Documentation:
Talking about a project which you are envolved in is always embarassing:
the risk is falling into self-celebration or (it would be my
attitude, as Pierpaolo well knows) being excessively destructive.
It is the reason why I preferred to insert a generous review
which Mario Zappa, the eminent music critic, recently made on
the group.
Giorgio Maone.
Wild irony and poetic sensitivity, iconclastic taste and love for
music: these and other paradoxal marriages surprise and please
during a Rossanova's concert.
Who listen at them can't stop himself dancing not more with his
foot than with his brain: the mind-gymnastic which they compel
you to, by they dissacratory jokes in the covers and the evident
research of an intentionally unstable balance in the original tracks,
can only be compared, among the Italian scene, to a well tuned
"Elio e le storie tese", with less vulgarity and the same "Frank Zappa way" winkings.
The very tight bossa nova version of the classic
"Caruso" by Lucio Dalla or the reggae remake of
"Every Breath You Take" (which, wanted accident, rearrange in
the typical Police style one of the few tracks that deviated
from it) could be a shock to the most traditionalist, but well
express the attitude of the group, which they call proletarian
expropriation of the song.
The musicians are well melted, but the strongest guarantee of
original crazyness in the arrangements comes just from the
differences between their musical roots: the guitarist Max Noto,
has well assimilated the "hypertechnists" lesson, gaining a
synthesis, renewed by melody, from Van Halen, Steve Vay and Satriani.
The other rocker in the band is
the drummer Pierpaolo Rumbolo, who passes like a chamaleon
from the most muscolar sonic boom to the smoother swing.
The Favarò brothers, Francesca on the guitar and Giuseppe on the electric
bass, move the helm to jazz: the former using a bossanova phrasing
and other latin magics, the latter pumping all the funky energy,
both loving madly blues.
The hard job of put together and working so different talents
is in duty of the songwriter and vocalist Giorgio Maone,
whose impressive vocal range allows him to front with confidence
and interpretative sensitivity an unavoidably disparate repertory.
The original tracks are the mirror of this stylistical chaos,
but however they succeed in findinding out a recognizable and
very interestingsound.
Their lyrics oscillate beetween
existentialist poetry and social and political engagement, but
escaping severity and usually searching the laugh.
Among the other ones we can remember "No Problem", little and
sarcastic against Palermo and the other Italian towns, and
"La foglia d'albicocco" [ "The Peacock Leave" ],
dedicated to Alexander Langer, the "Green" member of the
European Parliament who killed himself not long ago.
Mario Zappa.
GIORGIO MAONE - Palermo giorgio@maone.nu
Versione italiana disponibile