Who is Andrea Laszlo De Simone, the first Italian musician to triumph at the Césars (the French Oscars)

An extraordinary event occurred on Saturday evening: Andrea Laszlo De Simone won the César for best original music by Animal Kingdom (original title: The Animal Kingdom) and is the first Italian in the history of French cinema at the Oscars to receive this recognition. An honor that even Ennio Morricone, perhaps the greatest of all time in terms of music in cinema, never managed to obtain, stopping at three nominations, but always returning to Italy empty-handed. The soundtrack of Animal Kingdoma film that will arrive in Italian cinemas on June 20, already available on Spotify, is an intense harmony of sounds, as if De Simone had managed to find and extort from nature his own musical soul, as if he had managed to steal its intrinsic melody, thus exploding the scenes designed by director Thomas Cailley.

Andrea Laszlo De Simone, born in Turin in 1986, will perhaps say little or nothing to fans of the mainstream circuit, but for those who are more attentive to the independent scene, we are talking about a cult object, something completely apart . Imagine Frank Zappa who, in the last twenty years of the 2000s, offered a brilliant version with free poetic inspiration of the best of Lucio Battisti and Claudio Rocchi. The real first recording took place in 2017, the album is titled Man Woman and is considered among the best Italians of the new millennium, as well Immensity two years later, it is only the confirmation of the incredible quality of his work, which is already beginning to gain consensus abroad, notably in France, where a certain refinement and a certain delicacy in the sound have always been particularly appreciated. It comes out in January 2021 I live, an Italian ballad with an immortal taste accompanied by a platform of the same name animated by live webcams from all over the world, a sort of artistic installation unprecedented in the history of Italian music which, thanks to software, allowed, at rhythm of the song, to connect to cameras scattered all over the world in random mode, from Times Square to the Arctic region populated by polar bears, like a zap on a sad reality which created a fascinating dystopia with the title of the song ; What's more I live it is his first real work designed in the new studio Ecce Homo, up to that point, in fact, all of its productions were literally packaged in-house. The one for which he received the César is in fact his second soundtrack, the first dates back to 2021, the film is Promises by Amanda Sthers with Pierfrancesco Favino, Jean Reno and Kelly Reilly, presented at the Rome Festival.

His music seems to come from far away, from the depths of our most romantic and nostalgic memories. Its captivating poetics create an addiction, with an almost disturbing beauty. It is the effect of the works of Andrea Laszlo De Simone, a completely atypical character of the Italian scene, that while his colleagues elbow each other on Instagram in search of yet another follower, he must force himself to go on stage to sing. So much so that in 2021, he announced the suspension of live performances “indefinitely”, a statement that audiences still hope to see canceled as soon as possible. To a less attentive eye, this could appear as a radical-chic regurgitation, but then you just have to listen to his songs to understand, not perceive, really understand, what is the human, spiritual and philosophical matter that animates Andrea Laszlo De Simone , as an artist and as a man, and how man and artist are incapable of separating themselves into two entities that mind their own business. The style of his music is almost inexplicable, at least nowadays, he manages to balance the unbalanced, a spontaneous intellectualism, never refined, never shameless, with a kind of detachment from the very concept of trend, musical and social; a cool essence and the know-how of a provincial boutique, embraced by the sun and non-existence.

Precisely, one thing aside, it is that there are good artists, capable of translating their soul into music, of taking us by the hand to take us elsewhere, with the grace, talent and professionalism necessary for us to drive. And then there is Andrea Laszlo De Simone, who is not even a music scholar, who cannot read or write music properly. But he approaches it as the simple art of manipulating sound, with heart, passion and an almost crazy freedom, who recorded the first songs at home, contextualizing in his poetics even the sounds of the tram in front of his house or the laughter of their children. And so today we see his songs as little miracles that just happen, like a summer downpour that surprises you when you don't have an umbrella, but you don't care because it is hot, without apparent meaning, without industrial logic by default. Captain. And you can just watch the next rainbow, without the vain desire to catch it.

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