I Cani - The Midas Touch of it-pop

In 2010, the word "indie" hasn't yet entered everyday language in Italy. But there's a strange feeling in the air. The more or less alternative rock scene has exhausted its power to bring people together, no longer able to rebuild itself on the ashes of the last mass-identity movement (emo), which collapsed too soon into caricature, instantly dulling all its counter-cultural force. Pop drifts along in flimsy, vacuous productions, swamped by the long wave of talent-show graduates, who are moreover still utterly incapable of opening up to contemporary sounds. Rappers are holding their ground, though they're not exactly living through a golden age. The new wave of singer-songwriters thus becomes a last anchor for those with (sometimes forced) intellectual pretensions. The savvier ones take refuge in electronic offshoots, the only prospect that seems to make any real sense. Italian music is, in short, living through a state of confusion that is perhaps without precedent. The "scenes" — once genuine urban and suburban communities just a few years earlier — have all but gone extinct as a mass phenomenon. This confusion is probably the product of many factors, some internal to the record industry itself (think of access to and consumption of music, by now without limits or selectivity), others perhaps the effect of the huge shifts in social and communicative dynamics brought about by the advent of social networks. In such a scenario of flooding information, content and impulses, it becomes unthinkable to keep insisting that music can still hold well-defined shapes. The audience is, as never before, heterogeneous in taste and homogeneous in aesthetics, rejecting uniforms and icons. Sure, unshakeable purists of every stripe remain, and niches survive (some even fairly thriving). But the vast majority, especially of the new generation, asks for nothing more than to see their own small, everyday discomforts reflected back simply and immediately, without having to answer to any particular canon.

That sense of confusion is the feeling hanging in the air. But some manage to grasp it. There is hybridization, there is fluidity — in everything, music included. So someone starts playing in a different way; a way that doesn't carry any particular innovation within it, but reflects exactly that breaking-down of boundaries and that speed of messaging demanded in the age of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. What changes is the approach. Above all, the language and the communication, which, to keep pace with the times, must free themselves from stylistic rigor.

Banished are the clichés of "hard rock", "saccharine pop", "street punk", the "gangsta rapper", the "DJ who does electronic music". Everything merges and blurs together, going well beyond the limits already reached by any other crossover formula of the near or distant past. The key to reaching a mass audience is, naturally, pop. But it needs a new media guise, a banner that can somehow take on a certain identity-value, even in a historical moment when identity itself is elusive. And so that word mentioned at the start gets dug back up: indie. A term still tied to subcultures, but one that becomes the ideal vehicle for conveying the new pop aesthetic. Which, in its contradiction, makes a certain sense: it reflects the need for an "alternative" appearance, even while embedded in a context of total conformity, and it honors, if nothing else, the concept of non-genre and non-belonging that indie has always expressed (it will be the journalistic overuse of years to come that finally dissolves this dichotomy for good).

What is taking shape in Italy, however, is not the Anglo-Saxon idea of indie-pop (a nuance that, on home soil, might possibly be traced back to the early work of bands like Baustelle and Perturbazione); it is simply pop, however indefinitely contaminated, that uses indie merely as a pretext. But this should not be understood negatively (at least not in the genre's first concrete developments); indeed, it represents a distinctive element that, seen from the right angle, can be considered admirable.

As always happens, whoever taps into their own moment wins. Against this backdrop, Rome proves rather lively; specifically, in 2010, people start talking about a band going by the name I Cani. At least, we all initially think it's a band when, under this moniker, two tracks start circulating on YouTube and SoundCloud: "I pariolini di diciott'anni" and "Wes Anderson". There are no photos, no information. Just images of four-legged animals uploaded to the profile and, indeed, the aforementioned songs, which — in no time at all — go round the web, becoming one of the first "viral cases" applied to Italian music.

This is the first sign of an evolving novelty. Not so much — as already mentioned — in terms of content; these are in fact rather simple, melancholic electro-pop tracks, played at punk tempos (a description endorsed by the author himself in later interviews), recorded in lo-fi quality and sung in a baritone somewhere between the emphasis of Bianconi and the natural half-falsetto of Gazzè. Put like that, it might sound like an indigestible mix, and indeed there will be no shortage of people who dismiss the project outright. But alongside the critics and the indifferent, a small army starts to rally. The songs strike a chord and bounce around far and wide, first in the capital, then across all of Italy.

On one hand, that melting pot — a bit rough in form but refined in intent — wins over a fairly varied audience hungry for dimensions and approaches different from the usual. But what really stands out is the storytelling (which has the merit of matching the sound perfectly); I Cani's songs genuinely know how to tell the new generations something, in exactly the way they want to hear it told. "I pariolini di diciott'anni" is a sarcastic, sharp and perfectly sincere portrait of a certain kind of bourgeois youth, where the initial cynicism ("The eighteen-year-old Parioli kids buy and sell cocaine [...] driven by a generic yet authentic fascism, evidenced for instance by the stickers on their helmets [...] they make little films with their girlfriends, because even if it's not love, that doesn't mean it's worthless, as is only logical") gives way to a quietly sweet, nostalgic indulgence ("They are the last true romantics"). The reference to Parioli is the first evidence of how Rome rises up as a primary poetic element (the criticism of excessive "Roman-ness" would be repeatedly leveled at I Cani's early work), but in reality the song's portrayal is powerfully universal for the context it depicts. With "Wes Anderson", the device of the Texan director reveals a deep understanding of the emblematic symbols of that hipster generation being addressed — disillusioned amid pastel colors and caught in an eternal post-adolescence.

The game of anonymity goes on for a while, naturally stirring growing curiosity. Along the path leading to the release of the first album, still without a name or a face, there are also the first public appearances, identity strictly protected by a paper bag over the head (which would be removed for the first time at the Mi Ami Festival — soon to become the sanctuary of that new Italian-style "indie" sensibility).

It will gradually emerge that I Cani isn't even a band, but rather the artistic project of a single individual: Niccolò Contessa.

Twenty-four years old in 2010, the son of a teacher and an official at the Bank of Italy, and raised in Rome's Municipio II, Contessa has several abilities going for him; first and foremost, that of observation. His corner of the city is the ideal vantage point for understanding young people, especially when the one standing watch is a young person himself, armed with an easygoing critical eye. His observation post sits in one of the most bourgeois and affluent neighborhoods of the capital, yet at the same time a major crossroads for both local and out-of-town students, facing both the city center and the trendy semi-peripheries undergoing gentrification. Contessa finds all the most interesting and vibrant humanity flowing past him; the humanity that heads out in the evening to the reserved VIP room at the club, as well as the humanity heading toward the social centers of San Lorenzo or Prenestina. He watches it and gets under its skin, because, deep down, his exercise is above all an analysis of himself. Because he's there too, among the stories he tells. Only, probably more disenchanted and disillusioned than his peers.

Musically speaking, it's hard to trace his influences in any single direction. Contessa is someone who could speak knowledgeably about the latest radio-rap phenomenon just as easily as about Slint and Gastr Del Sol. He's a figure who has, over the years, proven rather reserved: there aren't many interviews (or other kinds of testimony) that reveal much about him. What does clearly emerge is a highly cultured profile. On the other hand, his modus operandi also shows a certain utilitarian awareness (itself to be understood as a sign of artistic intelligence), applied precisely to what we mentioned earlier: the choice of means of communication and of a particular language.

At the end of 2010, when there still seems to be no settled direction for I Cani, another track is released: "Il pranzo di Santo Stefano". Another small social portrait, in tones no less bittersweet but calmer, without the pop-punk frenzy of the songs already in circulation; one could say, in a sense, that this track contains the seed of a sound that would later be dubbed "Calcutta-esque" (and in this story, Contessa would play an essential role, not just as an influence).

While a certain mystery continues to hang over I Cani, preparation for the proper debut album proceeds according to a schedule that was probably well thought out. Recorded, mixed and mastered between Rome and Bologna (except for a few tracks for which the home-recorded take is kept) with production by Giacomo Fiorenza (no small name in both the new and old indie scene), I Cani's striking debut album comes to life, released in June 2011, bringing together eleven tracks, including the three already known ones. Many things clearly suggest that Contessa has a particularly clear idea of the communicative dynamics to follow. The record comes out on 42 Records, a label apparently chosen precisely because of its close attention to new ways of consuming and spreading music. It's no coincidence that, beyond the episodes already mentioned that made the I Cani phenomenon go viral throughout the run-up to the album's release (a perfect example of hype-building), some particular choices are made for the launch — choices that were anything but obvious in Italy in 2011. The first video, in fact, is shot entirely using the Hipstamatic app and is published as an exclusive preview for Wired. A celebration of hipster and nerd culture, the true target audience. It's no coincidence that the song in question is titled "Hipsteria", whose video stars (another highly representative detail of a certain logic) a next-generation web-hero, Luigi Di Capua of The Pills.

"Hipsteria" (which opens the album, right after the homemade intro "Theme from the cameretta") echoes the structure of the very first tracks uploaded to SoundCloud a year earlier, and above all lays out a powerful, truthful iconography, lining up a series of images and cultural references in which the target listeners will effortlessly recognize themselves: stories written on a MacBook Pro, dreams of emigrating to seek one's fortune (or simply to escape), reading David Foster Wallace in the park, Lomo cameras, Polaroids, listening to Daniel Johnston at four in the morning. Contessa paints, as no one before him had managed to do, that lower-to-middle bourgeois generation of alternative or pseudo-alternative types, somewhat intellectual or clumsily intellectual-ish, who need to see themselves reflected not in the sacred fervor of some rock subculture or in purely singer-songwriter-style laments, but in the reassurance of pop. And although that signature sound — halfway between synth-electro-pop orchestration and pop-punk speed — is largely repeated verbatim in nearly every track on the album, and wouldn't be of particularly striking interest on its own, it amounts to an abrupt (perhaps even hasty) synthesis of the entire new "indie" wave about to take off in Italy, and Contessa manages to carve it out in a catchy, irresistible way — so much so that it sounds fun in contrast with the bittersweet youthful spleen that dominates the record.

In I Cani's surprising debut album, there's also an awful lot of Rome, to the point that the objection of those who argue that some of the dynamics depicted may be lost on anyone unfamiliar with the city is not unfounded. Contessa's characters move among the Capital's alt-cool outposts, from the central ones (Monti) to the semi-peripheral ones (Pigneto). In his peculiar storytelling, there's not a trace of any Pasolini-like undertone. That very Pigneto which Pasolini himself described as "the crown of thorns girding the City of God" has by now become an uncontrolled temple of radical chic trends. No working-class passion here, just middle-class decadence dressed up for the occasion. I Cani's surprising debut album is a "Grande Bellezza" in hipster format. Everything starts from Contessa's North Rome (portrayed in a dedicated track, with noise textures straight out of a black hole), but nothing stops there.

However, contrary to what many have tried to claim, Contessa neither judges nor mocks nor ridicules the subjects he brings to life. Often, in fact, these are figures with markedly autobiographical traits. His portraits are as dispassionate as they are full of pietas. His snapshots are raw and at times ferocious, but always deeply human and engaged. Some have become small textbook sociological case studies (true instant classics, alongside those already mentioned): "Le Coppie", "Post Punk" and above all "Velleità". Those pretensions that "help us get laid when you're not really rich nor really poor", in a parade of masks from which no one is spared:

Music critics now have blogs

The artists hanging around Circolo degli Artisti

Fake nerds wearing nerd glasses

The radical chic without the radical

Nihilists with a cocktail in hand

Who dream of being as famous as Vasco Brondi

Who, leaning against the wall, talks to someone else's girlfriend

Anorexics in fashion, anorexics out of fashion

Bulimics who work in fashion

While aspiring DJs snort coke

Aspiring actresses sigh languidly

With TV writers, interns at Fox, music video directors

The failures, the disappointed, the depressed, the frustrated

Recycled emos

Hipster, indie, hardcore bands

Punk, electro-pop, I Cani

Those nihilists with a cocktail in hand are us, are you, are them. We're all of them. Being from Rome and knowing what Circolo degli Artisti meant only really helps to understand a bit more about certain specific scenes. Contessa investigates and perfectly portrays the anxieties, poses, discomforts, illusions, disillusions, neuroses, feelings, lies, stereotypes and paranoia of those who were twenty years old in the 2010s of the new millennium. And he does it in the pop style most suited to the era.

The album promptly enters the Fimi top 20 of best-selling digital records. By now the stone has been cast, and the ripples it generates on the surface of the water have the ambivalent quality of being both a shockwave that dangerously spreads out to sea and, at the same time, a healthy gust of fresh air. Whether he likes it or not, with this debut album Contessa leaves his mark, and nothing will ever be the same again.

In 2012, fresh off their first warm reception, I Cani took part in the covers compilation of 883 organized by Rockit, "Con Due Deca". It falls to them to sing the famous track chosen - revised - as the title of the compilation, taken from the historic debut album of Pezzali and Repetto's band, "Hanno ucciso l'Uomo Ragno", from 1992. A chronicler of Rome's everyday life, Contessa also proves at ease recounting the ills of the Milanese provinces, delivering a convincing and personal take on the track.

In the same period, the decision to release a split EP with Gazebo Penguins (I Cani non sono i Pinguini non sono i Cani, April 2012) set off a process of inner and outer transformation.

I Cani would no longer be an entity run in total autonomy; at least as far as arrangements go, sharing the vision with others would become the tool to unlock and project the reflections that kept flowing abundantly from Niccolò's mind toward new horizons - territories that, as would soon become clear, would start to focus less on the world surrounding Contessa and more on digging in detail into the dark recesses of the Roman songwriter's own psyche.

Glamour is the title of the sophomore album, released in October 2013.

As the artist himself stated in some interviews, the album's content was heavily influenced by the work of fellow artists Baustelle, released that same year - that "Fantasma" which had somewhat ruffled the feathers of the old guard following the Tuscan band, but which was objectively a work of absolute complexity and depth.

In this context, Contessa tackles compositions that are certainly more musically elaborate (the production by Enrico Fontanelli of Offlaga Disco Pax is clearly noticeable), but which retain that sharp insistence on communicating his own lyrics with the uniqueness that was gradually making him, after just one album, a forefather of modern Italian songwriting.

The opener "Introduzione" is the classic litmus test of I Cani's new direction, which seems to reconcile itself, in an entirely personal way, with the stylistic conventions imposed by Italian song:

⟦Q1⟧

⟦Q2⟧

⟦Q3⟧

because even the little we know is better than nothing

The distribution of the interesting lead single "Non c’è niente di twee" is carried out through the sharing of a secret link outside the Alcatraz in Milan, during an Editors concert in October 2013. The regrets running through the lyrics are a clear confirmation that, to paraphrase part of the song's own title, one shouldn't expect anything saccharine, soft, or "Glamour" — quite the opposite.

"Corso Trieste" is the manifesto with which Contessa settles his accounts with his own adolescence: a perfect emo track on which he's joined, unsurprisingly, by Gazebo Penguins, in a reflection poised between the uncertainties of adulthood and the more brazen ones of youth, when the only worries were, at most, family arguments, trouble at school, or the first budding romantic emotions and disappointments. Then things get more complicated, to the point that, as an adult, you don't even remember why you have a lump in your throat, recalling with nostalgia the genuineness of those old anxieties:

In faccia ho freddo mentre sotto la mia giacca sudo

e ho un groppo in gola ma non so perché

now I can't remember why anymore

The starting point for everything, however, is to be found in "Storia di un impiegato," the true linchpin and pivotal track of the album. The clear De André-esque reference (not the only quotation within the song — see also Diaframma's "Gennaio," as well as a self-quotation from "Door Selection") marks perhaps the darkest episode ever to come from Niccolò's pen. A story that contrasts those who make art their trade, amid a thousand doubts, with those who aim for the certainties of a more standardized job, whether by nature or necessity:

In vacanza un’estate ho scoperto

Che esiste gente che fa i concorsi

E non concorsi tipo Premio Tenco

Ma concorsi tipo il Ministero

Considerato che non sono un artista

And you can't live on pipe dreams

Mi ritrovai con un lavoro vero

Uno di quelli proprio senza glamour

It's precisely this kind of posturing — of those who seek their calling in artistic expression — that lies at the heart of "Storia di un artista," a track that clearly draws on the tragic story of Piero Manzoni (and here Baustelle's “Un romantico a Milano” is once again invoked), the notorious figure of modern art, less famous than his namesake, the writer Alessandro, who carries Contessa beyond the beloved and despised walls of the Eternal City and transports him to another reference city, that Milan which represents the epicentre of contradictions, of those who search for a glimmer of brightness in the ephemeral:

You were a genius, an artist

You were rich and spoiled

You were a true prophet

You were a drunk

We celebrate you every year

With bourgeois exhibitions

With profile pictures

With degree theses

Between an eccentric and unusual pseudo-scientific text on the futility of those who romantically voice their wishes to shooting stars (“San Lorenzo”) and the renewed ambient featuring of Cris X on “Roma Sud” and “Theme From Koh Sansui,” the album closes honourably with the pairing of “FBYC (Sfortuna)” and “Lexotan,” two tracks that, for different reasons, offer further fuel for fresh reflection. The first track pays blatant homage to Fine Before You Came (stringing together a series of references to the lyrics of their signature album, “Sfortuna”), loved viscerally by Contessa for their ability to lend solemnity to the most pedestrian aspects of everyday life, the moments in which one senses that an individual's existential struggles are in fact shared by everyone, and therefore worthy of far wider consideration:

I'm afraid of the dark

Especially on stage

That my friends will forget me

And of those I forget myself

And then I fear success

But not as much as failure

Maybe that's why I spend my life saying I don't care

The genius of Contessa's songwriting fully blossoms in the lyrics of "Lexotan", which frame the mood and state of mind of a youth that disguises its anxieties behind a forced happiness, an illusory cure-all for every ill, but one that ultimately reveals itself as a devious mirage, capable - in a way - of flattening out the peaks produced by fluctuating passions. A kind of mournful order, useful for staying afloat, but one that leaves a bitter aftertaste at the bottom of a desire that is as longed-for as it is fleeting and artificial:

If I get tachycardia on the ring road

I'll try to remember that

Despite everything there is

Our stupid

Improbable happiness

Our not-at-all photogenic happiness

Silly, ridiculous, pathetic, mediocre, inadequate, inadequate...

With Glamour, then, an evolution takes place that doesn't satisfy all the early followers. Those expecting an album that would keep cataloguing the ins and outs of that undefined society, those stories stripped of passion and crammed with classifications, instead found themselves dealing with a private form of being, more emotional and in a sense more concrete, since it was freed from the estrangement and distortion of the surrounding world.

If, on one hand, I Cani's poetics begin to take on more intimate tones (reaching their expressive peak in this sense with the following Aurora), on the other, Contessa starts trying his hand at new roles - chief among them, producer. And from his very first attempt he proves to have the Midas touch, putting his name on one of the albums (or perhaps we should say "the album") that will permanently change the course of Italian pop: Edoardo D'Erme's Mainstream, aka Calcutta. The debut of the singer-songwriter from Latina undeniably represents the most important turning point for Italian pop songwriting of the last decade, at a time when it was still largely at the mercy of a taste dating back two generations. While it's true that, with hindsight, we can say Italian music has a "before" and an "after" Calcutta, it's equally true that before all of that, there was Niccolò Contessa.

First of all, the aesthetic of "Mainstream" benefits from the mainstreaming of sounds and poetics that Contessa (not alone in this, but with more impact than any of his contemporaries) had already expressed on I Cani's first two albums. Compared to those records, Calcutta's style is stripped of frantic punk accelerations, but fully inherits the imprinting of a sound that strips pop down to the bone within an "indie" framework, while also drawing on a minimalist, direct lyricism - less erudite and allusive than Contessa's, but perfectly suited to postmodern youth communication. Beyond mere stylistic influence, though, Contessa gets his hands directly on "Mainstream", acting as producer alongside Marta Venturini.

The metamorphosis of Italian pop thus reaches its definitive point of no return, with Niccolò Contessa as the main ferryman and deus ex machina of this transition. His production work for Calcutta will stop right there with "Mainstream" (at least as far as official collaborations go), but Contessa will go on working with other artists on the national scene. Particularly worth noting is his work with Coez, another leading name of the new commercial circuit, for whom Contessa will produce his most successful albums ("Faccio un casino" and "È sempre bello"), also contributing to the writing of several tracks. This cements an intuition - one that would soon become dominant - within the new "indie"-clad pop: flirting with carefree, easy-listening rap.

Meanwhile, though, Contessa doesn't abandon his work as a singer-songwriter, delivering, in 2016, I Cani's third album.

Aurora has everything it needs to be the final chapter of a trilogy. The deepest, most complex and emotionally devastating chapter. A cold sense of absolute ending with no way out, sublimated by the icy neon that merges with the eye lost in the galaxy of the cover art, conceived by Valerio Bulla (the band's bassist and former member of Ancien Regime).

Contessa composes a refined, cultured pop third act, somewhere between “Protobodhisattva” and “Calabi-Yau”. The soft, muted electronics are built to support the dramas and sorrows of the narrating voice, ready to reckon with “Il posto più freddo”. Aurora is an album dominated by a sense of disorientation, whether that of the “Baby Soldato” models or of the author himself, who confesses:

Quindi basta cercare

La notte su Google il mio nome

Io non voglio più guardare

Inside me there's nothing at all

Miliardi di mondi esistono ancora

Miliardi di vite per fallire ancora

What still stands out today, on an album whose flow is smooth and coherent throughout, is the title track, placed right at the heart of the work and ready to fade out on that old-modem interference at the end.

But let's get back to the sense of ending: the end of a story, the end of the universe. The tone, however, is gentle, almost composed in its telling. The final couplet, introduced by the instrumental “Ultimo Mondo”, lines up “Finirà” and “Sparire”. The first reopens the wound of a cosmic malaise, the second, with aching tenderness, brings down the curtain on the eye on the cover:

And this time when I close my eyes I don't want to dream

perché pure a sparire ci si deve abituare

That Aurora is a great Italian record (among the best of recent years) is beyond dispute. Whether or not it's the final chapter of a trilogy, that much we can't yet know.

In the years to come, Contessa would grow increasingly elusive; 2018 saw the release of the poignant single “Nascosta in piena vista”, which would feature in the soundtrack of the film “Troppa grazia”, following on from the track “Torta di noi”, written for “La felicità è un sistema complesso” (which even earned a David di Donatello nomination), and paving the way for an intense run of film-scoring work (most recently, the soundtrack for Pietro Castellitto's “I predatori”, which brought another David nomination).

The only subsequent releases from I Cani amount to a handful of tracks dropped without warning (just like the old days) on YouTube and SoundCloud: “Un altro Dio”, “Alla fine del sogno” (a title that seemed to hint at the lights going out for good) and “Fiore”, which instead rekindled hopes of a comeback.

It's precisely this idea of being "hidden in plain sight" that seems to fit a figure like Contessa to a tee. However elusive and hard to read his intentions are regarding the future of I Cani, the Roman artist keeps pressing ahead at full steam with his work as a producer. Another young and talented Roman songwriter produced by Contessa is Giorgio Quarzo Guarascio, aka Tutti Fenomeni. Both his albums were released by 42 Records, and they show Guarascio's original narrative flair perfectly complemented by Contessa's work. Tutti Fenomeni moves stylishly through a world where trap and singer-songwriter traditions walk hand in hand with wordplay and cultured references, creating a winning mix. After the overwhelmingly positive response to his debut "Merce Funebre", the duo reunite for a second act titled "Rare privilege", where lush, intricate arrangements define every track - just listen to the gorgeous work done on the title track, or the Daft Punk-esque touch on "Il grande Modugno".

In the hope of surprises that might give a structured sequel to I Cani's discography, it's only right to remember the role Niccolò Contessa has played in the Italian pop scene. Contessa has embodied a self-fulfilling prophecy; his vision managed to capture every nuance of the new world, shaping it into music and stories that latched onto a present-day reality Italian pop simply couldn't grasp. In his own way he was a trailblazer, an innovator, a generational chronicler, before going on to prove himself, with the arrival of maturity, one of the most refined pens in contemporary Italian songwriting.

But deep down, we've grown up too; perhaps still nihilists, but no longer with a cocktail in hand, shutting ourselves away in the coldest spot with no desire to go out at night, begging someone to stay with us. Niccolò Contessa has sung countless stories that could belong to any of our lives. If everything - as it should - keeps evolving and changing, an indelible trace of it will remain regardless. And the moment will come when we stop and feel all that nostalgia knocking at the door.

2025 – Post Mortem

"The surprising return of I Cani" opens with a line of dialogue from Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker": and yet, the film that comes to mind the moment I hit "play" and "io" kicks in is "Once Upon a Time in America". Partly because I find it hard to shake off Sergio Leone no matter what I'm doing, partly because of that epic line: "What have you done in all these years?"

Contessa gives part of the answer right in the track mentioned above. After all, despite the fact that his activity has never really stopped - between productions, soundtracks and collaborations - with a title like "post mortem" one can't help but wonder just how close the I Cani project came to its final stop. I myself, writing in the immediate aftermath about Aurora (2016) for the retrospective on our site,

framed it - given the mood and the themes - as a final chapter. And for nine years, that's exactly what it was. The final stop, however, was diverted at the very last minute, out of nowhere, just as the album itself was released. With no promotion to speak of

and the music at the center of everything. Good. So, without getting lost in memories of how great Italian indie was back in 2016, what is the music like inside post mortem?

Niccolò Contessa - assisted in production by Andrea Suriani - is the one-man band behind every track. After the aching confession of "io", the "buco nero", all acidic, convulsive electronics, reveals glimpses of everyday life and existential reflection.

Every word is distilled from life and silence, and the result is lyrics that swing between introspection and caustic reflection, alternating gentler moments with more agitated ones. On the gentler side, "felice" stands out, with that timid vocal carried along by a galloping bassline. On the other side, there's "f.c.f.t.", opened by cinematic synths, and "nella parte del mondo in cui sono nato".

The arrangements and melodic choices are first-rate: just listen to how "colpevole" unfurls, or the trauermarsch (as Tutti Fenomeni, also produced by Contessa, would put it) of "carbone", while with wry self-awareness - on "colpo di tosse" or "madre" - he delivers Pop with a capital P.

As the record nears its end, with the near-dark-wave of "buio", one can't help but wonder - as in the finale of the first season of True Detective - whether darkness or light comes out on top. And with the closing of "un'altra onda", with that so delicate guitar, "the light's winning".

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