Known on both sides of the Atlantic for his baroque, poetic approach to songwriting, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti returned with Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter.

Born in Turin and based in Toronto, Daniel Colussi has been playing in underground bands within various subterranean communities for the last twenty years. Adopting the nom de guerre Fortunato Durutti Marinetti, he self-released the Desire cassette in 2020, which was quickly followed with Memory’s Fool (Soft Abuse/Bobo Integral) in 2022 and the Desire LP (Second Spring), also 2022. The third Fortunato Durutti Marinetti album is titled Eight Waves In Search Of An Ocean and it arrived November 2023 via Quindi Records and Soft Abuse.

While his previous album sought sonic hybridity, Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter marks Marinetti’s dive into excess. Written with the intent to push his songwriting to absurdist extremes, the album features long, chorus-less compositions swirling in 6/8 time, packed with words, brass, and string flourishes. Recorded live with a nimble six-piece band in a cramped Toronto attic studio, the record captures raw performances—often tracked in first or second takes—and overlays them with meticulous arrangements.

Inspired by the iconoclasts—Annette Peacock, Rickie Lee Jones, Donald Byrd, Brigitte Fontaine, Fabrizio De André—Marinetti follows his craft wherever it leads. There are echoes of Destroyer and Tindersticks here, but also something singularly his: Maximally Graceful Funky Eloquence, as he puts it. The songs on Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter grapple with empathy, ego, surveillance, spiritual exhaustion, and love in its various shades of delusion. Lead single “Full of Fire” opens the album with an explosive ode to romantic recklessness in the tradition of Thelma & Louise. Elsewhere, “Beware” offers bitter advice for bitter times, “Call Me the Author” references Joan Didion by way of Brigitte Fontaine, and “My Funeral” imagines a self-delivered eulogy set to sombre jazz-noir. The instrumental themes (“Theme I” and “Theme II”) give the band room to stretch, underscoring the record’s musical vitality.

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