Album Review- Charlie Risso -Alive

Charlie Risso is an Italian singer who came on to my radar due to a recent duet with Hugo Race, the guitarist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the 1980s. 

 Like Cave, Race has had quite a career making dramatic and cinematic music. Risso is very much in the same vein and the Race collaboration is logical. 

The 2024 album Alive is her third full length, I believe, and follows a noteworthy EP The Light which came out in 2022. There is not a wealth of info on Risso online, which is shocking given how good of an album Alive is. Of the reviews online, seemingly every single one mentions David Lynch. 

I am not sure if the reviewers are sharing a press kit or if she mentioned this in an interview or “Lynch” is acceptable shorthand for cinematic, ethereal music. (In which case, I am guilty too, as I throw around Nick Cave’s name. Alive though is a great piece of noir pop. Risso has found like minded contributors like Race and R&B singer/songwriter H.E.R. 

The creation is a bit genre fluid and in a year where you have new albums from artists like Mick Harvey, Barry Adamson and even Nick Cave himself (not to mention adjacent artists like John Cale and Isobel Campbell), this album still stands out. Hopefully, it will get some of the attention it deserves.