Matia Bazar

“Watch this video, turn down your radio.” That's exactly what all of us did, wide-eyed teenagers intoxicated by techno-pop, jolted out of the drowsy stupor induced by the Sanremo parade that nobody, however reluctant to admit it, dared to skip. Sanremo was the taboo festival for younger generations, even more so in 1983 than today. We'd left Antonella Ruggiero with her long curly hair the day after the first signs of an electronic turn (“Berlino, Parigi, Londra”, 1982, which saw the departure of Piero Cassano and the simultaneous arrival of Mauro Sabbione in the line-up) that freed Matia Bazar from the "easy-listening swamp" they'd inhabited until then with mixed results (the gorgeous "Cavallo Bianco" and the embarrassing "Mister Mandarino" are emblematic, two sides of the same coin) — and now we find her again as a retro-synthetic icon at the Italian Song Festival of all places, exactly where common sense would suggest otherwise.

A 1930s hairstyle, a stylized white tailleur adorned with a démodé brooch, matching veiled gloves and hieratic poses. Delightful. Beside her, the band, also dressed in white, its members lined up side by side in the manner of Kraftwerk: the Alpha Syntauri computer screen tethered by a cable to Mauro Sabbione's prêt-à-porter keyboard, the metronomic pulse of Aldo Stellita's electric double bass, the sparse drum pads of Giancarlo Golzi, the austere synthesizer of Carlo Marrale. Of guitars, at least on that stage, not a trace. Unprecedented electronic vibrations amid the light shows of the Teatro Ariston: things never before seen in those parts.

In its astonishing balance between Italian melodic tradition and new pop, "Vacanze Romane" is the song that united generations of listeners worlds apart from one another: nostalgic fathers pining for the kermesses of old, new-romantic children, grandparents steeped in bel canto, all united in listening to this small pop miracle, an evergreen that even today can count on dozens of radio plays and no small amount of fame. But the winning bet doesn't end within the brief span of a 45 rpm single.

So let's try to understand: how did a band tied hand and foot to easy-listening pop manage to brilliantly solve the puzzle, fusing tradition and postmodern style, drawing on foreign influences yet without ever having to copy them?

The answer lies mainly in two names: Mauro Sabbione and Roberto Colombo.

“We were listening to Ultravox, Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Peter Gabriel, but also The B-52's and Italian opera, while we were putting together the new tracks that would form the backbone of the postmodern period culminating in "Vacanze Romane"”. Mauro Sabbione was the new man on keyboards, the one most attuned to new technological impulses, the man who in 1981 replaced Piero Cassano, who by contrast embodied the easy-listening soul of the band, to the point of having penned many of its old hits in the '70s and later, as writer and producer, numerous hits for Eros Ramazzotti.

Roberto Colombo is the artistic producer, an outstanding collaborator of Pfm (he took part, among other things, in the live project of the progressive band with Fabrizio De André), and had already been behind the mixing desk with Ivan Cattaneo on that "Superivan" (1979), a record that would deserve a chapter all of its own.

No less important is Stellita's contribution to the lyrics, crafting around Antonella's voice words that are by turns evocative and playful, innovative yet only seemingly obscure, comparable in part to the intellectualism of Franco Battiato and the verbal divertissements of the Pasquale Panella remembered from his work with Enzo Carella. More than lyrics with a fully resolved meaning, these are emotional frames in which the narrative is concealed within the sound of the words, with the stories reassembling themselves directly in our subconscious.

The rest (and it's no small part) is down to the songwriting, in which the seasoned Golzi and above all Marrale also try their hand, doing their part in stringing together the eight pearls of synth-pop that adorn "Tango".

And so one after another come the detached nostalgia for a time now gone in "Vacanze Romane" ("Roma, antica città/ ora vecchia realtà/ non ti accorgi di me e non sai che pena mi fai"), the humorous surrealism of the synthesizer-driven african reggae of "Palestina" ("L'antico oracolo non sa rispondere/ a quel turista in cerca di un hotel"), the exhilarating charge of "Elettrochoc", whose keyboard refrain would delight Billy Currie, and the diaphanous hermeticism of "Intellighenzia".

The martial cut of "Il Video Sono Io" gives us Antonella duetting with a vocoder, in what would become one of the most replayed TV clips of that season, while "Scacco Un Po' Matto" (here it's the vocoder that doubles the female voice instead), with Sabbione at the forefront, is pure avant-garde europop and probably the album's masterpiece. If "Tango Nel Fango" is the most predictable, most obvious moment, it's the Ultravox-like aura hovering over the epic chorus of "I Bambini Di Poi" that restores the record's high creative standards.

Mediterranean exoticisms caught arm in arm with impeccable Mitteleuropean moods, vocal melodies carried by a voice with few equals on the Italian scene, merging with echoes of synth-pop from across the Channel, cutting-edge instrumentation firmly guided by a production that set a new benchmark: these are the ingredients that make "Tango" an album to remember.

Thirty-six minutes of electroshock for Italian pop music.

This piece is dedicated to the memory of Aldo Stellita (August 2, 1947 – July 9, 1998), an exceptional musician and lyricist, whose premature passing marked its tenth anniversary as we write this.

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02/08/2008