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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 Sansara was released in 2012.
Born in Forlì, 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.
Francesco (Franco) Battiato (born 23 March 1945 in Riposto, Sicily) 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.
He is and has been for decades one of the most popular pop singer-songwriters in Italy. His unique sound, song-crafting and especially his lyrics, often containing philosophical, religious, and culturally exotic references, as wells as tackling or painting universal themes about the human condition - unusual subjects for pop songs - earned him a unique spot on Italy's music scene, and the nickname of "Il Maestro" ('The Master', or 'The Teacher').
Especially, but not only, at the beginning of his career, in the 70s and early 80s, his work was standing out sharply against the rest of Italian pop scene with sarcastic, provocative, and dark attitude and lyrics attacking ignorance, lack of professionalism, and the common expectations of popular audiences, including his own public.
His works often contained exotic cultural influences.
His work includes songwriting and joint production efforts with several Italian and international musicians and pop singers, including the long-lasting professional relationship with Italian singer Alice.
His collaborations from 1994 onward with the nihilistic-cynical philosopher Manlio Sgalambro have added lyrical references to Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and other anarchistic thinkers.
Together with Alice, Franco Battiato represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 with the song "I treni di Tozeur".Franco Battiato was born in 1945 in Riposto (in the former municipality of Jonia, that included also Giarre) in the province of Catania, Sicily.
At the age of 20 he moved to Milan and in 1967 he obtained the first musical contract. His single La Torre was released and Battiato appeared on TV to perform the song. He scored some success with the romantic song È l'amore. After further covers of pop songs, he met the experimental musician Juri Camisasca in 1970 and collaborated with Osage Tribe, an Italian psychedelic-progressive rock band. As a solo artist, he released the science-fiction single La convenzione (The convention), one of the finest Italian progressive rock songs of the 1970s.
Starting from 1971, Battiato devoted much of his efforts to experimental electronic music, producing a series of LPs that remained almost unknown at the time, but are now eagerly sought by collectors worldwide. Starting out with electronic Progressive Rock with some emphasis on vocals, his music became increasingly experimental, gradually moving into the realms of musique concrète and minimalism: Foetus (1971, its cover was censored), Pollution (1972), Sulle Corde di Aries (1973), Clic (1974) and M.elle le “Gladiator” (1975). Clic is a haunting yet largely conventional exploration in the electronic style reminiscent of Philip Glass and even German experimental rock band Can.
In 1975, he moved to the Dischi Ricordi label, producing Battiato (1975), Juke Box (1976) and the experimental L'Egitto prima delle sabbie (Egypt Before the Sands, 1977), which won the Stockhausen award for contemporary music.
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