ANDREA LIBEROVICI "LIBEROVICI" (1980)

Piccola mia, dormi ancora che è presto
dormi ancora, il sole è lontano
Piccola mia, no, non voglio svegliarti
voglio solo accarezzarti

Il sole è nato, ancora addormentata
la tua pelle è tutta sudata
La casa è di amici, il letto ad ore
fatto apposta per fare l'amore

Ho diciassett'anni, tu se il mio grande amore
voglio darti la mia vita, il mio colore
Voglio spiegarti che non so come amarti
vorrei dirti mille cose, vorrei toccarti

Voglio svegliarmi insieme a te voglio volare
insieme a te voglio ridere e giocare
Voglio, voglio, quante cose voglio
non riesco mai ad accontentarmi

Parlare con te mi fa sentire più grande
un posto mio e tuo è solo un sogno
Il sole và via, la sera si avvicina
e siamo solo un bambino e una bambina

Voglio amarti, occhi di Luna voglio amarti
su una stella voglio portarti
Voglio scappare con te, voglio scappare
andare avanti e non tornare

Voglio amarti, occhi di Luna voglio amarti
Voglio scappare con te, voglio scappare
andare avanti e non tornare...

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Keep on sleeping my little baby, it is still early
keep on sleeping, the sun is faraway
No my little baby, I don't want to wake you up
I just want to caress you

The sun is born, you're still sleeping
and your skin is all sweaty
At a friend's place, a bed by the hour
tailor-made for making love

I am seventeen years old and you're my great love
I want to give you my life and my colours
I want to explain you that I don't know how to love you
I would like to tell you a thousand things, I would like to touch you

I want to wake up with you, I want to fly with you
I want to laugh and play with you
I want, I want, I want so many things
I can never be satisfied

Talking to you makes me feel more grown up
a place of our own is just a dream
The sun has gone away, the night is getting closer
and we're still a little boy and a little girl

I want to love you Moon Eyes, I want to love you
I want to take you on a star
I want to run away with you, I want to run away
move forward and never come back

I want to love you Moon Eyes, I want to love you
I want to run away with you, I want to run away
move forward and never come back...

[from the lyrics of "Occhi di Luna" / "Moon Eyes"]



Well-known Italian musician, composer and director Andrea Liberovici was born in 1962 in Venice, where he spent his youth before moving to Genoa.

Son of Sergio Liberovici (one of the most active musicians in the Italian music scene after World War II and founder - along with Michele Straniero - of the Cantacronache group, prime movers of the folk music revival and important representatives of the new political song movement in Italy) and of Margherita Galante Garrone (better known as Margot, singer-songwriter and also part of the Cantacronache), Andrea grew up in a stimulating environment and easily followed his parents' footsteps.

Liberovici studied composition, violin and viola at the Venice and Turin conservatories, acting at the Scuola del Teatro Stabile in Genoa and singing with Cathy Berberian at the International Festival in Montalcino.



Anyway, legend has it that he discovered Rock music when he was twelve years old, while on holidays in London, after attending a Rolling Stones concert. So, feverish of rock, he didn't hesitate a moment to join a few groups that used to play in pubs in the city. Back in his home town, Liberovici bought the whole Stones discography and spent the winter listening to the records inside and out. During his next holidays he flew again to London for three months and, just like most of the artists on the road, he earned a living playing violin in the London Underground and found a roof occupying houses with other youngsters like him... [1]

Years later, as composer and director, he co-founded the Teatro del suono (Theatre of sound) in 1996, with the poet Edoardo Sanguineti and Ottavia Fusco. Over the last decade Liberovici has created a lot of projects which have explored the relationship between music, poetry, theatre and technology, in collaboration with such renowned artists as Peter Greenaway, Claudia Cardinale, Aldo Nove, Judith Malina, Vittorio Gassman, Giorgio Albertazzi, Enrico Ghezzi, Ivry Gitlis and Regina Carter.

"Liberovici", original inner sleeve"

More recently, his music has been performed by Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montreal), Toscanini Orchestra, Teatro Carlo Felice Orchestra and others. These works have also been presented and produced by landmark cultural institutions such as Teatro di Roma, La Fenice in Venice and Salle Olivier Messiaen in Grenoble.

He has also worked in residence at INA-GRM and France Culture in Paris, STEIM Center for research and development in Amsterdam and GMEM National Centre of Musical Creation in Marseille. His music and shows have been presented in Italy and in international cities such as New York, Paris, Athens and Montreal.

"Liberovici", original inner sleeve"

«I was born in Giudecca (...one of the islands in the Venetian Lagoon...) and I spent my entire youth in the city, studying at the Conservatory. I was a curious and restless spirit, before my sixteenth birthday I released my first album, "Oro" (..."Gold", already covered here...), which included songs of a transgressive nature, entirely composed by me, which were born from precocious musical experiences I had along with friends of mine when I used to play in the streets. The venetian producer Ermanno Velludo, also a great engineer, took care of production. A milanese producer passing by Venice produced the following album "Liberovici" (1980), but from that moment I decided to change direction, in controversy with the power of the record labels that often constrain the creativity of an artist.» [2]

"Liberovici", original insert - page 1

«Our home, in Venice, was populated by artists; the full Living Theatre lineup used to pay a visit. My playmate and buddy-buddy, both as a child and as an adolescent, was Serena Nono - daughter of Luigi - now a painter. She was my next-door neighbor and her home, as you would easily guess, was just as full of music and of meetings. Let's say that I was very lucky! My anarchist-creative spirit was not censored, but indeed profoundly encouraged by the people around me (friends, relatives and strangers).»

«I always played a bit of everything, before and during the Conservatory: from guitar to piano and flutes. I started the Conservatory when I was in junior high school and attended it, more or less, until the age of sixteeen. In the meantime I began to record and release my first albums, so I left the Conservatory for about one year. I took it up again when I was eighteen for three years, no longer in Venice but in Turin, studying violin and viola. Later in Turin I continued the study of the instrument and also began to study composition. I never finished the Conservatory and even if for a long time I felt this interruption as a sort of personal failure, now I'm proud of it.»

«My true icons were Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and then Patti Smith. I was fascinated by their singing style.» [3]

"Liberovici", original insert - page 2

«I think that "Oro" is a small declaration of absolute candour and amazement. I wrote it, lyrics and music, at the age of fourteen, but this wouldn't mean much. Indeed, generally speaking, the more you're young and the more you're inclined to refer to models. Instead I think that this album was, although born of many influences, very personal and, therefore, inevitably sincere. I love it very much. It's one of my creations that I love the most.»

«The "Liberovici" album was the beginning of disaffection. Music-industry executives, producers, press agents... At the age of seventeen I was touring Italy as a young star, with driver, fans, etc., and living in a Milan hotel suite. Above all I had no creative autonomy. My every intuition was examined, sifted through and censored. I still remember with horror the fights to the death (I was not easy to tame), with hunger strikes, locked inside the toilets of my record company, because they had rejected a song or mine or, even more serious, because they were putting on me an image that didn't belong to me. I even dared to refuse, with great dismay of the executives, the chance to go to San Remo festival. I literally told them to fuck off and I escaped to London to play my violin in the subway to survive.» [3]

"Liberovici", original insert - page 3

«I've been very lucky with my parents. All three. My mother Margot, an author, singer and puppeteer, my father Sergio, a composer and teacher with whom I lived for just a short time, and Giovanni Morelli, a musicologist who passed away some years ago, with whom I grew up. It was a wonderful family that deliberately throwed me into a magic potion cauldron, just like Obelix, filled with music and theatre. I came out from that pot (...at one point I was about to drown...) with many efforts and also with a great indigestion. Once digested, I found myself in the cauldron again, but with a joyful gratitude for those wonderful flowers who have placed me in the world and that have chosen art literacy from the world for me.» [4]

"Liberovici", original insert - page 4

Sources:

[1] translated from a short feature/interview published on "Albo Varietà Motori" magazine, 1980

[2] translated from a feature/interview by Riccardo Petito published in "Il Gazzettino", n. 174, 25th July 2004

[3] translated from the book "Officine Liberovici" published by Marsilio Editori, Venice, October 2006

[4] translated from an interview conducted by Filippo Bordignon, 2012

Andrea Liberovici performing live, circa 1979-80

"Liberovici" contains the following tracks:

01. L'eroe e l'eroina [The Hero and the Heroin] (3:46)
02. Ammorissimmo Mmio [Suupeer Loovee of Mmine] (3:04)
03. Padre Pio [Father Pio] (2:03)
04. Ciuff ciuff [Choo-Choo] (3:04)
05. Carino carina [Cute boy, pretty girl] (3:58)
06. Tira tira tira [Pull pull pull] (6:34)
07. Vorrei [I Would] (4:47)
08. Occhi di Luna [Moon Eyes] (4:26)
09. Uh caramellina uh uh [Uh Little Candy Uh Uh] (3:03)

All tracks were remastered in July 2018, they include complete artwork reconstruction and printable PDF files. For my remaster of this album I used audio tracks sourced from the rare CD re-release.

24.11.2018 Update: sorry guys, no downloads and no audio previews are available for this release...



Recorded the previous year, "Liberovici" was released by CGD in Italy sometime in early 1980, probably in January, with catalogue number CGD 20194. The album was re-released on CD sometime during the mid-90s, probably in 1996. Although not a limited edition, this digital version has been unavailable since many years and rarely surfaces on the second hand market.

I came into possession of my vinyl copy of the album in 1987. It was part of a stock of LPs given to me by my older brother, who in turn had got them as a gift from someone else who wanted to get rid of them... Sigh, poor discarded and homeless vinyls, how can people treat you with so much cruelty? My little babies, I'll keep you warm and safe...

Ehm, in 1987 I was 17 years old, just the same age that Andrea Liberovici was in 1979 when he recorded this provocative second album and I couldn't help but identify with many of the verses of the songs included on it.



Given the young age of the musician, and aware that the LP was simply entitled with the author's surname, at that time I thought that "Liberovici" was his first and only album... Since I had enjoyed that record so much, a great joy filled me one year later as I discovered that Andrea had released his debut LP back in 1978: "Oro". I already dedicated a post to it and I almost can't believe that more than five years have already passed since I promised to offer you his second effort...

The difference between the two albums is clear right from the cover: while Oro" showed him offering a beautiful smile under a huge pair of glasses, a guitar over his shoulder and a nice "No Nukes" button, on "Liberovici" Andrea appears almost emaciated, gazing at us with a mixture of challenge and resignation.

   

Andrea Liberovici, feature on 'Albo Varietà Motori' issue 14, April 1980

L'Altritalia has already written the perfect review of this album and I truly hope they won't mind if I include it here below. I completely agree with them about the nature of "Liberovici", which in my opinion is absolutely not a trash album.

«Ridicule can be tragic, and tragic is often sublime. Andrea Liberovici was 18 in 1980. Son of Sergio, composer and etnomusicologist, he was kind of an infant prodigy, having released his first album "Oro" (Gold) in 1978, at the age of 15.

This first effort was sort of an end-of-course essay for a precocious, brilliant child musician who had studied at two different conservatories and had a great talent for theatre as well. The work of a teenager trying to impress the world, attempting to be profound and provocative, while he mostly sounded naive, and eventually innocuous. The music is a mash up of Canterbury-like pop with rockish rushes and some avant tricks. The whole album is actually interesting, but the one track that stands out is "Risotto", which is also a strong link, both musically and lirically, to his incredible second record.

Liberovici came out just at the beginning of what was later called riflusso (“reflow”): after more than twenty years of massive political engagement, the revolutionary movement was rapidly disbanding, and collective issues were soon replaced by individual commitment. La marcia dei quarantamila (“The march of the the forty-thousand”) is a milestone in Italy's contemporary history. More than 40.000 employees and managers from FIAT demonstrated against trade unions power and for a “return to order” in the factories. Restoration was coming. In the meantime, heroin consumption was reaching a peak, and terroristic attacks got more and more indiscriminate and useless.

The conflict was still there, but became a private issue. Something for your analyst, if you could afford one. Or something to sing at, if you were a musician.

The album reflected this end-of-an-era climate, being hysterical, confused, disturbing. It summarized seventies' glam, funk rock, new wave, cantautore style in a way that was already pure eighties' postmodernism. The lyrics as well were a collection of the past decade's alternative culture slogan and clichés: drugs, sex, new social and family relations, spirituality. Everything's fluorescent and overilluminated; exaggerated and yet stylized.

The boy took the risk of turning himself into a comics' character. And in a way he was a comics' character: look at him on the cover. But the thing is, he sounded totally serious about what he was doing. Serious and intransigent as only a young man can be. It's the same attitude that made great Cannibale and Frigidaire, two of the most important and influential italian magazines of those years, and the people from The Great Complotto. Even when he dedicated to Padre Pio – now a saint – a love song which somehow reminds of “Je t’aime, moi non plus”, it was not comedy. There's a no-way-out feeling here, a sense of loss and hate which rescues even the most embarassing moments.

In the end, i disagree completely from pals at Orrore a 33 giri. [...their review of "Liberovici" is available here...] This is not a trash album. It’s a great piece of contemporary art.»

   

Andrea Liberovici, feature on 'Intrepido' issue 26, June 1980

Here's the credits and personnel list of "Liberovici":

Music and lyrics by Andrea Liberovici.

"L'eroe e l'eroina" lyrics by Andrea Liberovici and Marziano Fontana.

Arranged by Tony Mimms.

"L'eroe e l'eroina", "Padre Pio" and "Tira tira tira" arranged by Liberovici, Angelo Turotti and Rockstarter.

Produced by Liberovici.

Mixed by Gigi Venegoni and Gianfranco Longo.

"L'eroe e l'eroina" produced and mixed by Marziano Fontana, Silvio Puzzolu, Liberovici and Pino Vicari.

Recorded in 1979 at Idea Recording, Milan, Italy.

Engineered by Gianfranco Longo and Pino Vicari.

Andrea Liberovici: viola, Fender Telecaster

ROCKSTARTER:
Angelo Turotti: guitars
Roberto Possanzini: bass
Roberto Ricci: drums
Umberto Tenaglia: keyboards

William Marino, Dave Summer, Stefano De Carli, Giancarlo Brambilla: guitars
Michael Fraiser: keyboards
Michael Brill: bass
Andy Surdy, Fabio Amodio: drums
Tullio De Piscopo, Claudio Bassani: percussion
Bruno De Filippi: harmonica
Pierluigi Muccioli, Claudio Pascoli, Giovanni Capriolo: horns
Ornella Cherubini, Eloisa Francia, Marina & Monica Balestrieri: backing vocals

Backing vocals in "L'eroe e l'eroina": Rockstarter, Mixo and Silvio Puzzolu

Photography: Flavio Gallozzi

Cover and Logo Design: Marziano Fontana

   

Adverts for "Liberovici" on 'Il Discorriere' (CGD magazine), February 1980

A few original 1980 TV appearances which feature a short-haired Andrea Liberovici are included below courtesy of YouTube.

More information about Andrea Liberovici is available here:

http://www.liberovici.it/

http://www.teatrodelsuono.it/

http://www.facebook.com/liberovici

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Liberovici

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Liberovici

http://www.fitaveneto.org/2011/images/stories/fitainforma/dicembre_2012/fitainforma_dicembre_2012.pdf

http://www.riccardopetito.it/interviste/liberovici.htm

http://www.connessomagazine.it/andrea-liberovici-un-tuffo-nel-presente-artistico

http://digilander.libero.it/gianni61dgl/andrealiberovici.htm

http://laltritalia.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/music-andrea-liberovici-liberovici-1980/

http://www.lamette.it/modules.php?name=Live_News&func=LiveNewsStampa&nid=1955

http://www.orrorea33giri.com/2008/02/liberovici-liberovici-1980.html

If you have any useful information about Andrea Liberovici, or if you spot any dead links, please get in touch with me at stereocandies [at] hotmail [dot] com or leave a comment in the box below, thank you!