BORIS SAVOLDELLI - Biocosmopolitan

That subtle ironic streak, laid out on a harmonic plane tilted by slopes now jazz, now shamelessly urban (in the grittiest sense of the word), then lightly avant-garde, and then, only then, simply pop, is the trademark of one of the best vocalists currently active in the Old Continent.

Boris Savoldelli doesn't disappoint, barely two years on from the excellent "Protoplasmic" - a work in which the fusion of voice and music continued a path marked out by his debut "Insanology" - and he does so by rediscovering a pop attitude for a sound that nonetheless remains a compelling challenge, a sonic conglomerate in which contrasting elements merge to create a single, captivating melody.

The ultimately simple language (the finest of virtues!) of an artist like this is the product of a lexicon whose rules - if there are any - are unspoken paraphrases, vague memories of a grammar that belongs to and concerns others. Not him.

Rhythms entrusted entirely to the voice alternate with exceptional guests, such as the excellent Paolo Fresu ("Concrete Clima" and "Kerouac In New York City"), whose fusion digressions on trumpet and flugelhorn lend "Biocosmopolitan" that nocturnal dimension that Savoldelli seems to toy with thanks to a skillful phrasing - his true trademark - that unfolds in layers without any one of them overpowering the others.

The contribution of a legend like Jimmy Haslip on the title track, by contrast, has the power to steal the scene from a vocal melody woven on blues patterns whose dynamism closely recalls the debut: that "Insanology" which had caught the attention of a certain critical circle that would go on to give the right push to an unassuming-looking young man from Brescia with a lethal set of pipes.

Stepping outside technical considerations for a moment, one of Savoldelli's strengths is certainly not taking himself too seriously, setting foot in a surrealist aesthetic only to then leap straight into territory familiar to names like Bobby McFerrin's "Hush", in which, in turn, classical roots bent to a pure, dazzling, instantly recognizable talent. Savoldelli sets off again from those coordinates to pursue and make his own a dynamism that's aesthetically jazz but quantitatively "other". "Other" than simple a cappella singing, "other" than straightforward avant-garde frenzies, "other" than the conventions of a song form that has no home on "Biocosmopolitan" and which, certainly, is not missed.

The contrast between melody and experimentation makes the album by this one-man voice orchestra a rare gem in a field - the avant-garde - that's perpetually tipped one way or the other, but which rarely manages to strike the balance needed to build what, by definition, "gets there before the rest".

It's hard not to smile listening to the spot-on cover of "Crosstown Traffic", of Hendrix-ian memory. It's hard not to smile because music, as Savoldelli sees it, is a thoroughly and inescapably serious business.

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19/04/2011