FRANCESCA MICHIELIN - Magia bianca

After a personal and artistic crisis, Francesca Michielin flew to the United Kingdom to build a concept album about witchcraft that links the Middle Ages to contemporary society, also touching on emancipation from society and the music industry. Certainly an intriguing project, it brings together a sophisticated brand of eighties-style pop, with Kate Bush and Enya frequently peeking through, blending it with Branduardi, Battiato, philological research and didactic references.

The medieval merry-go-round of "1484", the year the witch hunts began, points toward sophisticated international pop, somewhere between folk and electronics, with lyrics that occasionally veer over the top ("che tempi di merda"). It drops the listener straight into the fantasy setting that runs through the whole tracklist. The collaboration between Alice and Battiato seems to live again in "Una donna non può", electronic pop with a touch of theatricality.
Venetian folklore takes center stage in "Il canto delle anguane", river nymphs starring in a synthwave borrowed by pop. That the intent is to speak about the present, even venturing into political commentary, becomes clear on "Feral Girl", which perhaps contains the sharpest lines on the record:

We'd need a spell
Against techno-feudalism

The most brazenly pop moment is “Strega comanda”, complete with a nod to Caparezza, a nursery rhyme that's part erotic, part childlike, with other over-the-top lines (“Ma sappi che sono una mistress esoterica”). The most erotic passage, meanwhile, is “Litha”, though the chorus doesn't quite hit the mark and this guise still doesn't feel fully suited to the artist.
The dreamy “Solstizio d’estate”, a little naive in its enchanted arpeggios, and the closing “Magia bianca, magia nera”, a trip-hop track with folk grafts, bring the listen to a rather confused close.

Francesca Michielin wants to shed her skin, and she attempts it with an album that's bold and eccentric in its own way, packed with references, symbols and winks. Themes of identity, freedom and social pressure are tackled in just 25 minutes, somewhere between lines perfectly suited to Pride Month and claims of a change that still seems to be finding its footing. What we're left with, then, is a short album that's more intriguing than fully realized, ambitious yet also naive. In an age of musical homogenization — in pop, at least — it's still something worth respecting.

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24/06/2026