Daniele Brusaschetto has been touring the world and making records for fifteen years but still doesn't seem to get the proper recognition he deserves in his own country, Italy. The roots of the problem possibly lie in the fact that Italians don't really know what's good for them (after all, they have voted a multiple-counts criminally convicted business man as their prime minister, twice), but can more likely be traced back to the fact that, after all is been said and done, DB's music might still be a little too out there and hostile for the general masses and the main stream market. On the other hand, and this can't really be fully understood by foreign markets and audiences, DB's style and lyrics (most of which are in italian, which should help the cause) are closer than one would think to one of Italy's best-selling and most out of the ordinary singer-songwriter pop artists (that would be Franco Battiato). Ultimately it is probably all about marketing (isn't that always the case anyway?). I don't know what Daniele wants for himself. He doesn't seem to be the kind of person that would care for having his video on MTV, but I can see how after all the hard work and the struggling, it'd be nice to have full tour support, records in store, some sales maybe and the whole nine yards. Anyway, "Mezza Luna Piena" (Half Full Moon) is DB's 5th full length CD and picks up where his previous "Poesia Totale dei Muscoli" left off on the path of Daniele's evolution toward a more "popular" sound. No, wait, take your fingers down, this is not a case of selling-out. DB does it with style and definitely keeps more than just a foot in his industrial- and metal-influenced past (if you like Flugschadel, you might just love the down-pitched heavy guitar riff samples in songs like "Criptico" or the classical-guitar death-metal riffs of "Ego Mangiato Crudo"). If you'll hear this record you'll know that when I say "popular" I am being very careful (and a touch sarcastic) and that there is really nothing "pop" in this at all... If it is sligthly more pop-sounding (in the eyes/ears of people who know a little bit about the italian music industry) it only so is because of the fact that people like Battiato have managed (although I'll always wonder how!) to pave the way for more uncommon sounds with the help of strong marketing and what I call "consumer's sheep-ification". I'll probably take DB over Battiato any time, though, as Daniele is a lot less pretentious and a lot more interesting and multi-faceted. Genuine and real, I'd say. An urban poet, a traveller, a yet un-discovered song-writing talent. What we have here is an artist's soul and style taking on a new shape and slowly but surely evolving into a whole new thing that, if you listened closely, you might have been able to forsee all the way back in his "Bluviola". Daniele's lush industrial-noise-pop blend of minimalistic beats, fuzzy distorted feedback playing and strummed/arpeggiato guitars, meshes instantly with his unique lullaby-ish minimal vocal style and his complex, intricated and cryptic lyrics. An artist who disregards trends and is slowly changing, and nonetheless, growing, and who you should definitely keep an ear out for and an eye on.