Enzo Carella

What will you love me with, fever or consumption?

Take the brain at the forehead amid the confusion

Kiss me at the throat with your best mouth

But it's the asthma that drips onto my heart like lead

(Enzo Carella, "Malamore", 1977)

Devotees and connoisseurs of Italian music know perfectly well that from the sumptuous archive holding its centuries-old history, gems of absolute value often surface or, as in this case, resurface, hidden among dusty crevices or only rarely and belatedly celebrated. Artistic examples that can range from the most classic singer-songwriter tradition to avant-garde expression with remarkable ease, sometimes even more renowned beyond our beloved borders. Enzo Carella's file is filed under singer-songwriters, but his inclusion in that category, entirely legitimate, calls for some further exploration, which can certainly begin with his debut album, "Vocazione", a record that back in 1977 attempted to chart new horizons for Italian pop music.

The name of Vincenzo Carella, born in Rome on 8 January 1952 (the city that, sadly, also recorded his death, which occurred on 21 February 2017 from cardiac arrest), must however run parallel to that of Pasquale Panella - yes, the very same cultured and controversial poet who was the protagonist of the second phase of Lucio Battisti's career, the post-Mogol phase, to be precise.

The artistic partnership between Carella and Panella, which later blossomed into a deep and lasting friendship, first took shape in 1976, thanks to the intervention of manager and producer Alfonso Bettini, who had a flash of genius and foresight in noticing that the inspired melodist and singer Enzo Carella could fit perfectly with the refined flair of lyricist Panella, still far removed from the music world at the time: when two great talents, eccentric and complementary in their own ways, merge their distinctive qualities, something unusual - often extraordinary - is bound to emerge.

An artistic collaboration that saw its first official outcome with the 1976 single "Fosse vero/ Si rivede ragazza", which met with modest radio success, but which reached its peak exactly in the eight tracks that made up the full-length debut "Vocazione", as mentioned above, released the following year.

Enzo Carella was a singer-songwriter probably too advanced for his time. His rich, light musical aesthetic, built mainly on skilled guitar work and steeped in a wealth of rhythmic ideas, was now rounded out by Panella's avant-garde vocabulary - metaphorical, enigmatic, and also puzzle-like, full of quotations and wordplay; an appealing pairing, perhaps excessive for that historical moment, as confirmed by the scant response the album received at the time.

"Vocazione" was an album that looked to the future almost without being aware of it. A debut that brought the classic breath of novelty to Italian pop music, suddenly enriched by a number of unusual stylistic elements, until then considered incompatible with one another: funk, jazz, progressive rock, black music, even touching on hints of psychedelia.

The production by Marco Luberti and the aforementioned Alfonso Bettini, together with a prestigious backing band (Carlo Pennisi of Perigeo on guitar, Fabio Pignatelli on bass and Agostino Marangolo on drums, both coming from Goblin), as well as the contribution of Paolo Rustichelli on keyboards, helped expand an already substantial flow of ideas. An unrivalled succession of little pop gems in which the velvety arrangements flow with such ease that they conceal the sheer craftsmanship behind the lyrical and musical structures.

Carella's delivery on these tracks is comparable to a faint whisper, caressing, a further touch of mastery, given the ease with which it blends into the complex musical structures - the true master key that still makes this work feel ultramodern today, far more so than many other episodes too quickly labelled as indie-pop.

From the tracks in question, “Malamore” stands out with sheer force, the most striking distillation yet of the Carella/Panella partnership. A song with not a single flaw, blending the sinister freshness of Carella's melodies with Panella's decidedly convoluted lyrics.

“Malamore” got fairly heavy radio play and brought considerable attention to the Roman singer-songwriter. Many discovered his talent and his style, so delicate, streaked with countless nuances melted into a polished pop sound, something halfway between Renato Zero, Steely Dan and, as we'll see later why, Lucio Battisti.

Incidentally, “Malamore” enjoyed a second life thanks to the cover version recorded by Colapesce for his 2012 “A wonderful decline”, and above all thanks to the excellent reworking that Riccardo Sinigallia came up with in 2019 for the soundtrack of the Netflix film “The ruthless one”.

The album's tracklist is nothing but memorable moments.

The already-mentioned debut single “Fosse vero”, a track with a serpentine melody, with Pignatelli's swirling bass lines driving lyrics steeped in learned, mischievous turns of phrase:

Questo nome questo gesto questa cortesia

Questo passo questo dire

Questa tua mania

Con la gonna che si muove

Ma senza parole

L’ombra scende in basso

Dove cambierai colore

the intricate harmonic structures of the title track, an eccentric yet fascinating fusion of pop-rock and black music:

L’aldilà è un ponte sulle lavandaie

Odor di sapone e di santità

Chastity is a white cloth that dries itself

Over a grass of hallelujah

serve as the flagship for numerous episodes where the irrationality of sounds and content reigns supreme. Take for example the visionary manias of "Guarda l'uccellino", the Latin-flavored "La serietà", the divertissement of "L'anima pagliacciona", or the more incisive "Il sud è un'infanzia sudata", with its long instrumental coda where the distinguished musicians gave free rein to their skills — episodes that prove to be genuine litmus tests of the complex instrumental structures that Carella knew how to build on Panella's cryptic lyrics:

In the time of blackberries

One died slowly in the sun

Heat that

evaporated one's age

Thirty minutes of pure surrealism, in which Panella's musings find their place amid Carella's symmetrical architectures, dominated by soft, relaxed nuances, though it's not hard to spot oases of sensuality, irony and languid psychedelic acidity.

Listening to and analyzing "Vocazione" explains without much doubt why Lucio Battisti went so far as to openly envy the Roman artist and his debut work, so complex, modern and yet accessible, to the point of literally calling it, in interviews of the time: "The record I always wished I had written". Battisti, in hiring Pasquale Panella for his long-desired experimental and, sadly, final phase of his career, backed up that statement with facts — further proof of the frequent debts that the records of the songwriter from Poggio Bustone's Panella era owe to Carella's far less trumpeted work.

For anyone who has never had the chance before, the journey into Carella's world should continue at least with the next two albums, "Barbara e altri Carella", which includes the other big hit "Barbara", a song that sensationally placed second at the Sanremo Festival in 1979, and the even more sophisticated "Sfinge" from 1981. A long wave that rippled through Italian pop of the 1980s and still forcefully reaches all the way to today.

Listening, just to pick one sample, to the 2021 Sanremo hit by Colapesce/Dimartino, "Musica leggerissima", it's immediately clear how this kind of stylistic structure draws heavily from Carella's blueprints, even more than forty years on.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the album "Vocazione" is not available on the major digital platforms, but fortunately some excellent reissues have recently been released, both on vinyl and CD, which are probably preferable as a direct approach to this work, given the great care taken with the cover and inner artwork, all designed by Enzo Carella, who besides being a superb musician was also a skilled painter. A slight but not insurmountable obstacle to enjoying this still too-overlooked masterpiece of Italian music, considered avant-garde at the time and simply modern today.

A remark, as sharp as ever, that Pasquale Panella made a few years ago recalling his partner and friend Enzo Carella, is perhaps the best possible farewell: "There are quite a few singers. Enzo Carella is the least 'quite a few' of them all".

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

22/01/2023