GIULIANO DOTTORI - Lucida

A singer-songwriter with a classically American bent, Giuliano Dottori makes his debut with an album in which, wouldn't you know it, love takes center stage - a universal feeling that, as ever, deserves all the attention and dedication it can get, because it's within its depths that all our strengths and weaknesses take root. "Lucida" is a record with a troubled gestation, and it now comes across as a shifting blend of lightness and brooding melancholy, where the care put into the arrangements and the lyrics reveals an author certainly capable of writing very fine melodies, even if we get the sense that a little more effort is still needed for him to come to terms with his own talent.

Meanwhile, the baroque, odd-time-signature feel of "Rancori e segreti" sits alongside the fairly predictable indie-pop of "Leggera come sai", though elsewhere you'll find a whispered ballad complete with strings and banjo ("Ogni giorno"), the chiaroscuro torpor tinged with existentialism of "Nel cuore del Vulcano", or even an "Endorfina" that still finds time to pay tribute to the Boss. All in all, the hints of a future direction that could certainly turn out more intriguing and convincing.

Introspective, but never self-pitying, Dottori nonetheless already seems to have found a path toward redemption, and music increasingly appears as a vehicle for purging the soul of torment and unease - because, after all, if you run away "only to come back", if you dodge the blows of memory just to avoid getting hurt, you need an outlet, a non-place to settle into and become king without subjects ("Alibi"). As for the city, it's best avoided ("Milano e io"). But to speak of hope, perhaps it's better to be in two; though even the fleeting shadow of a Nick Drake might suffice (the title track), while absence becomes a metaphor for something forever slipping away. Always and in any case ("Come se fossi con me"). In the end, come to think of it, "it was a bit like forgetting" ("E' stato come").

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06/02/2007