The first Italian band to reach the top of the charts singing a cappella, Neri Per Caso formed in Salerno in 1992, their lineup consisting of brothers Ciro and Gonzalo Caravano, their cousins Diego and Domenico Pablo "Mimì" Caravano (brothers themselves), and friends Mario Crescenzo and Massimo de Divitiis. Inspired by 1950s doo wop, they played their first gigs in Salerno and on cruise boats. After a concert in Rome they met their future producer, Claudio Mattone. In 1995 they achieved considerable fame winning the New Artists section of the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Le Ragazze," included in the album of the same title, along with the single "Sentimento Pentimento" and some a cappella renditions of famous Italian pop songs. Thanks to their unusual vocal style (without any instrument to back them) and their catchy tunes, they immediately reached the top of the Italian charts. The following year they returned to the Sanremo Music Festival with the romantic ballad "Mai Più Sola" and then released their second album, Strumenti, in which for the first time their voices was accompanied by both acoustic and electronic instruments. That same year they released a collection of Christmas songs, And So This Is Christmas, followed in 1997 by Neri Per Caso, for which they also recorded a Spanish version that was released one year later. Then, in 1999, Neri Per Caso toured Asia and Latin America. Their fifth effort, Angelo Blu, came out in 2000, and included the single "Sarà" (an Italian translation of Tavares' "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel"). To celebrate their tenth year of activity, in 2002 Neri Per Caso released the anthology La Raccolta, which included two new tracks and all their greatest hits -- one of them being "Quando," from the soundtrack of the Italian version of the 1996 Walt Disney animated feature The Hunchback of Notre Dame. During the following years, the band concentrated on playing live, with gigs in Singapore and Latin America; then in 2008 Neri Per Caso released a new album called Angoli Diversi, entirely comprised of cover versions of famous Italian songs performed along with their original interpreters, including Mario Biondi, Lucio Dalla, Pooh, Gino Paoli, and Claudio Baglioni. ~ Aurelio Pasini