Fortunato Durutti Marinetti - Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter
We Are Time
Released on July 25th, 2025
Fortunato Durutti Marinetti may already be a household name for you (in which case, props), but if, like he was for me before this review, the Italian-Canadian cantautore (singer-songwriter) is unfamiliar, then I’d highly recommend getting familiar. Fortunately, this is a great time for that, with the release of the imaginative and evocative Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter, out on July 25. With his self-described “Poetic Jazz Rock”, the album is a study in contrasts and contradictions; full of flourish and finesse, counterbalanced with patient spaciousness and tender vulnerability. It is a moody piece of work, but it’s also playful and takes itself only seriously enough to be poignant without being overly indulgent.
Swapping some (but not all) of the synthyness of 2023’s Eight Waves in Search of An Ocean, Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter takes on more of an analog-based sound, with the help of a very tight six-piece band. Although his vocals certainly take centre stage, Marenetti steps back frequently and allows the musicianship not just to shine, but also to help create the thematic soul of the record. The players don’t exist just to prop up the singer, in other words, they are as much part of the fabric of feeling as the words themselves. The album contains elements of lounge, funk, jazz-noire, contemporary pop, rock, and neo-classical, among other genre influences. It is embellished and meticulously arranged, but raw and improvisational enough to keep you just a little off kilter in a really nice way. This sort of intentional rough looseness makes Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter an album that plays almost like a live club session, but it’s also wonderful headphones fodder.
Certainly, fans of Destroyer will find refuge in Marinetti’s half-spoken/half-sung metaphorical reflections, which do embody a distinctly Bejarian quality. In addition to Destroyer, Marenetti also lists Annette Peacock, Rickie Lee Jones, Donald Byrd, Brigitte Fontaine, Fabrizio De André, and Tindersticks as influences. I would also place him in the direct lineage of Leonard Cohen. His vocals are a little less gravelly, but with imagery that oscillates between ethereal and earthy, Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter is as much a work of poetry as of groovy jazz rock. I believe the best lyricists don’t tell you what to feel, they show you how to feel (or even better, hold a mirror up or open a door that invites you into a feeling). Like Cohen, Maranetti’s verbiage conjures vivid scenes of love, horror, dread, ecstasy, and the full depths of human experience - as well as spiritual and mystical experience - but he does so by coming at things from the side or underneath, using the everyday objects of life (stripped screws, the blue part of the flame, flies in the ointment, dogs that don’t bark, birds that don’t fly, ash and dust, etc.) to invite, rather than direct, an emotional experience.
Between the smoky upright bass, the tasteful brass flourishes, and Marinetti’s tender baroque pop soliloquies, Bitter Sweet, Sweet Bitter is an album worth not just listening to, but experiencing. By embracing paradox, Fortunato Durutti Marinetti eschews formulaic verse-chorus tropes or soundbitey brevity, but still manages to create an album that is catchy and melodic - achieving a rare kind of pop release that is both unpredictable and substantive without sacrificing accessibility or listenability.
