Reaching the fourteenth recording chapter without slipping into the obvious and nostalgia is a balancing act that Federico Zampaglione and his sound form of Tiromancino faces with the confidence of someone who no longer has anything to prove in the panorama of Italian auteur pop.
“When I Least Expect It” stands out as one of the most accomplished works of his recent career, a record that crosses genres and suggestions with ease: from blues to rock, from country to electronica, from reggae to the typical nuances of 70s songwriting.
Eleven unreleased songs make up a coherent and skilful mosaic, in which each piece becomes a story of intimacy, fears, rebirths and nostalgia, but also a critical observation of a world obsessed with appearances, in which authentic passion struggles to find space. The dialogue between memory and present clearly emerges in songs such as One Life and the aliens are us, fruit of the collaboration with his father Domenico, who return an adult, conscious and never banal look on the precariousness of bonds and the dynamics of a society that builds and burns new stars with merciless mechanics.
Zampaglione's lyrics describe the world from the perspective of a consolidated fifty-year-old, amidst doubts and uncertainties, but always with a glimmer of hope. The album shows an artist who knows how to modulate melancholy and irony, intimacy and denunciation, without falling into pathos.
The presence of guests such as Simona Molinari and Mario Donatone does not smack of a “commercial operation”, but of a jam session recorded on tape for pure aesthetic pleasure.
Zampaglione himself talks about the creative process:
When I least expect it, it was born having to fight against someone who didn't have the slightest intention of doing so: myself. After so many years in music, I thought I was exhausted on the record side, ready to focus on concerts, singles and cinema. Then life decided differently. I locked myself in the studio with Leo Pari and Simone Guzzino, releasing songs accumulated over time. In total freedom, without rush or pressure, I put in all the music I love. Never was a title more appropriate.”
The album confirms Zampaglione's ability to renew himself without betraying his own stylistic signature, mixing craft and authenticity in a mature, curious, never complacent author's pop.
A work that keeps the qualitative threshold of an artist who still knows how to surprise those who have always followed him.
“When I least expect it” here comes a great Italian pop album!
TRACK BY TRACK
DISAPPEAR INTO THE BLUES
“The blues as an antidote to a society that crushes you, that places you in conflict every moment with yourself and with others. Yes, the blues…I have always found peace in this diabolical music, closing my eyes and immersing myself in there until I disappeared”.
I'M GOD
The song has a strong blues flavour, a genre much loved by Zampaglione who, in this case, uses the legendary Dobro guitar. The lyrics are written with Franco 126 and the music with Andrea Pesce.
“Do you want to know how I'm doing? I'm feeling great! I notice it because for quite some time I haven't looked for confirmation anymore, I just close my eyes at night, thinking that I'll be happy to reopen them in my shoes.”
WHEN I LEAST EXPECT IT
“Walking in a Roman night of alleys and doorways… of wandering dogs on the deserted Lungotevere. A night of those that speak in your ear, whispering to you that ultimately the beauty of life can still come… but only when you least expect it”.
I DIVE BACK INTO THE NIGHT
The song has “Baptist” echoes and the lyrics are veiled in irony.
“This song was born suddenly in one night, after an argument with my wife. She asked me angrily: “what are you doing without me?”. I looked at her… then I replied instinctively and ironically “I dive back into the night. I made things worse, but at least this song was born, night owl and vaguely 70s”.
ONE LIFE
A winter evening, a traveller, the lamp in a waiting room.
“So many memories, friends who have disappeared over time, loves that resurface and vanish again in the fog. He listens to his beating heart and responds in the fairy tale of life that inevitably pushes him towards tomorrow”.
JANUARY 2016
January 2016 is an intense ballad with a strong singer-songwriter imprint, which fits perfectly into Federico Zampaglione's vast repertoire. The song again sees the collaboration with the pianist Andrea Pesce, with whom Zampaglione has already signed singles such as “Per me è importa” and “Imparare dal vento”.
“A snapshot that tells of ten years of life. My life and that of those who, like me, have found a reason to get back up… a person to wake up for. There are loves that don't save your life, but allow you to go through the darkness.”
WE ARE THE ALIENS
“We are the aliens, projected towards the cosmos, soon traveling among the stars… we will carry with us baggage, our lives, the music of the earth, the hope of the world, and we will glide over unknown lands. But will there also be a sky of clouds there to color our dreams, a woman's smile, a sea?”.
DUDE
“You ran out of breath after two takes… are you tired already? Look at what you can see! So it's done! and now who's up there to help you?”.
“This is the mentality of my friend Emiliano “Tizzo” Marsili, a great boxing champion who in the ring, as in life, has always given everything. Hard times pass, tough people like Tizzo remain.”
THE SKY
The song is a cinematic subjective: a window wide open on the most intimate fears and on the need to “hold on tight” to feel less precarious. The singer-songwriter delivers to the music and the lyrics, written with Franco 126, the deepest thoughts, the search for essential affections, for the embrace that everyone would like to carry with them when “silence falls in the room” and thus says: “A window from which I glimpsed the sky was the only possible escape from that hospital room. I saw death in the face and the sky approaching. So I found the words, then the chords on a piano app. I clung to the idea of this song and it pulled me out of there.”
CLOUDS
“The late summer wind touches your face, write to me when you arrive. I will think of you and the snow will fall. Then summer will return and we will return. A song? A romantic fairy tale more than anything else…”.
A LOVE LIKE THIS
“I speak to time, to myself, to that part of my heart that never sleeps at night. It remains there in silence between dreams and memories, between the notes of an acoustic guitar and the irresistible melancholy of a dreamy sax.”
SCORE: 7.50
TO LISTEN NOW
Disappearing into the Blues – When I Least Expect It – Clouds
TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY
Maybe I wouldn't have played Una Vita's reggae. But you still listen to everything well!
