MAURO ERMANNO GIOVANARDI - E poi scegliere con cura le parole

Ten years on from his most recent album of original solo material, "My style", Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi delivers his new aesthetic and emotional manifesto. Not that the songwriter from Brianza has been idle over the decade: there was a fine covers album ("La mia generazione", a heartfelt tribute to musician friends of his generation) and the acclaimed return of La Crus in 2024, with "Proteggimi da ciò che voglio". The pandemic certainly slowed him down considerably: in a recent interview, Giovanardi stated that without Covid, "E poi scegliere con cura le parole" would surely have been released several years earlier. The time that passed gave him the chance to refine it, improve it, even re-record some parts, drawing an ever-growing number of valuable collaborators into the process.

First and foremost, credit is due to the wide range of artists who helped write the songs, among them Francesco Bianconi, Colapesce, Kaballà, Cheope, Giuseppe Anastasi and Alessandro Cremonesi, formerly of La Crus (Cesare Malfatti also took part in devising and executing some of the arrangements). Production was shared with Leziero Rescigno, while recording sessions took place at LeLe Battista's studios. The end result is steeped in restraint and elegance, qualities that have always marked Giovanardi's career as a highly refined songwriter in constant pursuit of the perfect pop melody, always keeping an eye on the classic tradition of the finest Italian singer-songwriters, skilfully alternating orchestral arrangements with electronic detours, even though the thirteen tracks were written with extreme simplicity, mostly on piano.

At the heart of the record are Mauro Ermanno's voice, as authoritative as ever, and his modern-classic interpretations, which explore feeling no longer with the fire of youth but with the low, slanting light of experience. Choosing one's words becomes the most important act, as the title itself makes clear, an act of responsibility capable of hugely elevating the dignity of one's own work. These songs convey a sense of "calm urgency", where the running is no longer to arrive first, but to remain human.

Disillusion ("Il buio della pelle") and the frenzy that defines our times ("Veloce") are just the first two themes tackled on the album, which finds its true masterstrokes in the enviable one-two punch steeped in Baustelle-esque atmosphere, "La coscienza della mia generazione"-"Anni zero", and in the superb closer "Ha ragione Schopenhauer", which draws inspiration from the atmospheres that made an album like Dummy by Portishead immortal.

The classicism expressed in "E poi scegliere con cura le parole" is never nostalgic: an impeccable, timeless project that is at once thoroughly contemporary, honouring the tradition its author has consistently upheld. It's a further piece in a distinguished career that confirms Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi as one of 'our' finest craftsmen of the word, able to turn pain and beauty into precious, unexpectedly tangible spaces.

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04/04/2026