Known on both sides of the Atlantic for his baroque, poetic approach to songwriting, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti returns with Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter—his most sweeping, absurd, and emotionally acute statement to date. Calling it Poetic Jazz Rock—at once a private joke and an honest descriptor—the Toronto-via-Turin cantautore (Italian for singer-songwriter) delivers an album of maximalist grace, gilded sorrow, and lyrical intensity. The new album is scheduled to arrive on July 25.
The album features contributions from a revolving cast of heavy-hitters, including New Chance (co-vocals on “Beware”) and Jay Arner (clavinet on “Beware”), who also mixed the entire record. A longtime friend and collaborator of Colussi’s, Arner (of Energy Slime, also on We Are Time) brings a deep familiarity to this fourth recorded collaboration, giving Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter its surreal, shimmering final polish.
“Full of Fire” is our first preview of the anticipated new album from Marinetti, and it is brimming with emotional grooves. The slow-burning single tiptoes around simplicity and blissful balladry, only to take a sharp turn into grandiose cinema, detailed by droning string sections, jazzy drum patterns, and sentimental vocals. The single begins to tell the story of Marinetti’s nuanced fusion expertise as the artist subtly fuses his natural knack for storytelling with hints of soft-rock, chamber pop, and subtle, funky grooves. While it is easy to get lost in the intoxicating arrangement, lyrically, Marinetti takes us on an equally mystifying journey. The vague yet poetic imagery employed in the songwriting is expressive and hypnotic, almost as if the artist is penning in hieroglyphs or an ancient form of a novel being unearthed for the first time in centuries. “Full of Fire” is only the lead single for Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, but it is hinting at a landmark release for Marinetti as he seamlessly blends a plethora of emotions into unassuming yet palpable grooves.
“A song originally recorded as a dirge for my second album, Memory’s Fool. It ended up getting left off the album, but I felt so attached to it that I put the lyrics on the back sleeve of the LP. But I still couldn’t let it go, so I rewrote the chords and dropped a verse, and we recorded it for Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter,” explains Marinetti when asked about his new single. “The band got it on the first take. I love Luan’s guitar solo. As the opening track of the album, it serves as a kind of statement of intent for the record: amour fous, Thelma & Louise, mutually assured destruction.”
