serene resignation more than nostalgia for the motherland ("abbiamo l'aria, d'italiani d'Argentina ormai certa come il tempo che farà/ con che scarpe attraverseremo queste domeniche mattina..."), rides a rhythm reminiscent of Paolo Conte's milongas, only a touch more forceful and driving — in short, a little less jazzy.

The only track that could be called close to rock is "Discanto", where the hard, insistent cadences suit the lyrics perfectly, essentially a disenchanted list of the things we live for every day ("Di questo si vive/ E di tant'altro ancora/ Che inseguiamo come i cani/ Respirando dal naso/ Per finire invece/ Ancora sorridenti, ancora abbaianti/ Di un dolore a caso"). By this point Fossati has craft to spare, enough to make an otherwise potentially monotonous track like this one enjoyable through well-judged key shifts, always building, until the final verse where the sturdy rhythmic backbone finally settles.

Little gems placed near the end include "Unica rosa", almost a playful exercise in rhymes on "osa", with a melody as sweet and soothing as a cup of herbal tea, and "Albertina", for piano and voice, a brief and intense female portrait. "Piumetta" is a kind of nursery rhyme invoking tarot figures, with a fine driving rhythm and a guest appearance from Fiorella Mannoia, the singer's favorite vocalist, who here seems to hide herself, doing little more than adding countermelody. It's perhaps the only light-hearted moment on an austere, tense album that cements Fossati as the finest heir to Italian singer-songwriter tradition, at a time when the "historic" cantautori seem to have lost some of their shine.

Completing the magical Fossati trilogy, 1992 brings Lindbergh (Lettere da sopra la pioggia), made famous by the sweeping "Canzone popolare", which would go on to enjoy huge popularity in politics too, becoming the anthem of the Ulivo coalition. Inspired by the legendary feats of pilot Charles Lindbergh, who made history's first nonstop transatlantic flight, the album confirms Fossati at the peak of his creative powers, further paring down his songwriting and shedding even some of his literary ambitions. An intimate, refined mood dominates, well exemplified by "La barca di legno di rosa": a gorgeous lyric, packed with intricate symbolism ("Passa una barca di legno di pino/ con sopra un gendarme e con sopra un assassino/ e i loro pensieri sono legati insieme/ i loro pensieri gettati in catene/ in fondo al mare"), set to extremely elegant, understated music, prominently featuring a Celtic harp worthy of the finest new age, which in the closing section erupts into applause-worthy virtuosity — enough that it's only right to mention the excellent Vincenzo Zitello, a rare specimen of male harpist. The world-music strand remains too. And it's precisely the most ethnic episode, "Mio fratello che guardi il mondo", that stands as one of the record's highest peaks. Already a beautiful slow song in itself, it's further graced by the percussion of Trilok Gurtu (including the classic Indian tabla), engaged in a fascinating, dense dialogue with a clean, Western acoustic guitar. For once the lyrics too, as well as being profound, are fairly direct: a touching hymn to solidarity and brotherhood among people ("Se c'è una strada sotto il mare/ Prima o poi ci troverà/ Se non c'è strada dentro il cuore degli altri/ Prima o poi si traccerà"). Another gem is "Sigonella", a more classically structured song, opening with piano in the style of Elton John and starting off somewhat subdued, before a searing central surge that leaves you breathless, underscoring the "desperate hope" of the lyrics ("se questa terra smettesse di affondare…"). It's hard to hold back tears.

With "Notturno delle tre" Fossati proves capable of delivering jazz sensations worthy of Paolo Conte, helped along by the skillful use of crystal-clear piano notes. "La Madonna nera" pairs an enigmatic, irreverent lyric with dark, mysterious music, rich in special keyboard effects.

It's not easy to find two anti-militarist songs on the same record, but Lindbergh pulls off that feat too. The first, "Il disertore", is a translation of a Boris Vian poem, caustic in its words, sung here with a bare guitar accompaniment. The second, "Poca voglia di fare il soldato", has a much gentler lyric, and the music itself, with piano and a lovely flute solo, seems to evoke distant eras and wars, though the underlying message remains the same. "Ci sarà (vita controvento)" is the only track with a driving rhythm, but it's enriched by a virtuoso acoustic guitar passage and a fine lyric encouraging hope in those who live "against the rules of the pack".

Closing the album is "Lindbergh", a brief moment of reflection on the world as seen from an airplane. A comparison naturally comes to mind with its kind of predecessor, "Il pilota" (from Ventilazione): "Lindbergh", despite its brevity, is nonetheless far more dreamlike, and from the very first notes it casts an icy, rarefied atmosphere over us, placing us in the cockpit of an old plane, very close to the stars. But perhaps that is the goal of the whole album. Another essential piece to add to the body of work of a songwriter now operating at the height of his expressive powers.

Of Time and Silences

After the live double bill of Buontempo and Dal Vivo, and the collaboration with his friend Francesco De Gregori on "Scacchi e tarocchi," Ivano Fossati returns to the studio to record Macramé (1996), another gem of poetry and expressive freshness.

Once again complex in its lyrics and rich in musical detail, the album renews the marriage of electronics and traditional instruments, without giving up on ethnic (especially Eastern) accents. The parade of exceptional guests also continues: Tony Levin (King Crimson) plays his favourite instrument, the Chapman Stick, on the two songs he co-wrote ("L'abito della sposa" and "La stella benigna") and on "Shakespeare," while performing on five-string electric double bass on "Bella speranza."

The opening "La vita segreta" keeps a tense atmosphere, spilling into a crescendo "disturbed" by the jazz forays of Mario Arcari's sax. The tracks flow intense and pulsating, crossing the restless landscapes of "La vita segreta" and "La scala dei santi," before dissolving into moments of moving delicacy, such as "Il canto dei mestieri," embellished by a closing flute coda, or "L'angelo e la pazienza," a wonderful ballad built around an almost "tango" accordion and one of the most touching melodies in Fossati's entire catalogue, then passing through the apocalyptic visions of "Labile," the suggestive "L'amante," and the austere classicism of "L'orologio americano." Rhythm takes over instead in "Stella benigna," with a funk groove underpinning a minimal piano.

The tragic register alternates and often merges with the surreal, in a constant interplay of reality and imagination. Fossati confirms himself as a great arranger too, meticulously carving out a wealth of sounds and instruments, and reaffirms that his pen is among the sharpest available in Italy, continuing his journey into the most hidden recesses of our emotional sphere.

Fossati never fails to surprise. With traits that are original yet unmistakable. Like his way of singing, so slowed down, intense, pained. Every new song of his is a discovery. The one thing that has always remained constant in his music is that love, sometimes barely perceptible, for his city: "L'amore è tutto carte da decifrare/ E lunghi notti e giorni per imparare/ Io se avessi una penna ti scriverei/ Se avessi più fantasia ti disegnerei/ Su fogli di cristallo da frantumare" (from "Carte da decifrare," another of his most heart-wrenching songs).

But Fossati's creativity is also among the most generous in Italian singer-songwriter music. Having already made the fortune of a host of male and female singers, he goes on to enrich the noble songbook of Fabrizio De André as well, on that masterpiece of Italian music altogether known as "Anime Salve." A splendid record, a journey full of atmospheres, flavours, encounters, from Bahia to Genoa, by way of Sardinia. A path crowded with solitary spirits, dwelling in secluded corners of the Earth, who reject the "law of the pack."

Sealing Fossati's golden era comes his first anthology, Time And Silence (1998), featuring several of his greatest hits along with one previously unreleased track, "Il talento delle donne," dense with Eastern references, mantras, and passionate tributes to the feminine universe. "In this song," Fossati explains, "I used the sacred syllables 'Om mani padme hum' taken from a well-known Tibetan mantra, to help me trace as sharp a line of shadow as possible between the cyclical Eastern idea of time and our own linear one. The words 'time and silence,' on the other hand, are expressed in English, because more than any other language it seems today to represent the Western model."

In the meantime, Fossati also devoted himself to reworking classics by Chico Buarque de Hollanda, Djavan, and Supertramp, as well as to intense work for theatre and cinema, composing music for various stage productions and for two films by Carlo Mazzacurati, "Il Toro" and "L'Estate di Davide."

La disciplina della terra (2000) is another slow, measured-paced journey towards distant seas, moving between childhood memories and melancholy encounters, the scents of incense and wet sand. A small summary of Fossati's poetics, that of a sincere and profound observer of humanity and its contradictions. As usual, there's no shortage of prestigious collaborations (Roberto Gatto, YoYo Mundi, London Session Orchestra), and musically the return of electric guitar stands out, absent for a long time now from the Ligurian songwriter's work.

The opening delivers the album's most intense moments: the autobiographical "La mia giovinezza," carried by a singular blend of electric guitar, accordion, percussion and flute, revisits sophisticated world-music atmospheres; "Treno di ferro," dedicated to "the young people who leave, in peace and in war," is instead another small anti-militarist gem, entrusted to a long ballad with a piano-and-voice prologue ("È che là fuori/ c'è un treno di ferro/ con il cuore di calce/ il soffio di acido e di veleno/ una valanga d'amore/ contro un bicchiere d'aceto/ dopo l'ultimo bacio/ prima del fischio del treno"). The piano-driven title track is recorded by Fossati alone, with the orchestra conducted by Gianfranco Lombardi overdubbed on top; "Invisibile" instead boasts a chill-inducing cello (courtesy of Louise Hopkins).

But flashes of class also shine through on the traditional "La rondine" (a duet with Luvi De André) and on the gentle folk ballad "Angelus." The more indignant side of Fossati, meanwhile, colours "Iubilaeum bolero" with satirical accents, an act of accusation against superstition disguised as spirituality: it's the album's tour de force, a suite in several movements, with Enrico Rava's trumpet and flugelhorn up front, obsessive percussion, and a long instrumental improvisation that closes with a spoken part by Mercedes Martini ("...Io brindo al vostro passaggio/ Al piacere del ladro/ Alla pubblica colpa/ Bevo acqua gelida a larghe mani/ Bevo agli orizzonti gobbi/ Alle femmine barbute/ alle scimmie e ai cani/ Mi guardo ancora nello specchio/ E vi saluto brava gente"). "Dancing sopra il mare" is a (self-)homage to the old "Panama," while the instrumental close of "Finale (Al tempo che si muove)," left to piano alone, foreshadows the musical direction of the following record: a project Fossati had already been nurturing for some time and which took shape in the spring of 2001.

Not One Word, released under the name Ivano Fossati Doublelife for the Sony Classical label, in fact rejects the song format in favour of an almost "classical," entirely instrumental approach. "We artists," Fossati observes, "are lucky enough to manipulate sounds and words. We can fit very broad thoughts inside them. Perhaps too broad, even. I love the traditional song a great deal, but I'm curious, and I tend to stretch it wider. I have a great desire to travel down increasingly oblique artistic paths."

The Law of Simplicity

In the return to song form on Lampo viaggiatore (2003), Fossati seems instead to have imposed on himself the discipline of simplicity. Along with clarity comes a renewed attention to current issues, as in "Pane e coraggio," where the plight of migrants trying to pass "from a land that hates us to another that doesn't want us" is softened into a gentle, slowed-down reggae rhythm, with accordions more rustic than unsettling. Perhaps the music didn't even need this kind of "pruning," but Fossati must have been gripped by a simplifying fever, one strong enough to produce lean, nervy electro-soul numbers like the single "La bottega di filosofia," featuring a delightful harmonica, and the portrait of a ruthless plutocracy in "Contemporaneo" ("democrazia dei profitti perfetti, delle nude proprietà"): the two tracks most likely to throw the old fan off balance. The model seems to be the Donald Fagen of "Nightfly," but the flat, monotone vocal delivery and the still rather elaborate lyrics don't sit comfortably with these rhythms.

Better, if anything, is "Lampo (sogno di un macchinista ferroviere)", a nursery-rhyme tune that at first sounds worryingly similar to "Attenti al lupo" by Lucio Dalla, before recovering thanks to a warm saxophone "with its fat drawl" (as Paolo Conte would put it), and to lyrics made of a swift sequence of vivid images: more than a dream, it's what an imaginative train driver might actually see. More convincing is the return to his old love of reggae and Caribbean rhythms, dating back to the days of "Traslocando", not to mention "Panama". Alongside "Pane e coraggio", the results here are "La bellezza stravagante", with hypnotic echoes of Antillean music, and above all "Io sono un uomo libero", a genuine reggae number with a deeply sincere confessional lyric, already "given away" to Adriano Celentano.

There's no shortage of the classic "piano reflections". "Il bacio sulla bocca" is an intense, stately ballad with the accordion as the great protagonist, but the two tracks that give us the most touching and profound Fossati are "C'è tempo" and "Ombre e luce". Moving and pained, built around a gorgeous theme that holds together the whole intricate structure: in "C'è tempo" it returns at the end of every verse, stated by the accordion, while in "Ombre e luce" it's a stunning five-note piano figure that enriches the song from start to finish, with particular magic in the velvety dialogue between clarinet and piano.

Even if only in small doses, Fossati makes it clear he's still capable of digging deep into the soul, even if for now he prefers to stay a little closer to the surface. Pleasantly so, though, and with plenty of imagination.

After yet another live album (Dal Vivo Volume 3 – Tour acustico, 2004), Fossati returns to the studio to record L'Arcangelo, released in early 2006.

Hailed in the press as "Fossati's most political album" — handy for keeping attention alive during the election campaign — the Ligurian singer-songwriter's new work marks a return to rock, filtered through his usual sensitivity for South American rhythms, and overall shows a greater "sunniness" compared to the dark introspection of his previous records.

Politics is there and it dominates, no point denying it. Sometimes rather heavy-handedly, as in the r'n'b of "Ho sognato una strada", or in "Cara Democrazia", a banal exhortation for voice and electric guitar recalling the most rhetorical outbursts of Battiato; or again in the no-global reggae of "La Cinese", a nursery rhyme about fear of the East and the trade in black gold. Other times with more convincing results, as in "Denny", a tender gay love story lived within the everyday normality of an ordinary existence, yet always under the shadow of prejudice ("Nessuno sa e nessuno/ Nemmeno capisce/ Nessuno vede l'amore/ Nessuno lo intuisce"): fine lyrics set to music by Pietro Cantarelli, who also arranged the whole album together with Fossati's son, Claudio.

But it's above all in "Il battito" that Fossati's polemic sharpens most, with a j'accuse against rampant superficiality and the obsession with boiling everything down to a soundbite, which forces thought to shrink and grow small: a song that's also more focused musically, with a gentle piano accompaniment and an intense, building instrumental finale. Other times, though, it's precisely the music that betrays signs of fatigue: hard to get excited by the South American percussion, Cuban timbres and Santana-esque electric guitars of the title track, where an immigrant becomes the archangel who reveals a new world (and we're still light years away from the lyrical heights of "Mio fratello che guardi il mondo").

The album also fails to take off on the side of sentimental ballads. "L'amore fa" gets bogged down in a limp melody and quasi-Sanremo lyrics; the cha cha cha of "Reunion" tells of the difficulties of a (re)union over a rather stale blend of Hammond organ and horns; "Pianissimo" plays the card of a smooth arrangement, but without any real bite. Better, perhaps, is the melancholy mid-tempo of "Aspettare stanca", a chronicle of farewells and telegraph-style phrases, marked by a lovely saxophone counterpoint.

One can agree with everything Fossati writes and sings, but on the whole his Arcangelo sounds like a great missed opportunity to bring the political song back to the center of the Italian music scene. In his rush to "get it all off his chest" about the small great horrors of today's political reality, Fossati seems to lose that touch of sober lyricism that has always been his edge. So, paradoxically, the best moments on the album come from its least "representative" tracks, the more intimate and secluded ones. Almost a victory of the "old" Fossati over the current one.

Cover art: a futuristic car on an alien, red surface, "like in 1950s science-fiction films", explains Ivano Fossati. As if to say that the future people once imagined has nothing to do with today's reality — or rather, with Musica Moderna, the ironic title of the album with which the Genoese singer-songwriter returns to the scene in 2008. A work that, once again, fails to leave much of a mark.

It opens with the energetic, driving, high-impact "Rimedio". "Mai più saggezza, mai più", Fossati seems to want to shed the constant weight life burdens us with, abandoning caution and setting aside dissatisfaction. "Cantare a memoria" is movingly sincere, on the theme of memory. Memory matters, the past is painful but essential if one wants to dream of a future. And above all it cannot be erased, since "quello che siamo/ è quello che abbiamo/ e quello che abbiamo si vede". No pretense, then, nor resignation, just the naked truth.

"Musica moderna" is another open-hearted confession, addressed intimately to a woman: "Benvenuta amore mio/ in questa musica moderna in cui/ faccio la mia parte". And again: "My life is still a dream/ and a shadow of weariness". And this is the leit-motiv of the album. "Miss America" returns to the reggae of "Panama e dintorni", a shame the lyrics are a bit too cryptic. There's also room for a gem like "Last Minute", where nostalgia turns into desperation, while Fossati's voice pushes harder than ever, beyond the windows of planes and trains, to break the glass through which he watches the distant life of his beloved. A mounting climax, right up to breaking point, well supported by the drumming of his son, Claudio Fossati.

"La guerra dell'acqua" and "Il paese dei testimoni" are two political songs, and among the least successful. The melancholy "D'amore non parliamo più" tells of dreams, broken and otherwise, that somehow carry on, cradled in memory by Riccardo Tesi's accordion. "Amore trasparente" is an open critique of a society that knows no limits or solidarity, yet fights tooth and nail over possession of water: we first came to know it as the soundtrack to Nanni Moretti's film "Caos calmo".

If his creative spark seems to have lost some of the shine it had a few years back, Fossati remains to this day one of the sharpest and most refined musician-intellectuals on the Italian scene. His livid gloom, his melancholy introspection, his reflections marked by high moral and civic integrity make him a kind of critical conscience not just for the music scene, but for Italian society itself. Credit also goes to a language that — as Paolo Jachia writes in the book "Una vita controvento" — could only be the child of his native land, the harsh, essential Liguria: "On one hand, the nature of the land, sensed in a feeling for limits, for the finiteness of human things, typical of someone who — having little land to walk and cultivate — stands more firmly on it, as if anchored to his scant certainty. On the other, the sea. The endless adventure of navigators, castaways, sails. The challenge, Leopardi's Infinite, the lands of the East, from which one always returns, though, to one's origins, to that initial awareness: to an existential reflection so profound that it has allowed generations of Italians to recognize themselves in his feelings and images as in those of few other artists of Italian song. His conscience dictates to his words what ours, at times, cannot say. And it is precisely this bare, essential language that makes Ivano Fossati a true craftsman of song: he works by subtraction, like the poets of his Liguria, like the carvers of olive wood."

Final act

With Decadancing (2011) Ivano Fossati takes his leave of the public. Ahead of its release, in fact, the Ligurian artist announced that this would be the final album (and accompanying tour) of his forty-year career. Among the reasons behind the decision was his uncertainty about having anything substantial left to add to what he'd already said, along with a desire to savour the freedoms that the musician's trade had inevitably stripped away from him. And yet, it's precisely with this record that Fossati breaks free of the impasse that had marked his two previous releases. Even though the opening pairing of "La decadenza" and "Quello che manca al mondo" might suggest otherwise, on one hand we witness a scaling-back of the protest-song format so central to L'Arcangelo, and on the other a return to the melodic and lyrical inspiration that has always found its ideal home in the artist's touching, disenchanted poetics. These are all elements that were, in truth, already present—albeit with more reservations—on the preceding "Musica moderna". That's why the love gone cold, whispered in "Settembre", brings us back to the peaks of quiet melancholy once scaled by "Naviganti" ("...this is the rain that must fall/ on the small scenes of farewell/ we are only us among millions upon millions/ welcome too to your name/ among future nostalgias"), and why the perhaps ageing couple of "Un natale borghese" moves us with a stream of consciousness that brushes up against current affairs (though only in passing: "...how contemptibly dark politics is/ not even worth last month's newspaper"), grazing the tender memories of a life shared as two ("...it's a cold, clear day/ and your perfect hips haven't aged... I remember when I married you/ it wasn't easy waking up in the morning"), searching the past for who-knows-how-convincing reassurances for a future full of too many unknowns ("...don't worry about us/ we've achieved so many things...").

You can sense the rediscovered rock-leaning mood that has characterised the last five years, yet without abandoning the familiar landscapes of strings and piano that have contributed so much to shaping a style, with a long-standing attention to arrangement and technical craft that, distracted as we are by the words, we rarely remember to point out.

Decadancing has among its leitmotifs people who leave (the beloved woman of "Settembre", the young people of "Laura e l'avvenire", the lovers of "Se non oggi"), and it seems they're not the only ones, since Fossati himself now looks set to leave us with no further albums. It's therefore highly likely that, from now on, we'll be left alone with his "musica leggera" that we "must learn"—but that's really a great deal: good luck, Ivano, and thank you for everything.

Surprisingly, however, in 2019 Fossati returns for an unmissable occasion: an album together with Mina. The record, simply titled Mina Fossati, is made up of 11 tracks, all written by the Genoese singer-songwriter and largely sung as duets. Ivano Fossati talks about this extraordinary experience in the interview he gave exclusively to our webzine.

* Contributions by Luca Lapini: © Debaser

Contributions by Alessandro De Paoli ("Musica moderna"), Marco Bercella ("Decadancing")

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