Max Gazzè - An Eccentric Pierrot

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I play music to you alone and as I sing

my skin seems to fry like butter

amid the sounds of pans

this is an art of yours and of your handsome French hero

he never asked for anything but a woman to save

but instead it's only me that he's saved

("Poeta Minore")

The origins

Born in Rome on July 6, 1967, Massimiliano Gazzè spent his adolescence in Belgium following in the footsteps of his father, a diplomat at the Italian embassy. In Brussels he attended the European School, and at fourteen he began playing electric bass and guitar, after having already started piano lessons at the tender age of six.

Still in Flemish territory he had his first musical experiences, performing in various clubs with different groups and taking part in a wide range of jam sessions influenced by progressive rock, ska, new wave, punk, soul, Brazilian music and jazz, which allowed him to collaborate with some of the genre's sacred monsters, such as Steve Coleman and John Scofield. He also devoted himself to painting, his great and never-dormant passion, funding it with the earnings from his first club gigs.

Between 1984 and 1985 he played steadily with Emballau Cadage, a band whose repertoire was original pop-rock and new wave, almost entirely written by him.

He then spent five years as bassist, arranger and songwriter for "4 Play 4," an English Northern Soul outfit. With the group he moved to the South of France, where he also worked as an artistic producer for D.P.I.

Back in Rome in 1992, he devoted himself to musical experimentation in his recording studio, played for about a year with Emporium, while composing soundtracks for short films and beginning collaborations with artists such as Frankie Hi-NRG, Alex Britti and above all Niccolò Fabi and Daniele Silvestri, with whom he forged deep friendships.

The recording debut

In 1994, after many years paying his dues, he began developing ideas that would shape his first solo album, which would only see the light of day in 1996, after signing his first major record deal with Virgin.

Against a Wave of the Sea is the result of the long, intricate work begun many years earlier. Made with drummer Piero Monterisi (a longtime trusted collaborator of Silvestri), the album also marks the beginning of his important and lasting artistic partnership with his brother Francesco, poet and co-author of the lyrics. Gazzè sings, arranges, produces, and plays bass and keyboards, winning over Italian critics, who would hail the album as one of the year's most original debuts.

The album is a stern, mysterious gem, underpinned by arrangements with a clear rock stamp that often veer into near-hard rock chords ("Karbogha", "Il viaggio di Luna"), but also expand into dilated psychedelic textures ("Sirio è sparita") and lavish, darkly guitar-driven new wave textures ("L'eremita", "Sul filo"), all threaded through with lyrics that swing between the visionary and the hermetic.

Atypical tracks such as "Quel che fa paura" and "Il bagliore dato a questo sole" stand out above all for the complexity of their composition and arrangements, so much so that they soon became staples of the live setlists, complete with remarkably accomplished instrumental codas. The deceptive simplicity of "Sono pazzo di te", meanwhile, sends out the first signals of the stylistic shift and opening-up that would soon become evident in his repertoire.

Franco Battiato gets the chance to hear this fine work in advance and signs Max on as opener for the tour of "L'ombrello e la macchina da cucire", even before the album hits record shops. For the occasion, he performs a few tracks from the forthcoming album in an acoustic version with simplified arrangements.

Battiato's audience is won over by the compositions of the then-unknown Gazzè, rewarding him with applause and numerous encore requests. The album will be promoted with some twenty live dates, but sales won't follow suit.

Major success, however, is only being postponed.

During 1996 Gazzè plays in the rhythm section of his friend Silvestri's album "Il dado", for which he also contributes the song "Rappresaglia", while beginning work on the material that will make up his new record.

Success is on the horizon

In November 1997 a first taste of the future project arrives with "Cara Valentina", a track built around lyrics that recast an ironic love letter recited over an engaging off-beat ska rhythm. The song takes part with modest success in the Sanremo Giovani showcase and, backed by a brilliant period-costume video, raises both interest in and commitment to shaping the new material.

During 1998 Gazzè ties the knot with Maria Salvucci and celebrates the occasion with a long party at Il Locale, a venue that proved formative both for him and for the many singer-songwriters who emerged from the celebrated crop Rome produced throughout the '90s. He becomes a father for the first time with the birth of his son Samuele and performs for the first time at the 1st of May concert. The decisive push for his artistic rise comes thanks to the huge success of "Vento d'estate", a song Gazzè himself had written around six years earlier but which was only released in 1998, after crucial reworking by his colleague Riccardo Sinigallia. Sung as a duet with his friend and fellow artist Niccolò Fabi, it soon becomes one of the most played songs on the radio.

Thanks to a successful appearance at Festivalbar and, above all, a surprise win at the Un disco per l'estate showcase, Gazzè begins to force his way firmly into the public consciousness, the best possible springboard for finally unveiling the long-awaited second album, released that same autumn.

La Favola di Adamo ed Eva, besides including the two seminal singles previously released, features a long string of tracks that would become genuine evergreens for the Roman singer-songwriter: from the biting recriminations fired off in the hugely famous title track, as satirical as it is realistic, to the nostalgic romantic vision of "L'amore pensato" — once again featuring the ever-present Silvestri — to the fierce social protest of "Colloquium Vitae", featuring Piedmontese singer-songwriter Mao Gurlino.

But it's also in the less famous tracks that his unusual knack for crafting refined, intellectual auteur pop-rock comes through, with great care given to building substantial musical structures, meticulous arrangements and an almost obsessive attention to lyrics. The psychedelic swirl of "Raduni ovali", hermetic in its abstract concepts, the propulsive existential sequence of "Casi ciclici", and above all the clear-eyed analysis of conformist reality developed in "Come si conviene (Bom Pa)" ("Ho messo a stendere il doppio mento in balcone e lavato via le rughe dalla faccia, bastava strofinare meglio con sapone e fantasia…") all add further lustre to an album that reveals its extraordinary stature even in the small gems tucked between the hits.

Standing out from the rest is the mythological, primordial reconstruction sketched in the visionary "L'origine del mondo", a splendid, dreamlike scenario lined with geographical references, etched over guitar riffs that stretch and sharpen against one another ("Ho udito sirene cantare troppo piano/ il grido di Ulisse gonfiare le vele"). Also worth noting are the sharp-witted statements made in "Autoironia", the slogans that make up the playful "Nel verde", featuring his friend Lucio Morelli as a guest, or the wild recipe extolled in "Due apparecchi cosmici per la trasformazione del cibo", a highly intricate track with shifting harmonic flavours.

This is a different Gazzè from the one we savoured at the outset. His music has clearly opened up toward a wider audience, with more immediate hooks. What comes through is his innate ability — evident even in his catchier, more radio-friendly tracks — to maintain an extremely high level of quality and an unusual aesthetic sensibility: the perfect union of artistic ambition and commercial success, a stylistic balance many crave but very few ever achieve.

The record is warmly received by the press, which confirms him as one of the most interesting and inventive young Italian singer-songwriters.

Audiences, too, finally give him the recognition he deserves, soon pushing the album to 50,000 copies sold and earning it a nomination for the Premio Italiano della Musica, promoted by the newspaper La Repubblica.

Television appearances then multiply, encouraged for commercial reasons by the record label.

Besides a promotional tour, he's brought on board to rework Robert Wyatt's "O Caroline", included on the tribute album "A Different You", dedicated to the great English artist and released in October 1998. The record features major names including Franco Battiato, Marlene Kuntz, C.S.I., Morgan. It's precisely Gazzè's track that is chosen as the project's lead single, for which a video is also shot.

The Sanremo Festival

1999 opens with a predictable twist: his first appearance at the Sanremo Festival. Gazzè takes part in the competition with the song "Una musica può fare", entered in the New Proposals category.

The Festival is always an essential stop on the road to musical success in Italy, and Max decides to approach it with great self-irony. The singer-songwriter takes the stage in an unlikely tartan suit, wearing a t-shirt printed with a computer-generated image of his own face, detachable and wearable as a mask for the hilarious closing dance number. The song, utterly out of place in that context, is built on alliteration, wordplay and surreal situations. "Una musica può fare" wins over the critics, thanks to its catchy 80s-style sound and the irony running through it, but only manages a respectable eighth place.

As often happens, the Festival's underwhelming results are offset by commercial success. The album La Favola di Adamo ed Eva is reissued with the new track added, and although some consider the move questionable from a record-industry-ethics standpoint, the choice allows the record to reach the prestigious milestone of 100,000 copies sold, rightfully earning its place among the most significant Italian pop albums of recent years in terms of quality. Compared to the previous version, the intriguing ghost track "Etereo" — used for years to open live shows — has been removed, replaced by an amusing multimedia track featuring a few short poems by his brother Francesco recited by Max, along with a demo version of the Sanremo song performed on a small portable keyboard.

With the arrival of summer come new appearances at seasonal song contests, where the main track performed is "Colloquium Vitae", reworked into a more forceful version than the one on the album. His appearance at the MTV Day concert is a positive one, in front of a huge crowd that, by this point, is beginning to grasp Gazzè's stature, especially during his explosive, free-wheeling live performances.

Minor Poet

2000 brings the Roman singer-songwriter to the Sanremo Festival stage for the second time, this time in the Big Artists category. The song he performs is "Il timido ubriaco", an atypical rhyming serenade, blending depth and irony in the artist's signature style. Both audience and critics seem to approve of the choice, helping the song climb to fourth place in the final ranking. Worth remembering is the moment — unique in the Festival's history up to that point — when he stopped his performance mid-song because of an audio problem that was ruining his performance.

About a month after the song contest, his new album is released — the third in chronological order — simply self-titled Max Gazzè. A striking close-up of a camel's muzzle, teeth proudly on full display, is the cover's emblematic image. The album's title was actually meant to be "Gadzilla", but some disagreements with the record label led the artist, somewhat defiantly, to decide against giving the project a specific title at all.

Fortunately, the album is anything but predictable and marks a further step forward artistically. Compared to its predecessor, it clearly contains fewer tracks with chart ambitions. Besides the song performed at the Festival, the only other track with such qualities is the ironic, catchy "L'uomo più furbo".

The rest of the material pursues a far more elegiac approach to the lyrics, with numerous references to inspiring muses, such as the French poet Mallarmé, one of whose writings ("Elemosina") is reworked into Italian, alongside a variety of both sound and arrangements that marks a convincing progression. Just listen to "Poeta minore", a driving, jagged-edged pop-rock number in which the autobiographical reflection on being an artist finds a brilliant outlet in its lyrics, or the bizarre story told in "Su un ciliegio esterno", where the peculiar Gianni Sergente, an always well-dressed office worker, spends all his earnings on liquorice to savor alone up in the branches of a tree.

Among the standout moments, without doubt, are the strings and guitars of "Del tutto personale" and especially the sonic journey of "La tua realtà", a highly ambitious piece that features former C.S.I. member Francesco Magnelli on keyboards and Ginevra Di Marco on vocals.

Giant Steps

Io con il naso aggiunto male agli occhi

Ho fatto passi da gigante

Ma gli anni della rincorsa sono storti

Come impigliati ai chiodi della strada

Il motore degli eventi

è partito con l'impegno

Che tiene accesa la fortuna

("Il motore degli eventi")

After a very long promotional tour, various appearances in the usual nationwide summer song-and-dance circuit, and following the birth of his second daughter Bianca, that collaboration struck up almost by chance but decisively with Magnelli and Di Marco became the seed for a highly ambitious album project — one which, as often happens in these cases, carried plenty of risk.

In 2001 came out Does Everyone Do As They Please?, a title that poses a puzzlingly open question and once again piques listeners' curiosity.

You can make beautiful, substantial pop music without ever brushing up against banality or cheap crowd-pleasing. Gazzè offers a solid demonstration of exactly that.

The charts are kind to him, popularity is no issue, and his music remains, simply put, easy listening pop — but it's on quality that the real difference is made, on the intense flavours he manages to convey, on his refined taste and compositional intelligence. In this sense, the album is perhaps, of all those released so far, the freest and most mature work, both a blessing and a curse for anyone invested in the artistic fortunes of this versatile singer-songwriter.

Deliberately uneven, it unspools a broad catalogue of moods where mandolins are played over dizzying jungle rhythms ("Megabytes"), synthetic bass/synth textures are laced with unusual sounds lifted from children's toys ("Non era previsto"), fierce and razor-sharp rock charges rush by ("Il motore degli eventi", featuring a stunning Carmen Consoli), imaginative and highly personal musings on humanity's great achievements unfold ("Questo forte silenzio"), fragments of Europop surface ("Il dolce della vita"), intimate, hermetic reflections steeped in ethnic flavour appear ("Il debole fra i due", with Paola Turci), intense and minimal nostalgia lingers ("Non è più come prima"), fantastical flights take off from architectural eyesores ("Eclissi di periferia"), and bitter analyses of historical tragedy are captured in the post-rock of "In questo anno di non amore", dedicated to the horrific tragedy of the Twin Towers.

The surreal streak running through the sharp, deeply personal lyrics of his brother Francesco, increasingly in the spotlight, is matched by meticulous arrangements, in which strings and classical flourishes blend with electronics, rock and 1970s-style instrumentation.

The magic recipe of profound lightness, the one that blends irony, poetry, intelligence and entertainment. Does Everyone Do As They Please? Few know how to pull it off this well.

La mente dell'uomo

The years between 2001 and 2003 are marked by intense live activity: a theatre tour in the winter of 2001/2002, a run of major summer festivals, and a packed schedule of club dates.

He develops an ever closer collaboration with Stephan Eicher, a leading songwriter and performer on the European music scene, and contributes to Raf's album "Iperbole" (2001) and to "Bondo! Bondo!" by the Bandabardò (2002). That same year, exclusively for members of the official fan club, a promotional record titled Antecedentemente inedito is released — a collection of demo versions of previously released tracks, a few divertissements, poems by his brother Francesco set to music for the occasion, and live tracks.

The experience accumulated over the previous two years spent on Italy's stages, together with the many collaborations he embraced, give Gazzè the idea of pursuing models that could be the fruit of teamwork, where individual ideas feed into different contexts — a creative situation that also leaves room for new synergies to emerge along the way, all channelled in a direction always guided by the moustachioed Roman artist.

With this intent Gazzè builds the album One Day, released in September 2004 and put together with the help of Peng, the pseudonym for the whole crew of musicians he has been collaborating with for years.

The record is marked by warm, reassuring sounds, recorded using exclusively vintage instruments and with no overdubs. Every take was captured via microphone, with practically nothing recorded live in the room — an antiseptic but certainly more precise method. The lyrics are on a par with his previous work, and thus meticulous in every respect. The tone of the words carries as much weight as their meaning.

The album, though lacking any obvious hit singles, offers plenty of interesting chapters: from the gripping, slippery "La mente dell'uomo" to the ironic, biting pop-grunge attempt "Annina", from the astonishing protest-punk of "I forzati dell'immagine", aimed at the banal content of TV programming, to the soft bass lines laid beneath the honeyed tones of "Allenamenti".

But it's in the melodic "Di sfuggita", in the forceful indictment of "Avanzo di galera", and in the gripping duet with Daniele Silvestri crafted for "Pallida" that the finest moments of this not-so-immediate record can be found — an ideal continuation of a path that sees him chasing new horizons without distorting the distinctive essence of his original songwriting style.

In 2005 Gazzè becomes a father for the third time (Emily), and to celebrate his first ten years of activity he releases his first compilation, Gatherings 1995-2005, made up of twenty-six tracks that bring together his biggest hits alongside lesser-known songs, four of which are previously unreleased and of considerable quality; the profound "Di nascosto" and the wild "Chançon Idiomatique" above all.

After the summer tour, Max devotes himself to forging new artistic collaborations, one of his favourite ways of growing, gathering fresh inspiration and nurturing old projects. He took part in the Gizmo project, a band led by none other than Stewart Copeland, where — alongside the legendary Police drummer — he shared the stage with Armand Sabal Lecco (Mass Mental), Raiz of Almamegretta, Vittorio Cosma (Pfm, Elio e le Storie Tese, among many others), the extraordinary guitarist David Fiuczynski (Giorgi Mikadze, Screaming Headless Torsos) and the percussion of the talented Brazilian artist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Atoms For Peace and Dirty Projectors), in genuine live jam sessions of extraordinary technical quality.

His collaboration with Daniele Silvestri continues unimpeded, as does his live activity, which, besides solo concerts, carries on through active cooperation with other artists (see the "Di comune accordo" tour as a trio with Paola Turci and Marina Rei), followed by the release of a new greatest-hits collection ("The Best Of Platinum"), though without any unreleased tracks.

Il mistero della polvere

2008 marks his return to the Festival, eight years after his last appearance. Once again, Gazzè surprises everyone. The song "Il solito sesso" finishes twelfth in the final standings, but earns widespread praise, quickly going on to achieve platinum status.

The song chosen for the Sanremo competition becomes one of the cornerstones of his sixth studio album, titled Tra l'aratro e la radio, on which Max is, as usual, the sole composer of the music, while for the lyrics he draws, beyond the customary contribution of his brother Francesco, on the help of his poet friend Gimmi Santucci, a figure with no ties to the music world. With Gimmi he shares reflections and digressions on life and on the changes brought about by the shift from an agricultural to an industrial society — from the plough to the radio, precisely. In the recording studio, the Roman singer-songwriter chose exceptional musicians: Carmen Consoli played most of the acoustic and electric guitars, and Marina Rei handled the percussion.

The album stands as one of the most irrational entries in the Roman singer-songwriter's entire discography. Eleven tracks that, beneath an apparent lightness, tackle existentialist themes — the radio, a popular device in the way it speaks on the surface, and the plough, an equally popular tool, in the way it digs deep.

This parallel approach can be grasped starting from the Sanremo entry, too hastily dismissed by many as frivolous. "Il solito sesso" is actually a metaphor for an impossible love, one that cannot be, told with a light touch but with an undertone of subtle pain.

Songs like "Siamo come siamo", "Mostri" and "Tornerai qui" move along the same lines, small tales of feelings, hopes and sufferings that reveal a sensitivity in touching on themes easily prone to becoming mawkish or saccharine, while unbridled vehemence runs through the brilliant "L'evo dopo il medio", with abstract wordplay propped up by the fury of the electric guitar played by Consoli, about which it's said that windows were shattered by the sheer volume produced during the recording sessions, which took place right at the Cantantessa's home studio.

Worth noting is the extensive use of vintage keyboards with their full-bodied tones, sounds that come from far away but never age.

The sonic textures are very intense, with hints of dark alt-rock surfacing in the cerebral analysis of "Il mistero della polvere". A Gazzè decidedly enriched in personality, able to translate this self-awareness into music - see the track "Vuoti a rendere".

A golden period

Flebile irreale

la luce incognita

come di cattedrale

quasi alabastrina si promana inesorabile

È livida

È gelida la quiete

prima di infrangersi

Nevica sulla discesa

e nevica sulla mia attesa

Nevica sull'altopiano

and it's snowing on my hand

It's snowing on the pavement

and it's snowing on my secret

…and where was I…

(“Io dov’ero”)

The eclectic Roman artist seems to know no limits, and over the course of 2010 he makes his acting debut in Rocco Papaleo's film “Basilicata Coast To Coast“, for which he writes the soundtrack's standout track, titled “Mentre dormi”, a gentle, sweet folk-pop ballad, perhaps a touch saccharine but well suited to the context, which earns him the Mario Camerini award for best song in a film, the Lunezia Award – Song for Cinema, for musical-literary merit, and above all the 2011 David di Donatello for best original song.

Also that year, a new project, strictly live, titled “L’uomo sinfonico” finds him revisiting some of his hits, entirely rewritten with orchestral arrangements and performed alongside famous operatic arias, in a genuine crossover between sophisticated pop and classical music.

The success of the film and its featured song paves the way for the release of his seventh album, bluntly titled with a question mark: So What?. Twelve compositions of generally good taste. A sincere record, built as usual on lyrics that veer between the hermetic and trivial sentimentality. Musically, moments of undeniable interest alternate with others that are a bit more predictable.

The standout tracks are undoubtedly “Edera”, intricate and otherworldly, with mandolins, violins and organs weaving together delicately and magically. The lyrics show how to write a love song without a trace of obviousness: “…io che sarei di te, i nei e le vertebre…”. Gripping and cryptic is “DNA”, a catchy and fun electronic funk number, while “Io dov’ero” brings back the sound of his unforgettable debut album, with concepts hovering between the unreal and the mysterious: “…La luce incognita, come di cattedrale, quasi alabastrina si promana inesorabile…”.

Also successful are the flirtatious “A cuore scalzo”, the bold, driving “Nuovi allineamenti di Stonehenge”, with its usual excellent bass work, and “Storie crudeli”, which takes aim at the subliminal violence found in the content of certain children's programs: “…Quattro pupazzi con testa ad antenna e la pancia col televisore, gestiti e cresciuti da un aspirapolvere mangiano schiume di ogni colore…”.

The rest of the album maintains a good standard, with intriguing lyrics and consistently worthy music.

2013 is the year that marks the birth of his fourth child, Silvia, and yet another appearance as a competitor at the Festival. This time the competition is structured around each artist presenting two songs, one of which, following a specific vote, can proceed to the end of the event. Gazzè enters with “I tuoi maledettissimi impegni” and “Sotto casa”. It's the latter track that makes it through the elimination round, going on to place seventh in the final standings.

The witty, entertaining song also gives its title to the new album of original material, which is followed by a European tour. During this period the Roman artist achieves remarkable commercial success, reaching gold record status for 30,000 copies sold of the album and platinum status for over 50,000 copies of the single, alongside the official FIMI certification – Gold Digital Download.

The album Sotto casa, his eighth studio effort, brings back all the ingredients that have made the Roman singer-songwriter one of the most interesting artistic presences on the Italian pop-music scene.

Driving bass-and-drum rides (“I tuoi maledettissimi impegni”, “Il nome delle stelle”), rapid modulations (“La mia libertà”), a harrowing and faithful account of the experience of rape (“Atto di forza”), playful, irreverent vignettes described with his trademark skill (“Sotto casa”), and elaborate orchestral arrangements (“Quel cerino”) are all chapters perfectly matched by remarkable lyrics, the fruit, as always, of his fruitful collaboration with his brother Francesco, a great specialist in the phonetic care of chosen words.

There's also room for a pleasant surprise to close things out, where with "L'amore di Lilith" Gazzè once again returns to the biting atmospheres of the never-forgotten Against a Wave of the Sea. A collection of acoustic, electric and electronic sounds blended with balance and taste, which come together over roughly forty minutes to produce an enjoyable, well-crafted work that retains the Roman artist's innate, typical knack for surprise.

The wonder trio

After collecting a hefty string of awards, ranging from Best Singer-Songwriter Live Show of the Year to the Amnesty International award for the content of the song "Atto di forza", and after once again acquitting himself well as an actor in the film "Incompresa", directed by Asia Argento, in spring 2014, following many years of collaboration and undisputed friendship, Max joins the supergroup Fabi–Silvestri-Gazzè. Rather than simply revisiting their best-loved repertoire, the trio produces an imposing album of new material titled Il padrone della festa.

In a relaxed, festive atmosphere, electro-acoustic guitars welcome pianos, keyboards, synthesizers and horns. The vocals find a rhythm. The result is twelve tracks across forty-nine minutes of fine Roman school songwriting. Experience and sensitivity do the rest, with three voices merging into one, just like the roots of the tree painted on the cover: Silvestri with his corrosive irony, a thousand words always artfully set in place; Gazzè, the moody Pierrot, eccentric experimenter and last of the differently romantic; Fabi, observer, traveler and philosopher, willing to burn himself up just to feel something and finally confess it.

Preceded by the single "Life Is Sweet", a perfect blend of the three artistic natures, the album immerses itself in almost visionary territory, to be listened to and listened to again to fully grasp its intensity and intimacy. There are no obvious hooks, but plenty of gems that shine as they unfold. In truth, the album's great achievement (certified platinum just days after release) lies precisely in this: it offers not the best of three great singer-songwriters, but something like an independent artist in its own right. Not, then, the sum of its parts — which would already have been quite something — but something new and different. Every time you think you can pick out each one's contribution in a note or an arrangement, the track suddenly shifts, and it becomes impossible to tell who reworked what, or how. From the dreamlike opening of "Alzo le mani", a splendid track that carries you into a dream that feels all too real, to the close of the beautiful title track, which seems almost reluctant to end, as if it didn't want this collaboration between three friends to be over.

Accompanied by a sold-out tour of numerous Italian and European arenas, held between autumn 2014 and July 2015 and documented on a substantial dedicated physical release (Il padrone della festa – Live), the experience of sharing the stage gives Gazzè the push to produce a new album. It reaches audiences in October 2015, preceded by a few weeks by the viral single "La vita com'è" (double platinum), a genuine hit that dominates thanks to the usual blend of irony and quality (plus a music video not to be missed).

Maximilian and the sintonica avant-garde

Maximilian (awarded gold disc status) is the elegant title of Gazzè's ninth album, a new project that is as varied as it is remarkably coherent. A self projected into another dimension, dressed in Elizabethan garb yet set within a postmodern backdrop — rather like Gazzè himself, forever caught between singer-songwriter and electronic atmospheres. In this sense the album proves multifaceted, bringing together different sounds, settings and choices, while remaining perfectly cohesive with its author's artistic path, leaning heavily on synthesizers and (live-played) electronics, yet still leaving the artist free to enjoy himself and roam widely.

The result is, in a sense, natural and full of engaging songs, yet it marks yet another attempt to explore new directions. Gazzè, who distinguished himself from the very start of his career with songwriting built on arrangements that rarely followed convention, could have rested on his laurels in a present crowded with prepackaged productions. Instead, he chose to go further.

There's naturally no shortage of tracks more closely tied to the past, such as the already-mentioned "La vita com'è", "Teresa", or the other sharp-witted single "Ti sembra normale" (also certified platinum), but there's much more to be found here.

The synthetic intensity of "Nulla", the acoustic quality of "In breve", or the strings fluttering around the piano notes of "Verso un altro immenso cielo" all offer the reassurance that this is a real record, actually played rather than merely built on software, and above all written with that increasingly rare willingness to let go.

On the live front, 2016 is a time that brings further satisfaction and confirmation.

His fifth child, Guglielmo, is born, and a long, successful tour begins, made up of more than seventy concerts (sold out everywhere), before Gazzè embarks on his first world tour, which takes him to perform on three continents and in major international cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Shanghai.

2017 opens with a new acting role in the film "Lasciami per sempre", directed by Simona Izzo, a featured appearance on Levante's track "Pezzo di me", and continues with what looks like the most ambitious and innovative project of his career: Alchemaya – Un'opera sintonica, an original project conceived and written with the ever-present contribution of his brother Francesco. The work is presented live with the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra of Prague, conducted by his trusted Maestro Clemente Ferrari, and is structured in two parts: the first is an entirely new section, presenting some of the esoteric explorations he has pursued over the past twenty years. The second part, meanwhile, offers tracks drawn from the artist's historic repertoire, rearranged in what he calls a sintonica key, a neologism he coined to describe the integration of symphonic instruments with synthesizers.

"Il diluvio di tutti", "L'anello mancante", "Enuma Elish" are just a few of the singular compositions that sit somewhere between classical music, progressive rock and pop, building this unconventional work crafted by Gazzè's ever-daring mind.

The experience was captured on an official album, which includes the track "La leggenda di Cristalda e Pizzomunno", an ancient, fairy-tale-like story of love and faithfulness between sea and shore - the song with which he took part in the 2018 Sanremo Festival, finishing sixth overall but, more importantly, winning the Giancarlo Bigazzi award, given directly by the orchestra conductors to the best musical composition. The year closed out with his contribution to "Posso", a track by Roman artist Carl Brave.

2021 marked his sixth appearance at the Sanremo Festival. The song he presented, "Il farmacista", was performed together with the Trifluoperazina Monstery Band, finishing in seventeenth place, and was also included on his new album, The mathematics of branches.

The project is the result of a collective effort, born at Rome's historic Terminal 2 studio together with the Magical Mystery Band, a supergroup made up of his friend and fellow artist Daniele Silvestri, Fabio Rondanini (Calibro 35 and Afterhours), Gabrielle Lazzarotti, Duilio Galioto, Daniele Fiaschi and Daniele Tortora.

The record shows the close collaboration between the Roman singer-songwriter, Silvestri and all the other artists involved. While this synergy pushes his approach toward more immediate territory, in some ways more in step with current demands, it also tends to soften that peculiar hermetic, ironic and biting quality of content that has always marked Gazzè's many-sided body of work.

Another aspect that stands out across the record, with real effectiveness, is the excellent musical and sonic construction underpinning most of the tracks on the setlist. Almost every song was recorded live, with little overdubbing, choosing the strongest take among the many performed.

There's no shortage of standout tracks, among which "Figlia" stands head and shoulders above the rest - a moving poem written with his brother Francesco, inlaid with electronic and psychedelic textures created by Daniele Silvestri and the M.M.B.

From there we move from the chansonnier-like elegance of "Attraverso", gently told through piano and guitar notes, to the exploration of the many directions life can take in "Considerando", chiselled over the driving rhythms of a drum machine, or to the distinctive sixties-tinged beat chosen to lay out the troubles of a toxic relationship in "Il vero amore". Melancholy experiences surface in "Le casalinghe di Shangai", where hidden stories unfold within hotlines.

Special mention goes to the cover of "Del mondo" by CSI, the first cover Gazzè has ever released on an official LP; respectful, intense, flawlessly embodied, preserving as much as possible Giovanni Lindo Ferretti's inimitable declamatory charisma, and even expanding on the sonic grandeur of the original with a majestic progressive-tinged instrumental passage. Beyond the excellent reworking, Gazzè's great achievement is bringing into the homes of millions of Italians a piece of Italian indie-rock history, unknown to most, presenting it at the Festival during the evening dedicated to duets and tributes.

The tracklist also fittingly includes the unreleased song he performed at Sanremo, "Il farmacista", perhaps the only track, alongside the dark and powerful tale told in "L'animale guida", to truly fit the talented artist's distinctive, well-known style; a gripping, provocative divertissement aimed at anyone who thinks they always have the answer to every problem.

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