De Andre
originally intended to continue his investigation of Mediterranean
folk
music, so successfully explored in 1984's groundbreaking
Creuza de Mae
. However, he felt that such a task would distance him from committing to record his opinion on the political upheaval going on in Europe and in Italy at the time of the fall of the Berlin wall. Since he was equally keen on both counts, he conceived a new project, loosely inspired on Aristophanes' play
The Clouds
.
divided
Le Nuvole
into two mini-suites, one per each side. The first one, sung in Italian, deals with the desolate state of current affairs in Italy, where moral decadence and political corruption had managed to contaminate all ideologies, rendered now effectively meaningless. The second side, sung in Genoese, Sardinian, and Neapolitan dialect, consists of a series of
tales, in the vein of
. If
had considerably slowed down his output since the early '80s, he compensated with a rise of his already notorious fastidious perfectionism.
involved a cast of dozens of musicians, as well as three arrangers,
Mauro Pagani
,
Piero Milesi
, and
Sergio Conforti
Pagani
, the musical brain behind
also was also credited as co-composer, and
Massimo Bubola
and
Ivano Fossati
collaborated on the texts of three songs.
took four years to complete, but it was worth the wait: it is probably the most superbly arranged album of the entire
discography. Musically, it spreads from Viennese
waltzes
and Neapolitan songs from the 18th century to
orchestral
pieces and
songs played on ethnic instruments. While every track in
is ostensibly great, and the diversity of styles showcases
's impressive versatility, the record's hybrid nature makes it sound like two different albums instead of a single cohesive masterpiece. The first side brilliantly updates
's topical songwriter credentials, adding a few more classics to the catalog in the process such as
"Don Raffae'"
"La Domenica Delle Salme."
This last song is a perfect political counterpoint to
's autobiographical classic
"Amico Fragile,"
built around a similar tremolo pattern. It is also equally harrowingly sarcastic in tone, a seven-and-a-half minute clenched-teeth fresco of contemporary society plagued by organized violence, racial intolerance, immoral opportunism, and social and political indifference. The second side is less immediately impressive (or disturbing), but it is full of beautiful, reflective passages as well as superb vocal performances and arrangements. Indeed, as his simply gorgeous rendition of
"La Nova Gelosia"
(an ancient Neapolitan song rediscovered by
Roberto Murolo
) can attest,
has seldom sung better than on this record. ~ Mariano Prunes