Anima Latina

A successful singer-songwriter who’d achieved pop success and a degree of fame / renown in Italy, Lucio Battisti is, like Franco Battiato, an Italian artisan who seemed equally comfortable with the mainstream and the avant-garde, and like Battiato, he embraced and abandoned both at various points in his career. The difference with Battisti was that he always hung his experiments from his songs, and Anima Latina is one of the best examples of him taking his music out. The slow, sprawling, stumbling opener, “Abbracciala abbracciali abbracciati,” is a good sign of what’s to come – drums mixed high, the voice floating through a misty chill of texture, slowly gathering steam before a funk bass and strident brass ride the song home, with squirming electronics and rangy flute in the sidelines. Battisti’s compositional eloquence and sweet voice cloak the sheer weirdness of the arrangements and approach here – avant-prog via folk song. It’s a delirious mess.