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Alice (Italian singer)
Encyclopedia
Alice also known as Alice Visconti (born Carla Bissi, 26 September 1954, Forlì
, Province of Forlì-Cesena
, Italy
) is an Italian
singer-songwriter
and pianist
, active since 1971. Alice had her breakthrough after winning the Sanremo Music Festival
with the song "Per Elisa" in 1981, followed by European hit singles like "Una notte speciale", "Messaggio", "Chan-son Egocentrique", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi" and albums like Gioielli rubati, Park Hotel
, Elisir and Il sole nella pioggia
charting in both Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. In 1984 she represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
with "I treni di Tozeur
", a duet with longtime collaborator Franco Battiato
. In her more recent career Alice has explored a diverse range of musical genres including classical
, jazz
, electronica
and ambient
and has collaborated with a large number of renowned English and American musicians. Her latest album Viaggio in Italia was released in 2003.
, Bissi started taking piano lessons in the local Conservatory and singing privately at the age of eight. Her career in music started as she as a seventeen year old won the 1971 Castrocaro Festival under her birth name Carla Bissi, with an interpretation of the song "Tanta voglia di lei", originally composed and recorded by classic Italian rock band Pooh
. The following year saw her winning another music award, La gondola d'argento in Venice
, with the song "La festa mia" as well as making her debut in the important Sanremo Music Festival
performing "Il mio cuore se ne va" in the Newcomers category, also released as her debut single, the song however failed to qualify for the finals. Two further singles on the Carosello label credited as Carla Bissi followed in 1972 and 1973, both faring relatively unnoticed by the Italian audiences.
In 1975 she quit her day job at a design studio and took the stage name Alice Visconti as she was signed by the Italian subsidiary of CBS Records
and released her debut album La mia poca grande età
. The album consisted of material written by some of Italy's most successful composers and lyricists of the era and among the musicians contributing were in fact members of Pooh. The singles "Piccola anima" and "Io voglio vivere", both in the fairly traditional Italian easy listening
genre, became minor chart successes in late 1975 and early 1976, the latter also a modest hit in France.
A second album on CBS followed in late 1977, Cosa resta... Un fiore
, recorded with the same team of producers, composers and musicians as the debut, including the singles "...E respiro" and "Un'isola" which also met with moderate commercial success.
who was just on the verge of having his Italian breakthrough in the pop genre with the album L'era del cinghiale bianco, released in 1979. Battiato secured Bissi a contract with his label EMI
and the two began working together with his producer Angelo Carrara on what was to become her first proper hit single, the dark and despairing "Il vento caldo dell'estate" ("The Warm Summer Wind") and the following album Capo Nord
("North Cape
"). Co-written and arranged by Battiato, the album saw Bissi making a dramatic change in musical direction as it combined influences from contemporary rock and New Wave
and a musical landscape with prominent use of synthesizers and distorted electric guitars. At this time Bissi also dropped the Visconti part of her stage name and the Capo Nord album was the first to be credited simply as Alice. It was also Bissi's debut as a composer, with her writing the majority of the songs and over the course of the following albums she would become increasingly involved in the production of her music, both as composer
, lyricist
, musical arranger and sound engineer.
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In early 1981 she returned to the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Per Elisa", composed by Bissi herself, Franco Battiato and his longtime co-writer, classical violinist Giusto Pio
. The song was both lyrically and musically a modern paraphrase of Ludwig van Beethoven
's "Für Elise
" but it was by no means an archetypal sentimental Sanremo ballad. The rough rock track had lyrics which dealt with jealousy, betrayal, anger and revenge. For the live performance at the contest Bissi made full use of her vocal strength and range; one of the singer's trademarks is the exceptionally low register of her contralto
voice, "Per Elisa" is also partly sung in falsetto
and thus covers close to four octave
s. The unorthodox Sanremo entry and Bissi's delivery of the song dressed in tight jeans and a leather jacket made a strong impression on both the juries and the TV audiences; "Per Elisa" won the contest, becoming one of the very first up-tempo rock tracks to do so and it became Bissi's commercial breakthrough not only in Italy but also in the rest of Continental Europe, becoming a Top 10 hit also in Switzerland
and Austria
and most other parts of Western Europe
, including Scandinavia
. An album titled Alice
followed a few months later (released as Per Elisa outside Italy) including follow-up single "Una notte speciale" ("A Special Night") and the same year Bissi set out on her first European tour.
(Azimuth) and Falsi allarmi
, again mainly composed by Bissi herself, but also including further songwriting collaborations with Battiato and Giusto Pio, and both albums produced by Angelo Carrara. The albums spun off further popular single releases like "Messaggio" ("Message"), the nonsensical French/Italian/German/English language "Chan-son Egocentrique" ("Selfcentred Song", a duet with Battiato), "A cosa pensano" ("What Are They Thinking"), "Notte a Roma" ("Night in Rome"), "Solo un'idea" ("Just A Thought") and "Il profumo del silenzio" ("The Scent of Silence"). These became especially successful in West Germany, which led to her recording the German/Italian language duet "Zu Nah Am Feuer" with singer Stefan Waggershausen
in late 1983, an English/Italian version was later also released in certain territories under the title "Close to the Fire". The single which sold nearly a million copies in West Germany alone was also a number one in Switzerland and Austria. The duet made her one of the best-selling Italian artists on the German-speaking markets of the mid-1980s and it has been said that she at this stage of her career even sold more records in these countries, the Benelux
and Scandinavia than in her native Italy.
" ("The trains of Tozeur"), again composed by Battiato, Giusto Pio and lyricist Rosario Cosentino. The mid-tempo synth-driven ballad was based around a very brief excerpt from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's opera The Magic Flute
and was performed on stage in Luxembourg
with three classically trained mezzosopranos. Despite being tipped to win and arguably the best reception from the audiences on the night as well as receiving the coveted "twelve points", the full mark, from countries as diverse as Spain and Finland, Alice and Battiato lost out to the Swedish song "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley
", and finished 5th out of 19 entries. "I treni di Tozeur" however became that year's bestselling entry in Continental Europe, and paradoxically enough also a Top 20 hit in Sweden. The song is also in fact one of the very few Italian Eurovision entries ever to become a commercial success in Italy itself - even topping the Italian singles chart, and some twenty-five years later it still remains the best-selling single in Bissi's career to date. Both Alice and Battiato have since recorded several solo interpretations of "I treni di Tozeur", both with contemporary and classical arrangements, and the song also appears on the CD set of Eurovision Winners and Classics produced to coincide with the Congratulations
50th Anniversary special of late 2005 as well as on the accompanying DVD.
and mixed at The Power Station Studios
in New York
, accentuated Battiato's influences from classical masters such as Johann Sebastian Bach
, Mozart and Johannes Brahms
by juxtaposing modern sequencer
-programmed synthesizer
s and drum machine
s against a classically arranged string section
, just like in the case of "I treni di Tozeur" courtesy of the opera house La Scala
in Milan. The album's opening track "Prospettiva Nevski", minutely detailing a cold winter's day at Saint Petersburg
's "Nevsky Prospekt
" in the early twentieth century, became Alice's best-selling solo single in Continental Europe and Scandinavia since her breakthrough with "Per Elisa" and was followed by "Summer on A Solitary Beach", "Il Re del Mondo" ("The King of the World") and "Luna indiana" ("Indian Moon", loosely based on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata") and introduced Battiato's music to a wider European audience. In Italy the Gioielli Rubati album won Alice the award Premio Tenco
for Best Interpretation the following year.
, her first project with keyboardist, arranger and producer Francesco Messina, with whom she was to collaborate extensively over the next two decades. The album which included material co-written by Bissi herself, Messina, as well as prolific Italian lyricist, composer and singer Juri Camisasca was also Bissi's first proper international venture as it was entirely recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acknowledged and highly influential musicians: American bassist Tony Levin
, American drummer Jerry Marotta
and British guitarist Phil Manzanera
. The album was notably different to the preceding "I treni di Tozeur" and Gioielli rubati, as it mainly focussed on blues-tinged, melancholy and suggestive ballads with airy soundscapes giving plenty of room for the musicians to display their respective talents and for Bissi to use her vocal skills in a new musical environment. Park Hotel was promoted by lead single "Nomadi" ("Nomads"), an epic ballad by Camisasca, followed by "Il senso dei desideri" ("The Sense of Desire"), "Viali di solitudine" ("The Boulevards of the Lonely"), "Volo di notte" ("Fly by Night") and a remix of the up-tempo track "Conoscersi" ("Knowing Yourself"). Park Hotel was a considerable success both critically and commercially, reaching the Top 20 in most parts of Continental Europe, peaking at #13 on the Swedish albums chart and it also became her breakthrough on the Japanese market, despite the fact that all lyrics still were entirely sung in the Italian language.
album alongside reworked arrangements of songs from her earlier repertoire; the romantic "Una notte speciale" became an up-tempo rock track, breakthrough single "Il vento caldo dell'estate" was given an updated synthesizer and drum-machine treatment while songs like "La Mano", "Rumbarock" (retitled "Hispavox") and "Notte a Roma" were performed unplugged
with acoustic guitars and sparse percussion. After the completion of the tour six of these interpretations were recorded in studio and released on the album Elisir which also included two previously unreleased songs, the opening track "Nuvole" ("Clouds") and a cover version of Lennon
and McCartney
's "The Fool on the Hill
", released as the lead single. Elisir was later awarded the prestigious prize Goldene Europa
for sales on the German speaking markets. In Japan the album was released under the title Kusamakura (Grass Pillow) and then included the new recording "Le scogliere di Dover" ("The reeves of Dover
"), with which Alice participated in the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo in early 1988.
s and keyboard
s, performing not her pop hits but arias and lieder by fin de siècle
composers Gabriel Fauré
, Erik Satie
and Maurice Ravel
. The partly instrumental concert was later recorded in studio and released as Mélodie passagère on EMI.
In 1989 Bissi returned with another pop album, Il sole nella pioggia
(The Sun in the Rain), which was proof of further musical development and evolution as it was clearly influenced by contemporary British artists in the experimental
and alternative rock
genres such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush
and David Sylvian
and among the all-star line up of musicians contributing to the project were in fact several who previously had collaborated with these: drummer Steve Jansen
and keyboardist Richard Barbieri
, guitarist Dave Gregory, trumpetist and multi-instrumentalist Jon Hassell
, Turkish flutist Kudsi Erguner
as well as the Italian trumpet
and flugelhorn
jazz player Paolo Fresu
. The album closes with the English language track "Now and Forever", a duet with British progressive rock
singer-songwriter Peter Hammill
. The mainpart of the songs were collaborations between Juri Camisasca and pianist, violinist and composer Marco Liverani including lead single "Visioni" ("Visions"), follow-up and title track "Il sole nella pioggia", "Tempo senza tempo" ("Time Without Time") and "Le ragazze di Osaka" ("The Girls in Osaka"). Side two of the original vinyl album however opened with a multilayered a cappella
interpretation of the medieval French folk song "Orléans" on which Alice again showed her vocal capability by singing all harmonies covering four octaves, followed by the acoustic "Anìn A Grîs" sung in the Friulian language
. Il sole nella pioggia also included a reworking of the track "Le scogliere di Dover", originally released on the Japanese Kusamakura album, provided with new lyrics and retitled "I cieli del nord" ("The Skies of the North"). The album consolidated her position as one of Italy's leading artists and was followed by another successful European concert tour.
("Noon in the Alps
") in 1992, her most experimental and mature work to date, again recorded with a number of distinguished international musicians such as Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Dave Gregory, Paolo Fresu as well as double bass
player Danny Thompson
, drummer Gavin Harrison
and bassist Jakko Jakszyk
. Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi displayed Bissi's effort to steer away from being a commercially oriented Mediterranean pop act to a much more ambitious performer and marked an increasing expansion into electronics, expressed in colourful synth sounds, occasional drum loops and subdued ambient passages as well as influences from contemporary jazz. The material was mainly co-written by Bissi and producer Francesco Messina with contributions from Richard Barbieri, Paolo Fresu and Rosario Cosentino but the album also included an English language cover version of Tim Buckley
's "Blue Melody" and lead single "In viaggio sul tuo viso" incorporates the Hungarian folk melody "Istenem Istenem". The album also saw Bissi interpreting more complex lyrics, such as on the track "La recessione" ("The Recession"), originally a poem by controversial Italian cinematographer
, intellectual and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini
, set to music by Mino Di Martino, and "Luce della sera" ("The Lights of the Night") which opens with a haiku
by Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki
. Despite receiving generally positive reviews from music critics and a following sold-out European concert tour the Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi album itself was only a moderate commercial success compared to Bissi's previous efforts and this would eventually result in both artistic and legal complications with her record label, the Italian subsidiary of EMI (see EMI aftermath).
Symphony Orchestra, interpreting works by composers such as Reynaldo Hahn
, Charles Ives
, Maurice Ravel, Xavier Montsalvatge
, Geni Sadero, Gabriel Fauré, Ivor Gurney
, Camille Saint-Saëns
, and Heitor Villa-Lobos
. Unlike Mélodie passagère the Art et Décoration project was not recorded by EMI and still remains unreleased.
featuring contributions from musicians like King Crimson's Trey Gunn
, several tracks with British improvisational solo violinist and arranger Stuart Gordon and acoustic tracks with the American/Belgian/Japanese California Guitar Trio
. Charade, which included single releases "Dammi la mano amore" ("Give Me Your Hand, My Love") and "Non ero mai sola" ("I Was Never Alone"), was very much in the same vein as 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi but further developed the use of minimalist ambient/avant-garde backgrounds, with fractured guitars and woodwind, muted trumpets and accordion
set against programmed TR-808 rhythms, influenced by contemporary dance music genres like electronica and trance
, fused with world music
samples
and looped
vocals, but again with the main focus on the esoteric and evocative lyrics.
On the following European Charade tour in 1996 Bissi performed with a four-piece band consisting of Robby Aceto (The Club, Talking Heads
, David Sylvian etc.) on electric and acoustic guitar
s, former No-Man
member Ben Coleman on violin
and the two ex-Japan
members Steve Jansen on drums
and Mick Karn
on bass guitar
and bass clarinet
. After fifteen years of alternately composing, recording, promoting her work in the media as well as extensive touring, the Charade Tour marked Bissi's final major European concert venture.
Later in 1996 she appeared as singer and co-writer on Trey Gunn's solo album The Third Star, performing the title track. In 1997 she and producer Francesco Messina, Gavin Harrison and Juri Camisasca among others were part of the collaborative crossover
/ambient
/fusion
project Devogue, with Bissi singing lead vocals on five of the thirteen titles, two of which in fact ambient dub remixes of tracks from her own studio albums. Later that same year she teamed up with Italian progressive rock band Bluvertigo
for the duet "Troppe emozioni" ("Too Many Emotions"), included on their album Metallo non metallo.
In 1998 Bissi released Exit
, her most pop-oriented and melodic studio album since the late 1980s, again clearly influenced by urban dance music genres like electronica and contemporary R&B
; or as Allmusic wrote in their review "the album often suggests Sarah McLachlan
in a duet with Enigma
". The album spawned three single releases, "I Am a Taxi", "Dimmi di sì" ("Tell me yes") and "Open Your Eyes", an English/Italian language R&B duet with Skye Edwards
, lead singer of British trip hop
band Morcheeba
. The promo video of the latter shows the two singers performing the track sitting in a rowing boat on a sunny summer's day in London
's Hyde Park. Exit also includes a second duet with Bluvertigo's Morgan, "L'immagine" ("The Images"), and closes with a cover version of French singer-songwriter Leo Ferré
's "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger"), with lyrics based on a poem by influential French nineteenth century poet
, critic
and translator
Charles Baudelaire
.
, which also was recorded and released by Warner Music, comprised works by composers as diverse as Arvo Pärt
, David Crosby
, Popol Vuh
, Eleni Karaindrou
, Gavin Bryars
, Franco Battiato and Jane Siberry, French
, Hungarian
and Livonia
n traditionals, as well as 11th and 14th century hymn
s sung in Ancient Greek and Latin
.
. The album contained four single tracks from 1998's Exit and 1995's Charade, the original versions of "Visioni" from 1989's Il sole nella pioggia and "In Viaggio Sul Tuo Viso" from 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi as well as new interpretations of tracks from her early repertoire, including "Chanson Egocentrique" (another duet with Bluvertigo), "Prospettiva Nevski", "A cosa pensano", "Nomadi", "Il vento caldo dell'estate", a technofied take on "Per Elisa" and an orchestral solo version of "I treni di Tozeur
". "Il Giorno dell'indipendenza" was one of three new recordings, the other two being "Tutto è niente" ("All Is Nothing") and an Italian language cover version of David Bowie
/Pat Metheny Group
's "This is Not America
".
In 2001 Bissi launched the tour project Le parole del giorno prima (The Words of the First Day), an hommage to some of Italy's foremost cantautori, singer-songwriters and lyricists, including Ivano Fossati
, Fabrizio De André
, Francesco De Gregori
, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Battiato and Giorgio Gaber
, mainly covering material from the 1970s and the early 1980s but interpreted with contemporary musical arrangements and an emphasis on the lyrical qualities of the songs. The common thread was poetry in popular music and it later developed into including two English-language titles, on the following album both sung as duets with English singer-songwriter Tim Bowness
of progressive rock band No-Man; Peter Sinfield
and Robert Fripp
's "Islands" and James Joyce
's poem "Golden Hair", as set to music by Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett
. The project was marred by further problems with record companies but eventually evolved into Viaggio in Italia ("Journey in Italy"), released in 2003 on the independent label NuN. The album opens with a solo interpretation of the new composition "Come un sigillo" with music by Battiato and lyrics by philosopher Manlio Sgalambro
, originally recorded as a duet with the composer on his 2002 album Fleurs 3. The Viaggio in Italia album brought Alice back to the Top 20 in Italy, peaking at #16 in September 2003. The late Lucio Battisti
's "Ecco i negozi" on Viaggio in Italia was again a duet with Bluvertigo's Morgan and in 2004 the two among other noted Italian artists also appeared on the collaborative album project Zerouno, with Bissi singing lead vocals on the track "Sospesa" ("Suspended").
label declined to release or even record the 1993/1994 project Art et Décoration with the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra. Instead they released a greatest hits compilation in 1994 entitled Il vento caldo dell'estate, taking its title from the artist's first Italian hit single and mainly focussing on material recorded in the early 1980s. The compilation was issued without the knowledge or approval of Bissi herself. The hits package included a Eurodisco remix of the 1982 track "Chan-son Egocentrique", originally a duet with Franco Battiato. The remixed version of the track, also released as a 12" single, however surprisingly omitted all lines sung by the composer himself - again this was done without the knowledge or approval of either Bissi or Battiato. The two subsequently considered taking legal action against the label to have the compilation and the remix single withdrawn - only to find that they legally had no control over the use of their respective bodies of work recorded for EMI. This subsequently led to both artists leaving the label after a fifteen year long and highly successful collaboration.
Bissi's contract however stipulated that she was to deliver one final studio album to the label before the end of 1995. As a compromise she agreed to take part in the production of another hits compilation, this time under her supervision. Unlike the first version, Viaggiatrice solitaria covered tracks from all eras of her career on EMI, including selections from her then more recent works Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi and Il sole nella pioggia. The remix of "Chan-son Egocentrique" was omitted from the track list. Despite this, the 1994 collection - including the unapproved disco remix without Battiato's vocals - still remains in print, some fifteen years later.
After Bissi's parting ways with EMI, the label and its Dutch mid-price subsidiary Disky Communications have continued to capitalise on the rights to her back catalogue, issuing a large number of hits compilations in various price ranges under titles like I grandi successi di Alice, Collezione, Le signore della canzone, Made in Italy, Studio Collection, The Best of Alice, Collezione Italiana etc., again mainly including early 1980s hits. The year of 2006 alone saw EMI releasing no less than four of these best of packages in Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan.
Bissi's following five year tenure on the Warner Music label has also resulted in the release of unapproved compilations. 2006 saw the label issuing a greatest hits package entitled Le Più Belle Canzoni Di Alice, paradoxically and confusingly exactly the same title as one of the four EMI compilations released the very same year, which includes seven tracks recorded for the CBS label in 1975 and 1977 coupled with some of her best-known 80s hits such as "Per Elisa", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi", the latter are however not the original versions but re-recordings dating from the 2000 album Personal Jukebox, which the compilation fails to mention in its liner notes.
Forlì
Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...
, Province of Forlì-Cesena
Province of Forlì-Cesena
The Province of Forlì-Cesena is a province in the Emilia–Romagna region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Forlì.It has an area of 2,377 km², and a total population of 371,318 . There are 30 comuni in the province, see Comuni of the Province of Forlì-Cesena...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) is an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, active since 1971. Alice had her breakthrough after winning the Sanremo Music Festival
Festival della canzone italiana
The Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo is a popular Italian song contest, held annually in the city of Sanremo, in Italy, and consisting of a competition amongst previously unreleased songs...
with the song "Per Elisa" in 1981, followed by European hit singles like "Una notte speciale", "Messaggio", "Chan-son Egocentrique", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi" and albums like Gioielli rubati, Park Hotel
Park Hotel (Alice album)
Park Hotel is the eighth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1986 on EMI Music.The album was recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acclaimed musicians: American bassist Tony Levin , American...
, Elisir and Il sole nella pioggia
Il Sole Nella Pioggia
Il sole nella pioggia is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.The album, whose title translates as The Sun in the Rain, includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il sole nella pioggia" as well as popular tracks like "Tempo senza tempo", "Le...
charting in both Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. In 1984 she represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
with "I treni di Tozeur
I Treni Di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, Rosario Cosentino and Giusto Pio. It was the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian by Alice and Franco Battiato.In a studio version sung only by Battiato, the song was later to be included on his...
", a duet with longtime collaborator Franco Battiato
Franco Battiato
Francesco Battiato is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes...
. In her more recent career Alice has explored a diverse range of musical genres including classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
and ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
and has collaborated with a large number of renowned English and American musicians. Her latest album Viaggio in Italia was released in 2003.
Early career (1970s)
Born in ForlìForlì
Forlì is a comune and city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. The city is situated along the Via Emilia, to the right of the Montone river, and is an important agricultural centre...
, Bissi started taking piano lessons in the local Conservatory and singing privately at the age of eight. Her career in music started as she as a seventeen year old won the 1971 Castrocaro Festival under her birth name Carla Bissi, with an interpretation of the song "Tanta voglia di lei", originally composed and recorded by classic Italian rock band Pooh
Pooh (band)
Pooh is an Italian pop band formed in 1966. They are referred to in the plural as i Pooh .-Current lineup:*Roby Facchinetti , Vocals and keyboards from 1966...
. The following year saw her winning another music award, La gondola d'argento in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, with the song "La festa mia" as well as making her debut in the important Sanremo Music Festival
Festival della canzone italiana
The Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo is a popular Italian song contest, held annually in the city of Sanremo, in Italy, and consisting of a competition amongst previously unreleased songs...
performing "Il mio cuore se ne va" in the Newcomers category, also released as her debut single, the song however failed to qualify for the finals. Two further singles on the Carosello label credited as Carla Bissi followed in 1972 and 1973, both faring relatively unnoticed by the Italian audiences.
In 1975 she quit her day job at a design studio and took the stage name Alice Visconti as she was signed by the Italian subsidiary of CBS Records
CBS Records
CBS Records is a record label founded by CBS Corporation in 2006 to take advantage of music from its entertainment properties owned by CBS Television Studios. The initial label roster consisted of only three artists; rock band Señor Happy and singer/songwriters Will Dailey and P.J...
and released her debut album La mia poca grande età
La Mia Poca Grande Età
La mia poca grande età is the debut album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released under the stage name "Alice Visconti" in 1975 on CBS Records.The album was re-released on CD in Japan in 2006 in Warner Music's European Rock Collection series....
. The album consisted of material written by some of Italy's most successful composers and lyricists of the era and among the musicians contributing were in fact members of Pooh. The singles "Piccola anima" and "Io voglio vivere", both in the fairly traditional Italian easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
genre, became minor chart successes in late 1975 and early 1976, the latter also a modest hit in France.
A second album on CBS followed in late 1977, Cosa resta... Un fiore
Cosa Resta... Un Fiore
Cosa resta... Un fiore is the second studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released under the stage name 'Alice Visconti' in 1978 on CBS Records....
, recorded with the same team of producers, composers and musicians as the debut, including the singles "...E respiro" and "Un'isola" which also met with moderate commercial success.
Capo Nord
In late 1979, shortly after her contract with CBS had expired, Bissi met a man with whom she would go on to collaborate with for the next three decades with great success, the experimental, unconventional and highly productive composer and singer Franco BattiatoFranco Battiato
Francesco Battiato is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes...
who was just on the verge of having his Italian breakthrough in the pop genre with the album L'era del cinghiale bianco, released in 1979. Battiato secured Bissi a contract with his label EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
and the two began working together with his producer Angelo Carrara on what was to become her first proper hit single, the dark and despairing "Il vento caldo dell'estate" ("The Warm Summer Wind") and the following album Capo Nord
Capo Nord (Alice album)
Capo Nord is the third studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1980 on EMI Music.The album includes Alice's Italian breakthrough single "Il vento caldo dell'estate", her first collaboration with composer and singer Franco Battiato....
("North Cape
North Cape
North Cape may refer to:*North Cape, Prince Edward Island*North Cape, New Zealand*North Cape, Norway, also known as Nordkapp*North Cape, Wisconsin, an unincorporated community...
"). Co-written and arranged by Battiato, the album saw Bissi making a dramatic change in musical direction as it combined influences from contemporary rock and New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and a musical landscape with prominent use of synthesizers and distorted electric guitars. At this time Bissi also dropped the Visconti part of her stage name and the Capo Nord album was the first to be credited simply as Alice. It was also Bissi's debut as a composer, with her writing the majority of the songs and over the course of the following albums she would become increasingly involved in the production of her music, both as composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...
, musical arranger and sound engineer.
Per Elisa
Giusto Pio
Giusto Pio is an Italian musician and songwriter.Born at Castelfranco Veneto , he studied music in Venice...
. The song was both lyrically and musically a modern paraphrase of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's "Für Elise
Für Elise
Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" , is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It is usually classified as a bagatelle, but it is also sometimes referred to as an Albumblatt.- History :The score was not published until 1867, 40 years after...
" but it was by no means an archetypal sentimental Sanremo ballad. The rough rock track had lyrics which dealt with jealousy, betrayal, anger and revenge. For the live performance at the contest Bissi made full use of her vocal strength and range; one of the singer's trademarks is the exceptionally low register of her contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
voice, "Per Elisa" is also partly sung in falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
and thus covers close to four octave
Octave
In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...
s. The unorthodox Sanremo entry and Bissi's delivery of the song dressed in tight jeans and a leather jacket made a strong impression on both the juries and the TV audiences; "Per Elisa" won the contest, becoming one of the very first up-tempo rock tracks to do so and it became Bissi's commercial breakthrough not only in Italy but also in the rest of Continental Europe, becoming a Top 10 hit also in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and most other parts of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, including Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
. An album titled Alice
Alice (Per Elisa)
Alice is the fourth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1981 on EMI Music.The album includes Alice's winning entry in the 1981 Sanremo Music Festival, "Per Elisa", and the Alice album was released under that title in certain territories, then also with alternative cover art...
followed a few months later (released as Per Elisa outside Italy) including follow-up single "Una notte speciale" ("A Special Night") and the same year Bissi set out on her first European tour.
Azimut - Falsi allarmi
The following years saw the release of the albums AzimutAzimut (Alice album)
Azimut is the fifth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1982 on EMI Music.Singles released from the album include "Messaggio" , "A cosa pensano" and "Chan-son Egocentrique" , the latter a duet with Franco Battiato. The track "Messaggio" was co-written by Battiato under one...
(Azimuth) and Falsi allarmi
Falsi Allarmi
Falsi allarmi is the sixth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 on EMI Music.The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma"....
, again mainly composed by Bissi herself, but also including further songwriting collaborations with Battiato and Giusto Pio, and both albums produced by Angelo Carrara. The albums spun off further popular single releases like "Messaggio" ("Message"), the nonsensical French/Italian/German/English language "Chan-son Egocentrique" ("Selfcentred Song", a duet with Battiato), "A cosa pensano" ("What Are They Thinking"), "Notte a Roma" ("Night in Rome"), "Solo un'idea" ("Just A Thought") and "Il profumo del silenzio" ("The Scent of Silence"). These became especially successful in West Germany, which led to her recording the German/Italian language duet "Zu Nah Am Feuer" with singer Stefan Waggershausen
Stefan Waggershausen
Stefan Waggershausen is a German singer, composer and song writer.Waggershausen was born in Friedrichshafen, at Lake Constance. In 1974 he produced his first record as singer. In 1980 he had his first big success with the song Hallo Engel. Further songs were released, partly sung together with...
in late 1983, an English/Italian version was later also released in certain territories under the title "Close to the Fire". The single which sold nearly a million copies in West Germany alone was also a number one in Switzerland and Austria. The duet made her one of the best-selling Italian artists on the German-speaking markets of the mid-1980s and it has been said that she at this stage of her career even sold more records in these countries, the Benelux
Benelux
The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...
and Scandinavia than in her native Italy.
I treni di Tozeur
In May 1984 Alice and Franco Battiato represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest with the for its genre highly unconventional song "I treni di TozeurI Treni Di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, Rosario Cosentino and Giusto Pio. It was the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian by Alice and Franco Battiato.In a studio version sung only by Battiato, the song was later to be included on his...
" ("The trains of Tozeur"), again composed by Battiato, Giusto Pio and lyricist Rosario Cosentino. The mid-tempo synth-driven ballad was based around a very brief excerpt from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's opera The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
and was performed on stage in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
with three classically trained mezzosopranos. Despite being tipped to win and arguably the best reception from the audiences on the night as well as receiving the coveted "twelve points", the full mark, from countries as diverse as Spain and Finland, Alice and Battiato lost out to the Swedish song "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley
Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley
"Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 performed in Swedish by a trio of brothers named Herrey's. Lyrics were written by Britt Lindeborg, and the tune by Torgny Söderberg...
", and finished 5th out of 19 entries. "I treni di Tozeur" however became that year's bestselling entry in Continental Europe, and paradoxically enough also a Top 20 hit in Sweden. The song is also in fact one of the very few Italian Eurovision entries ever to become a commercial success in Italy itself - even topping the Italian singles chart, and some twenty-five years later it still remains the best-selling single in Bissi's career to date. Both Alice and Battiato have since recorded several solo interpretations of "I treni di Tozeur", both with contemporary and classical arrangements, and the song also appears on the CD set of Eurovision Winners and Classics produced to coincide with the Congratulations
Congratulations (Eurovision)
Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest was a television programme organised by the European Broadcasting Union to commemorate the Eurovision Song Contest's fiftieth anniversary and to determine the Contest's most popular entrant of its fifty years. It took place at Forum,...
50th Anniversary special of late 2005 as well as on the accompanying DVD.
Gioielli rubati
In 1985 Alice followed up the success of the "I treni di Tozeur" single with a full-length tribute album entitled Gioielli rubati ("Stolen Jewels"), including nine of the composer's best-known songs. Angelo Carrara's production of the album, recorded in MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and mixed at The Power Station Studios
Avatar Studios
Avatar Studios, formerly known as The Power Station, is a recording studio at 441 West 53rd Street in Manhattan, New York City.The building was originally a Consolidated Edison power plant; but after a period of vacancy, it was used as a sound stage for the television game show Let's Make a Deal...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, accentuated Battiato's influences from classical masters such as Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, Mozart and Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
by juxtaposing modern sequencer
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
-programmed synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
s and drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
s against a classically arranged string section
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
, just like in the case of "I treni di Tozeur" courtesy of the opera house La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan. The album's opening track "Prospettiva Nevski", minutely detailing a cold winter's day at Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
's "Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Avenue |Prospekt]]) is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Planned by Peter the Great as beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander...
" in the early twentieth century, became Alice's best-selling solo single in Continental Europe and Scandinavia since her breakthrough with "Per Elisa" and was followed by "Summer on A Solitary Beach", "Il Re del Mondo" ("The King of the World") and "Luna indiana" ("Indian Moon", loosely based on Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata") and introduced Battiato's music to a wider European audience. In Italy the Gioielli Rubati album won Alice the award Premio Tenco
Luigi Tenco
Luigi Tenco was an Italian singer, songwriter and actor.-Biography:Tenco was born in Cassine in 1938, the son of Teresa Zoccola and Giuseppe Tenco. He never knew his father, who died in unclear circumstances...
for Best Interpretation the following year.
Park Hotel
In 1986 Bissi changed musical direction as she returned to the charts with the album Park HotelPark Hotel (Alice album)
Park Hotel is the eighth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1986 on EMI Music.The album was recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acclaimed musicians: American bassist Tony Levin , American...
, her first project with keyboardist, arranger and producer Francesco Messina, with whom she was to collaborate extensively over the next two decades. The album which included material co-written by Bissi herself, Messina, as well as prolific Italian lyricist, composer and singer Juri Camisasca was also Bissi's first proper international venture as it was entirely recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acknowledged and highly influential musicians: American bassist Tony Levin
Tony Levin
Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
, American drummer Jerry Marotta
Jerry Marotta
Jerry Marotta is a drummer currently residing in Woodstock, New York. He is the brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a well-known drummer and composer....
and British guitarist Phil Manzanera
Phil Manzanera
Phil Manzanera is a musician and record producer. He is the lead guitarist with Roxy Music. In 2006 Manzanera co-produced David Gilmour's album On An Island and played in Gilmour's band for tours in Europe and North America...
. The album was notably different to the preceding "I treni di Tozeur" and Gioielli rubati, as it mainly focussed on blues-tinged, melancholy and suggestive ballads with airy soundscapes giving plenty of room for the musicians to display their respective talents and for Bissi to use her vocal skills in a new musical environment. Park Hotel was promoted by lead single "Nomadi" ("Nomads"), an epic ballad by Camisasca, followed by "Il senso dei desideri" ("The Sense of Desire"), "Viali di solitudine" ("The Boulevards of the Lonely"), "Volo di notte" ("Fly by Night") and a remix of the up-tempo track "Conoscersi" ("Knowing Yourself"). Park Hotel was a considerable success both critically and commercially, reaching the Top 20 in most parts of Continental Europe, peaking at #13 on the Swedish albums chart and it also became her breakthrough on the Japanese market, despite the fact that all lyrics still were entirely sung in the Italian language.
Elisir
A tour in Continental Europe and Scandinavia followed in 1987 on which Bissi performed tracks from the Park HotelPark Hotel (Alice album)
Park Hotel is the eighth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1986 on EMI Music.The album was recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acclaimed musicians: American bassist Tony Levin , American...
album alongside reworked arrangements of songs from her earlier repertoire; the romantic "Una notte speciale" became an up-tempo rock track, breakthrough single "Il vento caldo dell'estate" was given an updated synthesizer and drum-machine treatment while songs like "La Mano", "Rumbarock" (retitled "Hispavox") and "Notte a Roma" were performed unplugged
Acoustic music
Acoustic music comprises music that solely or primarily uses instruments which produce sound through entirely acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means...
with acoustic guitars and sparse percussion. After the completion of the tour six of these interpretations were recorded in studio and released on the album Elisir which also included two previously unreleased songs, the opening track "Nuvole" ("Clouds") and a cover version of Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
and McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's "The Fool on the Hill
The Fool on the Hill
"The Fool on the Hill" is a song by The Beatles. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney and recorded in 1967...
", released as the lead single. Elisir was later awarded the prestigious prize Goldene Europa
Goldene Europa
The Goldene Europa award is the oldest German Television award for artists and entertainers. It was awarded from 1968 to 2003. In the years 1989 and 2001, there were no ceremonies...
for sales on the German speaking markets. In Japan the album was released under the title Kusamakura (Grass Pillow) and then included the new recording "Le scogliere di Dover" ("The reeves of Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
"), with which Alice participated in the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo in early 1988.
Mélodie Passagère
Musically and vocally versatile and unwilling to be categorised or defined, 1988 saw Bissi setting out on a low-key tour in smaller venues and classical concert halls in Italy and Switzerland accompanied solely by herself and Michele Fedrigotti on pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
s and keyboard
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
s, performing not her pop hits but arias and lieder by fin de siècle
Fin de siècle
Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...
composers Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
, Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...
and Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
. The partly instrumental concert was later recorded in studio and released as Mélodie passagère on EMI.
Il sole nella pioggia
Il Sole Nella Pioggia
Il sole nella pioggia is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.The album, whose title translates as The Sun in the Rain, includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il sole nella pioggia" as well as popular tracks like "Tempo senza tempo", "Le...
(The Sun in the Rain), which was proof of further musical development and evolution as it was clearly influenced by contemporary British artists in the experimental
Experimental rock
Experimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....
and alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
genres such as Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush
Kate Bush
Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...
and David Sylvian
David Sylvian
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan...
and among the all-star line up of musicians contributing to the project were in fact several who previously had collaborated with these: drummer Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen
Steve Jansen is an English drummer, percussionist, singer and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London, where he failed academically, leaving at 16....
and keyboardist Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri, is an English synthesiser player, keyboardist and composer. He was educated at Catford Boys' School, Catford, South East London...
, guitarist Dave Gregory, trumpetist and multi-instrumentalist Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
, Turkish flutist Kudsi Erguner
Kudsi Erguner
Kudsi Erguner is a Turkish musician. He is considered a master of traditional Mevlevi Sufi music and is one of the best-known players of the Turkish ney flute.-Biography:...
as well as the Italian trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
and flugelhorn
Flugelhorn
The flugelhorn is a brass instrument resembling a trumpet but with a wider, conical bore. Some consider it to be a member of the saxhorn family developed by Adolphe Sax ; however, other historians assert that it derives from the valve bugle designed by Michael Saurle , Munich 1832 , thus...
jazz player Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu is a trumpet and flugelhorn jazz player, as well as an arranger of music, and music composer.-Career:Fresu was born in Berchidda, Sardinia. He picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the band Bernardo de Muro in his home town Berchidda...
. The album closes with the English language track "Now and Forever", a duet with British progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
singer-songwriter Peter Hammill
Peter Hammill
Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill is an English singer-songwriter, and a founding member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Most noted for his vocal abilities, his main instruments are guitar and piano...
. The mainpart of the songs were collaborations between Juri Camisasca and pianist, violinist and composer Marco Liverani including lead single "Visioni" ("Visions"), follow-up and title track "Il sole nella pioggia", "Tempo senza tempo" ("Time Without Time") and "Le ragazze di Osaka" ("The Girls in Osaka"). Side two of the original vinyl album however opened with a multilayered a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
interpretation of the medieval French folk song "Orléans" on which Alice again showed her vocal capability by singing all harmonies covering four octaves, followed by the acoustic "Anìn A Grîs" sung in the Friulian language
Friulian language
Friulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
. Il sole nella pioggia also included a reworking of the track "Le scogliere di Dover", originally released on the Japanese Kusamakura album, provided with new lyrics and retitled "I cieli del nord" ("The Skies of the North"). The album consolidated her position as one of Italy's leading artists and was followed by another successful European concert tour.
Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi
After a three year absence from the music scene Bissi returned with the album Mezzogiorno sulle AlpiMezzogiorno Sulle Alpi
Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi is the twelfth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1992 on EMI Music.Three years after the commercial success of Il sole nella pioggia Alice returned to the music scene with her most mature and complex work to date, exploring genres like experimental...
("Noon in the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
") in 1992, her most experimental and mature work to date, again recorded with a number of distinguished international musicians such as Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Dave Gregory, Paolo Fresu as well as double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
player Danny Thompson
Danny Thompson
Daniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman...
, drummer Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Harrison is a British drummer and percussionist. He is best known for playing with the British progressive rock band Porcupine Tree which he joined in 2002. As of 2008, he also plays with the band King Crimson....
and bassist Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko Jakszyk
Jakko M. Jakszyk is an English guitarist, singer-songwriter , multi-instrumentalist and producer...
. Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi displayed Bissi's effort to steer away from being a commercially oriented Mediterranean pop act to a much more ambitious performer and marked an increasing expansion into electronics, expressed in colourful synth sounds, occasional drum loops and subdued ambient passages as well as influences from contemporary jazz. The material was mainly co-written by Bissi and producer Francesco Messina with contributions from Richard Barbieri, Paolo Fresu and Rosario Cosentino but the album also included an English language cover version of Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
's "Blue Melody" and lead single "In viaggio sul tuo viso" incorporates the Hungarian folk melody "Istenem Istenem". The album also saw Bissi interpreting more complex lyrics, such as on the track "La recessione" ("The Recession"), originally a poem by controversial Italian cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
, intellectual and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
, set to music by Mino Di Martino, and "Luce della sera" ("The Lights of the Night") which opens with a haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
by Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki
Natsume Soseki
, born ', is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period . He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales...
. Despite receiving generally positive reviews from music critics and a following sold-out European concert tour the Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi album itself was only a moderate commercial success compared to Bissi's previous efforts and this would eventually result in both artistic and legal complications with her record label, the Italian subsidiary of EMI (see EMI aftermath).
Art et Décoration
The years 1993 and 1994 saw Bissi embarking on the tour project Art et Décoration with the Arturo ToscaniniArturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
Symphony Orchestra, interpreting works by composers such as Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalised French, composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie....
, Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
, Maurice Ravel, Xavier Montsalvatge
Xavier Montsalvatge
Xavier Montsalvatge i Bassols was a Spanish Catalan composer and music critic. He was one of the most influential music figures in Catalan music during the latter half of the 20th century.-Life:...
, Geni Sadero, Gabriel Fauré, Ivor Gurney
Ivor Gurney
Ivor Bertie Gurney was an English composer and poet.-Life:Born at 3 Queen Street, Gloucester in 1890, the second of four children of David Gurney, a tailor, and his wife Florence, a seamstress, Gurney showed musical ability early...
, Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
, and Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
. Unlike Mélodie passagère the Art et Décoration project was not recorded by EMI and still remains unreleased.
Charade
In 1995 Bissi signed a five-year contract with the WEA/Warner Music label and released another pop album, the both musically and lyrically introspective and contemplative CharadeCharade (Alice album)
Charade is the thirteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1995 on WEA/Warner Music.After a three year long artistic and legal dispute with her label EMI Music Alice signed with WEA in 1995 and then released her first studio album since 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle...
featuring contributions from musicians like King Crimson's Trey Gunn
Trey Gunn
Trey Gunn is an American musician, known for his membership in progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick.-Biography:...
, several tracks with British improvisational solo violinist and arranger Stuart Gordon and acoustic tracks with the American/Belgian/Japanese California Guitar Trio
California Guitar Trio
California Guitar Trio is a band of threeguitar players founded in 1991. Paul Richards of Salt Lake City, Utah, Bert Lams of Brussels,...
. Charade, which included single releases "Dammi la mano amore" ("Give Me Your Hand, My Love") and "Non ero mai sola" ("I Was Never Alone"), was very much in the same vein as 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi but further developed the use of minimalist ambient/avant-garde backgrounds, with fractured guitars and woodwind, muted trumpets and accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
set against programmed TR-808 rhythms, influenced by contemporary dance music genres like electronica and trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
, fused with world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
samples
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
and looped
Music loop
In electroacoustic music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections of material can be repeated to create ostinato patterns...
vocals, but again with the main focus on the esoteric and evocative lyrics.
On the following European Charade tour in 1996 Bissi performed with a four-piece band consisting of Robby Aceto (The Club, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
, David Sylvian etc.) on electric and acoustic guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
s, former No-Man
No-Man
No-Man are a British art-pop duo formed in 1987 as No Man Is An Island by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson . The band has so far produced six studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes collections...
member Ben Coleman on violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and the two ex-Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
members Steve Jansen on drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
and Mick Karn
Mick Karn
Andonis Michaelides , better known as Mick Karn, was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, who came to fame as the bassist for the art rock band Japan, from 1974 to 1982....
on bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
. After fifteen years of alternately composing, recording, promoting her work in the media as well as extensive touring, the Charade Tour marked Bissi's final major European concert venture.
Later in 1996 she appeared as singer and co-writer on Trey Gunn's solo album The Third Star, performing the title track. In 1997 she and producer Francesco Messina, Gavin Harrison and Juri Camisasca among others were part of the collaborative crossover
Crossover (music)
Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers appearing on two or more of the record charts which track differing musical tastes, or genres...
/ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
/fusion
Fusion (music)
A fusion genre is music that combines two or more styles. For example, rock and roll originally developed as a fusion of blues, gospel and country music. The main characteristics of fusion genres are variations in tempo, rhythm, i a sometimes the use of long musical "journeys" that can be divided...
project Devogue, with Bissi singing lead vocals on five of the thirteen titles, two of which in fact ambient dub remixes of tracks from her own studio albums. Later that same year she teamed up with Italian progressive rock band Bluvertigo
Bluvertigo
Bluvertigo is an Italian band formed in 1992. Their first name was "Golden Age" and former members are Morgan , Andy and Marco Pancaldi...
for the duet "Troppe emozioni" ("Too Many Emotions"), included on their album Metallo non metallo.
Exit
Exit (Alice album)
Exit is the fourteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1998 on WEA/Warner Music.After the musically experimental and lyrically introspective albums Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi and Charade Alice released Exit in 1998, her most pop-oriented and melodic studio album since the...
, her most pop-oriented and melodic studio album since the late 1980s, again clearly influenced by urban dance music genres like electronica and contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
; or as Allmusic wrote in their review "the album often suggests Sarah McLachlan
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan, OC, OBC is a Canadian musician, singer and songwriter. Known for her emotional ballads and mezzo-soprano vocal range, as of 2006, she has sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is Surfacing, for which she won two Grammy Awards and four...
in a duet with Enigma
Enigma (musical project)
Enigma is an electronic musical project founded in Germany by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and Frank Peterson in 1990. The Romanian-born Cretu conceived the Enigma project while working in Germany, but has based his recording studio A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza, Spain, since the early 1990s until May...
". The album spawned three single releases, "I Am a Taxi", "Dimmi di sì" ("Tell me yes") and "Open Your Eyes", an English/Italian language R&B duet with Skye Edwards
Skye Edwards
Skye Edwards is a British singer-songwriter, born in East London. Her career began in 1994 when she and the Godfrey brothers formed the band Morcheeba, which released five albums with Skye as lead vocalist...
, lead singer of British trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
band Morcheeba
Morcheeba
Morcheeba are a British band, mixing influences from trip hop, rock, R&B, and pop.They have produced 7 albums since 1995, two of which reached the UK top ten.-Biography:...
. The promo video of the latter shows the two singers performing the track sitting in a rowing boat on a sunny summer's day in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
's Hyde Park. Exit also includes a second duet with Bluvertigo's Morgan, "L'immagine" ("The Images"), and closes with a cover version of French singer-songwriter Leo Ferré
Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.Born in Monaco, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues...
's "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger"), with lyrics based on a poem by influential French nineteenth century poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
and translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
.
God Is My DJ
1999 saw Bissi on another small-scale tour project with a six-piece acoustic band, exploring and interpreting sacral and spiritual - but not exclusively religious - music, performing in smaller venues and churches in the North of Italy. God Is My DJGod Is My DJ
God Is My DJ is the fifteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1999 on WEA/Warner Music.After the release of two pop albums, Charade in 1996 and Exit in 1998, Alice again changed musical direction and set out on a low-key tour with a six-piece acoustic band performing in...
, which also was recorded and released by Warner Music, comprised works by composers as diverse as Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
, David Crosby
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
, Popol Vuh
Popol Vuh (German band)
Popol Vuh was a German electronic avantgarde band, in the mainstream-media so called Krautrock, founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969 together with Holger Trülzsch and Frank Fiedler...
, Eleni Karaindrou
Eleni Karaindrou
Eleni Karaindrou is a Greek composer, born in Teichio. She studied piano and theory at the Hellenikon Odion in Athens. She is best known for scoring the films of Theo Angelopoulos...
, Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...
, Franco Battiato and Jane Siberry, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and Livonia
Livonia
Livonia is a historic region along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea. It was once the land of the Finnic Livonians inhabiting the principal ancient Livonian County Metsepole with its center at Turaida...
n traditionals, as well as 11th and 14th century hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s sung in Ancient Greek and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
.
Personal Jukebox
In the Spring of 2000 Bissi returned to the Sanremo music festival, twenty-eight years after her debut with "Il mio cuore se ne va" and nineteen years after the victory with "Per Elisa", and this time in the category for established artists. The song she performed, Juri Camisasca's "Il giorno dell'indipendenza" ("The Day of Independence"), qualified for the finals and finished in an honourable ninth place and was also the opening track on the career retrospective Personal JukeboxPersonal Jukebox (Alice album)
Personal Jukebox is a compilation album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 2000 on WEA/Warner Music.In the Spring of 2000 Alice returned to the Sanremo music festival, nineteen years after the victory with "Per Elisa"...
. The album contained four single tracks from 1998's Exit and 1995's Charade, the original versions of "Visioni" from 1989's Il sole nella pioggia and "In Viaggio Sul Tuo Viso" from 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi as well as new interpretations of tracks from her early repertoire, including "Chanson Egocentrique" (another duet with Bluvertigo), "Prospettiva Nevski", "A cosa pensano", "Nomadi", "Il vento caldo dell'estate", a technofied take on "Per Elisa" and an orchestral solo version of "I treni di Tozeur
I Treni Di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, Rosario Cosentino and Giusto Pio. It was the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian by Alice and Franco Battiato.In a studio version sung only by Battiato, the song was later to be included on his...
". "Il Giorno dell'indipendenza" was one of three new recordings, the other two being "Tutto è niente" ("All Is Nothing") and an Italian language cover version of David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
/Pat Metheny Group
Pat Metheny Group
The Pat Metheny Group is a jazz group founded in 1977. The core members of the group are guitarist and bandleader Pat Metheny, composer, keyboardist and pianist Lyle Mays , and bassist and producer Steve Rodby...
's "This is Not America
This Is Not America
"This Is Not America" is a song from the soundtrack for the film The Falcon and the Snowman.The track is the result of a collaboration between the jazz fusion Pat Metheny Group and rock singer David Bowie who provided the lyrics and vocals....
".
Viaggio in Italia
Ivano Fossati
Ivano Alberto Fossati is an Italian pop singer-songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and percussionist born in Genoa. Fossati has several albums to date and has worked with such musicians as Fabrizio De André, Riccardo Tesi,Anna Oxa, Mia Martini, Ornella Vanoni, Francesco De Gregori and...
, Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André was an Italian singer-songwriter.Known for his sympathies towards anarchism, libertarianism, and pacifism, he also was a convicted atheist , and his songs often featured marginalized and rebellious people, prostitutes and knaves, and attacked the Catholic Church...
, Francesco De Gregori
Francesco De Gregori
Francesco De Gregori is an Italian singer-songwriter. He is popularly known as "Il Principe Poeta" , a nickname referring to the elegance of his lyrics.-1970s:...
, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Battiato and Giorgio Gaber
Giorgio Gaber
Giorgio Gaber, byname of Giorgio Gaberscik , was an Italian singer-songwriter, actor and playwright. He was also an accomplished guitar player and author of one of the first rock songs in Italian...
, mainly covering material from the 1970s and the early 1980s but interpreted with contemporary musical arrangements and an emphasis on the lyrical qualities of the songs. The common thread was poetry in popular music and it later developed into including two English-language titles, on the following album both sung as duets with English singer-songwriter Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness
Tim Bowness is a singer/songwriter primarily known for his work as part of the band No-Man, a long-term project formed in 1987 with Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.-Music career:...
of progressive rock band No-Man; Peter Sinfield
Peter Sinfield
Peter John Sinfield is an English poet, lyricist and artist, most famously known as the lyricist and co-founding member of early incarnations of King Crimson, whose debut album In the Court of the Crimson King has been regarded as one of the most influential progressive rock albums ever...
and Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp
Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
's "Islands" and James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's poem "Golden Hair", as set to music by Pink Floyd member Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett , born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and painter, best remembered as a founding member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic...
. The project was marred by further problems with record companies but eventually evolved into Viaggio in Italia ("Journey in Italy"), released in 2003 on the independent label NuN. The album opens with a solo interpretation of the new composition "Come un sigillo" with music by Battiato and lyrics by philosopher Manlio Sgalambro
Manlio Sgalambro
Manlio Sgalambro is an Italian philosopher and writer.- Biography :- Philosophical production :Sgalambro does not have titles or degrees for business cards: how he has become a writer of philosophy – whose books are translated in French, German and Spanish – is a mystery that he is not able to...
, originally recorded as a duet with the composer on his 2002 album Fleurs 3. The Viaggio in Italia album brought Alice back to the Top 20 in Italy, peaking at #16 in September 2003. The late Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti was an Italian singer-songwriter . He is considered to be one of the best-known and most influential musicians and authors in Italian pop/rock music history....
's "Ecco i negozi" on Viaggio in Italia was again a duet with Bluvertigo's Morgan and in 2004 the two among other noted Italian artists also appeared on the collaborative album project Zerouno, with Bissi singing lead vocals on the track "Sospesa" ("Suspended").
Recent career (2006–present)
In recent years Bissi has periodically toured with the project Lungo La Strada (The Long Road) with Steve Jansen, Marco Pancaldi and Alberto Tafuri, performing in both classical auditoriums, churches and concert halls in Italy. The programme comprises material from God Is My DJ and Le parole del giorno prima/Viaggio in Italia, combined with songs from her own musically rich and varied repertoire which now spans over three decades, as well as new compositions yet to be commercially released.EMI aftermath
After the comparatively low sales of albums Mélodie Passagère - Alice Canta Satie, Fauré & Ravel (1988) and Mezzogiorno Sulle Alpi (1992) the EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
label declined to release or even record the 1993/1994 project Art et Décoration with the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra. Instead they released a greatest hits compilation in 1994 entitled Il vento caldo dell'estate, taking its title from the artist's first Italian hit single and mainly focussing on material recorded in the early 1980s. The compilation was issued without the knowledge or approval of Bissi herself. The hits package included a Eurodisco remix of the 1982 track "Chan-son Egocentrique", originally a duet with Franco Battiato. The remixed version of the track, also released as a 12" single, however surprisingly omitted all lines sung by the composer himself - again this was done without the knowledge or approval of either Bissi or Battiato. The two subsequently considered taking legal action against the label to have the compilation and the remix single withdrawn - only to find that they legally had no control over the use of their respective bodies of work recorded for EMI. This subsequently led to both artists leaving the label after a fifteen year long and highly successful collaboration.
After Bissi's parting ways with EMI, the label and its Dutch mid-price subsidiary Disky Communications have continued to capitalise on the rights to her back catalogue, issuing a large number of hits compilations in various price ranges under titles like I grandi successi di Alice, Collezione, Le signore della canzone, Made in Italy, Studio Collection, The Best of Alice, Collezione Italiana etc., again mainly including early 1980s hits. The year of 2006 alone saw EMI releasing no less than four of these best of packages in Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan.
Bissi's following five year tenure on the Warner Music label has also resulted in the release of unapproved compilations. 2006 saw the label issuing a greatest hits package entitled Le Più Belle Canzoni Di Alice, paradoxically and confusingly exactly the same title as one of the four EMI compilations released the very same year, which includes seven tracks recorded for the CBS label in 1975 and 1977 coupled with some of her best-known 80s hits such as "Per Elisa", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi", the latter are however not the original versions but re-recordings dating from the 2000 album Personal Jukebox, which the compilation fails to mention in its liner notes.
Carla Bissi
- "Il mio cuore se ne va" / "Un giorno nuovo" (1972, single)
- "La festa mia" / "Fai tutto tu" (1972, single)
- "Il giorno dopo" / "Vivere un po' morire un po'" (1973, single)
Alice
- Capo NordCapo Nord (Alice album)Capo Nord is the third studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1980 on EMI Music.The album includes Alice's Italian breakthrough single "Il vento caldo dell'estate", her first collaboration with composer and singer Franco Battiato....
(1980) - AliceAlice (Per Elisa)Alice is the fourth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1981 on EMI Music.The album includes Alice's winning entry in the 1981 Sanremo Music Festival, "Per Elisa", and the Alice album was released under that title in certain territories, then also with alternative cover art...
(released under the title Per Elisa in certain countries; 1981) - AzimutAzimut (Alice album)Azimut is the fifth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1982 on EMI Music.Singles released from the album include "Messaggio" , "A cosa pensano" and "Chan-son Egocentrique" , the latter a duet with Franco Battiato. The track "Messaggio" was co-written by Battiato under one...
(1982) - Falsi allarmiFalsi AllarmiFalsi allarmi is the sixth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 on EMI Music.The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma"....
(1983) - Gioielli rubati (1985)
- Park HotelPark Hotel (Alice album)Park Hotel is the eighth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1986 on EMI Music.The album was recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acclaimed musicians: American bassist Tony Levin , American...
(1986) - Elisir (1987)
- Mélodie passagère (1988)
- Il sole nella pioggiaIl Sole Nella PioggiaIl sole nella pioggia is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.The album, whose title translates as The Sun in the Rain, includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il sole nella pioggia" as well as popular tracks like "Tempo senza tempo", "Le...
(1989) - Mezzogiorno sulle AlpiMezzogiorno Sulle AlpiMezzogiorno sulle Alpi is the twelfth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1992 on EMI Music.Three years after the commercial success of Il sole nella pioggia Alice returned to the music scene with her most mature and complex work to date, exploring genres like experimental...
(1992) - CharadeCharade (Alice album)Charade is the thirteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in late 1995 on WEA/Warner Music.After a three year long artistic and legal dispute with her label EMI Music Alice signed with WEA in 1995 and then released her first studio album since 1992's Mezzogiorno sulle...
(1995) - ExitExit (Alice album)Exit is the fourteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1998 on WEA/Warner Music.After the musically experimental and lyrically introspective albums Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi and Charade Alice released Exit in 1998, her most pop-oriented and melodic studio album since the...
(1995) - God Is My DJGod Is My DJGod Is My DJ is the fifteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1999 on WEA/Warner Music.After the release of two pop albums, Charade in 1996 and Exit in 1998, Alice again changed musical direction and set out on a low-key tour with a six-piece acoustic band performing in...
(1999) - Personal JukeboxPersonal Jukebox (Alice album)Personal Jukebox is a compilation album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 2000 on WEA/Warner Music.In the Spring of 2000 Alice returned to the Sanremo music festival, nineteen years after the victory with "Per Elisa"...
(2000) - Viaggio in Italia (2003)
- Lungo la Strada Live (2009)
Compilations
- Mi chiamo Alice (1979)
- AliceAlice (1984 compilation)Alice is a compilation album of recordings by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released by CGD in 1984.The Alice compilation was released by Warner Music's Italian sublabel CGD after Alice had signed with EMI and had had her commercial breakthrough after winning the Sanremo Music Festival with the...
(1984) - AliceAlice (1986 compilation)Alice is a compilation album of recordings by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released by EMI Music in 1986.The Alice compilation was released in Continental Europe and Scandinavia in early 1986 after the commercial success of the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest entry "I treni di Tozeur", a duet with...
(1986) - Kusamakura (Japan, 1988)
- Il vento caldo dell'estate (1994)
- Viaggiatrice solitaria (1995)
- Alice canta Battiato (1997)
- I primi passi (1998)
- I grandi successi di Alice (The Netherlands; 2000)
- Collezione (2001, copy protectedCopy ControlCopy Control was the generic name of a copy prevention system, used from 2001 until 2006 on several digital audio disc releases by EMI Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment in several regions...
, track listing identical to I grandi successi di Alice, alternative cover art) - Le signore della canzone (2003, copy protected)
- Made in Italy (2004, copy protected)
- Studio Collection (2005, 2 CDs, copy protected)
- The Best of Alice (2005; copy protected, track listing identical to disc 1 of Studio Collection)
- Le più belle canzoni di Alice (2006, EMI, copy protected)
- Le più belle canzoni di Alice (2006, Warner Music)
- Collezione italiana (2006, 2 CDs, copy protected, track listing identical to Studio Collection, alternative cover art)
- D.O.C. (2006, copy protected)
- The Best Of - Platinum (2007)
- Solo Grandi Successi: Alice (2007)
- Per Elisa: The Capitol Collection (2008)
- Made in Italy (2009, re-issue, track listing identical to I grandi successi di Alice and Collezione, alternative cover art)
Collaborations and guest appearances
- Stefan WaggershausenStefan WaggershausenStefan Waggershausen is a German singer, composer and song writer.Waggershausen was born in Friedrichshafen, at Lake Constance. In 1974 he produced his first record as singer. In 1980 he had his first big success with the song Hallo Engel. Further songs were released, partly sung together with...
: Tabu (1984, duet on track "Zu Nah Am Feuer", extended mix also released on 12" single, English version "Close To The Fire" released as 7" single and included on album Falsi allarmiFalsi AllarmiFalsi allarmi is the sixth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 on EMI Music.The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma"....
in several countries) - Franco BattiatoFranco BattiatoFrancesco Battiato is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes...
& Alice: "I treni di TozeurI Treni Di Tozeur"I treni di Tozeur" is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, Rosario Cosentino and Giusto Pio. It was the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian by Alice and Franco Battiato.In a studio version sung only by Battiato, the song was later to be included on his...
"/"Le biciclette di Forli" (1984, duet single and Eurovision Song ContestEurovision Song ContestThe Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
entry ) - Claudio Rocchi: Claudio Rocchi (1984, duet on track "L'umana nostalgia")
- Quando... Tributo a Luigi TencoLuigi TencoLuigi Tenco was an Italian singer, songwriter and actor.-Biography:Tenco was born in Cassine in 1938, the son of Teresa Zoccola and Giuseppe Tenco. He never knew his father, who died in unclear circumstances...
(1994, tribute album, lead vocals on track "Se sapessi come fai") - Tributo ad AugustoAugusto DaolioAugusto Daolio was an Italian singer, poet and painter, founding member and frontman of I Nomadi band.-Biography:Daolio was born in Novellara, Emilia-Romagna....
(1995, tribute album, lead vocals and keyboards on track "L'auto corre lontano, ma io corro da te") - Trey GunnTrey GunnTrey Gunn is an American musician, known for his membership in progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick.-Biography:...
: The Third Star (1996, co-writer and lead vocals on title track "The Third Star") - BluvertigoBluvertigoBluvertigo is an Italian band formed in 1992. Their first name was "Golden Age" and former members are Morgan , Andy and Marco Pancaldi...
: Metallo non metallo (1997, duet on track "Troppe emozioni") - Devogue: Devogue (1997, lead vocals on tracks "Midnight Bells", "In piedi su uno specchio", "Le Condizioni del tempo a.m.", "Palmenhaus" and "Il cielo sopra il cielo")
- Franco BattiatoFranco BattiatoFrancesco Battiato is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes...
: Fleurs 3 (2002, duet on track "Come un sigillo") - Voli improvedibili - Tributo a Franco BattiatoFranco BattiatoFrancesco Battiato is an Italian singer-songwriter, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes...
(2004, tribute album, lead vocals on track "È stato molto bello") - Zerouno: Zerouno (2004, lead vocals on track "Sospesa")
Sources and external links
- Official Homepage
- Rockol.it biography
- Ondarock.it biography
- Musica Italiana biography
- RAI Uno biography
- Radio Italia biography
- Tempo Senza Tempo, biography, news, concert dates
- Alicewebsite.it biography
- [ Allmusic discography]
- Lavocedelledonnet.it
- Siebenpunkt Verlags biography
- Aliceweb biography
- Alicesito biography
- Alice's page on Europopmusic.eu (English)
- Cinzaricci.it biography
- La Casa Degli Elfi biography
- Playmusic.it biography
- San Remo Story biography
- Web.de biography
- Hit Parade Italia, Italian charts site
- Stefan Waggershausen, official site, biography
- Alicefans.se