Militia: Elvengamello (Materiali Sonori, 1997)

Elusive, but bewitching: "Elvengamello" is a voyage through obscure landscapes, memories that intersect and tangle each other. Deliberately fragmentary, but connected through a subliminal narrative flow, an esoteric mood which cleverly creeps between a haunting sense of decadence and a detached taste for intellectual constructions.

The musical palette encompasses a wide range of influences, but most of all a constant - yet indirect - reference to a trans-cultural Mediterranean heritage. A mix of Arabian, Northern-African and South Italian folkloric echoes enriching the setting of the global end-of-the-Empire atmosphere.
Other references are surely the wavering suspension of Tuxedomoon, or the emaciated utopism of CCCP. Industrial percussions, urticant (but extremely discerned) guitars and spare multi-language spoken-word intermissions are the last elements of a firmly unhortodox sound-world that even verges on progressive.

This is the second LP by Militia, a band from Perugia. Founded in 1979, they crossed the Eighties without publishing almost anything: their first record is a 1985 EP, the second one (the album "Dunarobba") dates 1990. Some of their members, though, created the important label Materiali Sonori, which printed all of their few records besides many other interesting works by Italian and international artists (Tuxedomoon, A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column etc.).


Tracklist:

1. 17 Pluviose
2. Vorrei morire
3. Elvengamello
4. Fila & strocca
5. Mare crudele (2)
6. Su Santitad
7. Giorno dopo giorno
8. A Map of Valentine
9. Il male, il peggio
10. Welmite Notizen
11. Il fuoco e il vino
12. Disquisizione
13. Hua
14. Sciopero generale
15. Untitled

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:
Nicola Alesini, Pier Luigi Andreoni: Marco Polo (Materiali sonori, 1996)
L'enfance rouge: Trapani - Halq al Waady (Wallace, 2008)