Amari: Apotheke (OnDaNomala, 2002)

The indie-hop vogue hearlded elsewhere by the AntIcon label has never really caught on here in Italy. "Apotheke", a very early and paradigmatic of the tendency, seems anyway to indicate that the style would fit perfectly with our panorama.
Later works by Amari would lean in a more electropop direction, but here hip-hop is still the main course. A quirky kind of hip-hop, for sure: you get the beats, the scratches and the rap flow, but nothing sounds like the usual "posse" aesthetics of Italian hip-hop.

The musical background is full of fluffy electro sounds and acoustic guitars, in a perfect "indie" fashion, and lacks any aggressiveness. The voices - uncombactive and intriguingly arranged in half-sung vocal harmonies - are the ones of spoilt kids from the middle-class bourgeoisie, lazy university students with all eases and no will to remonstrate against anything.
And the lyrics, they wallow in their everyday uselessness: personal relations rifracted through fragmented metaphors just for the sake of sounding a bit cryptic.

Everything should point to a horribly pretentious and poor album, but for some miracle it's not like that. The songs are light, delicate and tuneful; the music and lyrics pleasantly mix genres and registers: hip-hop and indie-pop, youth slang and (wannabe) cultured terms.
So thumbs up for Amari - this time, at least. Starting from the following "Gamera", the band would become more and more annoying...

Tracklist:

1. Camogli
2. Pianetarock
3. Megamedio
4. Apotheke
5. Letter to Kafey
6. Ottakring
7. Folkgalore
8. Berlino è silenziosa
9. Whale Grotto

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Fare soldi: Sappiamo dove abiti (Riotmaker, 2008)
Artemoltobuffa: L'aria misteriosa (Aiuola, 2007)

Perturbazione: In circolo (Santeria, 2002)

A light, elegant and meditative pop album, "In circolo" is an autumnal record for homespent rainy days just as well as it is a collection of springtime songs for afternoons in the open air. Here are its two souls: moody, delicate songs in the vein of The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian and lively, ironic episodes with the enviable quality of sounding both optimist and slightly melancoholic.
Everything shines of very fine clean guitar arpeggios, eversurprising melodic lines and turns, posh chamber arrangements. And very smart, everyday lyrics discreetly oscillanting between pensiveness and wordplay.

Perturbazione are a Piedmontese band founded in 1988. This is their first Italian language album after their debut, "Waiting to Happen".


Tracklist:

1. La rosa dei 20
2. Agosto
3. Mi piacerebbe
4. Rocket Coffee
5. Iceberg
6. Arrivederci addio
7. Senza una scusa
8. This Ain't My Bed Anymore
9. Il senso della vite
10. Cuorum
11. Fiat lux
12. I complicati pretesti del come

Download (192 kbps)

Artemoltobuffa: L'aria misteriosa (Aiuola, 2007)

Artemoltobuffa is basically singer/songrwiter Alberto Muffato's nom de plume. As a band, it's composed by five elements, with Muffato carrying out the most important role: he writes the music and the lyrics, he sings, he plays the guitar and the keyboards.
The indie-pop style of the band have been portraited as something like an Italian equivalent of Eels or Sparklehorse, but the most appropriate comparisons are much probably the ones with the Canadian indie scene: Broken Social Scene, Stars and the whole Arts & Crafts entourage.

The songs composing Artemoltobuffa's second album are unpretentious pop jewels rendering sketches of everyday life and emotions in an intimate, fanciful and elegant manner. Unexceptional situations come to emanate a discreet and slightly magical aura thanks to the twinkling, stratified sound (sometimes enriched by chamber instruments), Muffato's clean and unruffled voice and his simple but very refined lyrics.
The lyrics are indeed one of the strongest points of Artemoltobuffa's formula. Muffato declines usual Italian haughtiness and concentrates on an easy-going but surprisingly sharp lexicon and narrative style which may remind of modern Italian writers such as Gianni Rodari or Italo Calvino. The result are sincere, evocative sketches which show ordinary circumstances from a different perspective, recreating the long-lost sensations of the childish sense of wonder.


Tracklist:

1. Le rughe sulla fronte
2. Invenzioni
3. Estate
4. Dove lei passa
5. Lucciole
6. Impiegata delle poste
7. Tempo al tempo
8. L'aria misteriosa
9. Aranciata
10. Se un giorno

Download
(192/128 kbps)