''Charade'' is the thirteenth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter

Alice Alice may refer to: * Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname Literature * Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll * ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...

, released in late 1995 on

WEA The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami. Today, the descendants of the ...

Warner Music Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...

. After a three-year-long artistic and legal dispute with her label

EMI Music EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

Alice signed with

in 1995 and then released her first studio album since 1992's '' Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'', the both musically and lyrically introspective and contemplative ''Charade'' featuring contributions from musicians such as

King Crimson King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England. The band draws inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, industrial, electronic, experime ...

Trey Gunn Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick. Biography A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washi ...

, several tracks with British improvisational solo violinist Stuart Gordon and acoustic tracks with the American/Belgian/Japanese

California Guitar Trio California Guitar Trio (CGT) is a band of three guitar players founded in Los Angeles in 1991 by Paul Richards, Hideyo Moriya, and Bert Lams around the concept of playing acoustic guitars in the New Standard Tuning taught by Robert Fripp on Guita ...

. ''Charade'' further developed the use of minimalist

ambient Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to: Music and sound * Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds * Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere * ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby * ...

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

backgrounds, fractured guitars and woodwind,

muted trumpet A mute is a device attached to a musical instrument which changes the instrument's tone quality (timbre) or lowers its volume. Mutes are commonly used on string and brass instruments, especially the trumpet and trombone, and are occasionall ...

s and

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

set against programmed TR-808 rhythms, influenced by dance music genres like

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

and

contemporary R&B Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music genre that combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music. The genre features a distinctive record production style, drum machine-backed rhythm ...

, fused with world music samples and looped vocals. Lead single "Dammi la mano amore" was also included as an ambient dub mix on the album, entitled ''Devogue'' version, and the second edition of ''Charade'' added an R&B influenced remix as a bonus track. "In piedi su uno specchio" was later to reappear as part of a collaborative crossover/ambient/fusion project called ''Devogue'', a forty-five-minute sound

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

which featured Alice, producer Francesco Messina,

Porcupine Tree Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became ...

Gavin Harrison Gavin Richard Harrison (born 28 May 1963) is an English musician. He is best known for playing with the progressive rock bands Porcupine Tree (2002–2010; 2021–present), King Crimson (2008, and 2014–present) and The Pineapple Thief (2016� ...

and composer and singer

Juri Camisasca Roberto Camisasca (born 9 August 1951), best known as Juri Camisasca, is an Italian singer-songwriter and composer. Life and career Born in Melegnano, a self-taught musician, Camisasca debuted in 1974 with the progressive rock album ''La finestr ...

among others, released on the independent label CNI in 1997. Alice sings lead vocals on five of the album's thirteen titles; "Midnight Bells", "In piedi su uno specchio", "Le condizioni del tempo (a.m.)", "Palmenhaus" and "Il cielo sopra il cielo", the latter which would appear on the album ''

Exit Exit(s) may refer to: Architecture and engineering * Door * Portal (architecture), an opening in the walls of a structure * Emergency exit * Overwing exit, a type of emergency exit on an airplane * Exit ramp, a feature of a road interchange A ...

'' the following year. Both "Dammi la mano amore" and the second single "Non ero mai sola" were later to be included in the 2000 career retrospective ''

Personal Jukebox The Personal Jukebox (also known as ''PJB-100'' or ''Music Compressor'') was the first consumer hard drive-based digital audio player. Introduced in 1999, it preceded the Apple iPod, SanDisk Sansa, and other similar players. It was designed and ...

''.

Track listing

#"L'apparenza" (Mino Di Martino,

, Francesco Messina) – 4:44 #"Dammi la mano amore" (Alice) – 3:55 #"In piedi su uno specchio" (Francesco Messina, Alice) 4:17 #"Il silenzio delle abitudini" (Antonio Sparapano, Aldo Gemma) – 3:33 #"Charade" (Mino Di Martino) – 3:40 #"Gli ultimi fuochi" (Alice) – 3:19 #"Non ero mai sola" (Francesco Messina, Alice) – 4:24 #"Nel resto del tempo" (Francesco Messina, Alice) – 3:51 #"Il Nido del gatto" (Francesco Messina, Alice) – 3:19 #"Sotto lo stesso cielo" (Alice, Mino Di Martino, Francesco Messina) – 4:10 #"Dammi la mano amore" (Devogue version) (Alice) – 2:25 #"La fronte mormora" (Francesco Messina) – 2:25 #"Dammi la mano amore" (The Remix) (Alice) #* Bonus track on 1996 edition

Personnel

– lead vocals,

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

, keyboards * Francesco Messina – keyboards, synthesizers and sound programming * Pino Pinaxa Pischetola – rhythms construction, processing *

– Warr guitar tracks 1, 2, 5, 7, 8 & 10 * Marco Guarnerio – electric guitars tracks 1, 4, 5, 7–10 *

(Bert Lams, Paul Richards, Hideyo Moriya) – acoustic guitars tracks 6 & 12 * Paul Richards –

Ebow The EBow, short for electronic bow or energy bow, is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It is manufactured by Heet Sound Products, of Los Angeles, California. It was invented by Greg Heet i ...

guitar tracks 3 & 6 * Stuart Gordon – violins,

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

tracks 2, 5, 7, 8 & 12 *

Paolo Fresu Paolo Fresu ( sc, Pàulu; born 10 February 1961) is an Italian jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player, as well as a composer and arranger of music. Career Born in Berchidda, Sardinia, he picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the ban ...

– trumpet tracks 3, 7 & 12 *

Bruno Romani Bruno Romani (Udine, 9 January 1960) is an Italian saxophonist, flutist and composer. He was the founder of ''Detonazione'' (one of the most influential Italian post-punk bands of the 80s), author of contemporary jazz albums and collaborator as ...

– flute tracks 1, 9 & 10, saxophone tracks 1 & 9 * Roberto Gemma –

track 4, keyboards tracks 4 & 10 * Mauro Spina – guitars tracks 4, 5, 9 & 10 * Mino Di Martino – poem reading track 3, vocals track 11

Production

* Francesco Messina – record producer, musical arranger * Pino Pinaxa Pischetola –

sound engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

ing and mix at Stonehenge Studio,

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

February, March & April 1995 * Mastered at Profile Studio, Milan by Antonio Baglio, May 1995 * Polystudio – design * Ekostudio –

artwork A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...

* Sheila Rock – photography * Massimo Gardone – photography * Azimut – photography

External links

* {{Authority control 1995 albums 1996 albums Alice (singer) albums Italian-language albums