There is a new light between the cracks of “Endeavours,” the second album by Italian-American singer-songwriter Joseph Martone. A sense of hope that pervades the nine songs of an album recorded at the Auditorium Novecento in Naples and at the Al Mare Studio in Ravenna, with prestigious collaborations ranging from Fabio Rondanini of Calibro 35 on drums to Francesco Giampaoli on bass, already active with Hugo Race Fatalists and Sacri Cuori, and at Studio Cimetière in Quebec, an enchanting place in which Martone has further strengthened the partnership with his friend and collaborator long-time Ned Crowther (The Fernweh, Smokey Angle Shades), but also with Mike Dubue and in particular the late Taylor Kirk of the Canadian folk-blues band Timber Timbre.
Not only that. In “Endeavours” the voices of Rebecca Noelley and Marianna d'Ama also emerge, enriching the textures of an album that once again brings to the surface certain noir atmospheres à la Nick Cave and other desert ones in Calexico style. All as if Martone were a gunslinger on the guitar immersed in a film by Sergio Leone, for a parallel that finds its raison d'être in the images of the video clip that accompanies the single “Lying Low” created by the director Antonio Zannone and the director of photography Antonio De Rosa, special mention at the 2017 Nastri d'Argento.
If “Time is a healer” is a ballad on the piano that flows slowly between a game of mirrors and a choir that disarms the heart, the introductory “Overboard” opens the dance with a mystical and sensual manner, to quote Battiato, without the dark air that envelops Martone regardless of the moments. Then comes an airy refrain full of hope which immediately sets things straight. We could also use the more elusive and sly Paul Anka on the notes of title trackingbut it would just be yet another game of references useful for providing generic coordinates, given that Martone in this round amplifies his approach from crooner melancholic with verses and choruses that make his own sadness a barely apparent hook, before turning his gaze and the plectrum towards bright horizons, far from dark as the shot on the cover might suggest.
Kirk's twelve strings, which unfortunately passed away shortly after the publication of “Endeavours”, are the icing on the cake of a flawless album, played with grace by enormous musicians and composed by a singer-songwriter at the height of his artistic maturity.
Martone lives out of time and his music is affected by it. He is an imperturbable craftsman of a vintage folklorism with a valuable maturation. And for the occasion they catch the ear several times even found in the Mark Oliver Everett period “Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” or in the Mark Linkous, if you prefer, which lead the listener into territories little explored in the past by Martone, emancipating him in what is undoubtedly a full second center.
02/06/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
