Giampiero Riggio: Watschenbaum/Hold (Woolshop Productions, 2010)

Folktronica + post-rock. A bit out of time, you could object. But Giampiero Riggio, from Palermo, doesn't care at all and crafts a good (and double!) debut album fusing these two "old" genres.

As you might expect, the music sounds both expansive and shy, warm and a bit detached. Acoustic timbres (guitar, cello, piano, accordion, tinkles&clinkles) are coupled with desolate electronic elements, pauses, reverbs. The sound is way more involving than the hushed vocals and intimistic approach would suggest: the music's lulling, and ravishing.

The two cds are quite different. "Hold" reflects a more luminous spirit, and the atmosphere is more playful. "Watschenbaum", on the contrary, is more empied-out, and dominated by a melancholic mood.

Both of them, though, encompass the same apparent references: múm, Bon Iver, Tunng on the indie-folk side, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and acolytes on the post-rock one.

The tracks are surely more ambience-oriented than focused on melody: this may be a slight defect for the album, but is easily hidden by the pleasantness of the music.

"Hold/Watschenbaum" came out in late 2010 with just one-hundred copies, on the new-born Sicilian label Woolshop Productions. Full streaming is available on their website, and a "physical" copy is just 7 €!

Tracklist:
CD 1, "Watschenbaum":

1. Waatschn'bamm
2. Muttermilch
3. Die Geschichte Vom Stausee
4. A Slow Chant From A Tree
5. Dear Friends (For Gaël)
6. Awaken In The Park
7. I'm light
8. Muttermilch 2 
9. Turtle Enlightenment
10. Separation XI (Haunted) 
11. Stausee
    

CD 2, "Hold":

1. We Were Once So Tight
2. Protect
3. Face To
4. Black-Paper Butterflies (For Stefano)
5. It Felt
6. Light From Your Mouth
7. Boundaries
8. Mit Aller Macht
9. Moths Invasion
10. Universum (For Frank)
11. Liste

Credits:

• Violin: Claudio Cataldi
• Everything else: Giampiero Riggio

Download (160 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
VV.AA..: Let's Talk about Muertepop (Muertepop, 2007)
Airportman: Letters (Lizard records, 2008)

VV.AA..: Let's Talk about Muertepop (Muertepop, 2007)

The post-rock, indietronic, ambient, glitch, electroacoustic scenes have often met during the last decade, giving birth to a fertile ground for musical contamination. An idea of this quite poorly known territory is well sketched by this much varied compilation. The most evident defining trait of the music is the strong predominance of instrumental and electronic components: lush or barbed, layered or pointillist, most of tracks don't even feature vocals or acoustic instruments. Atmosphere overarches melody and rhythm in the constructions, and timbre acts a primary role in setting the mood of the music. The latter is mostly bleak, cold, melancholic - most of the textures are loosely structured and rarefied, or I'd better say emptied-out - but sometimes lit up by sugary ambiences loaded with hope and lyricism. There's an overall experimental tendency animating the music, though the boundary between experimentation and mannerism is often quite faded.
The tracks aren't all equally good obviously, but the variety and the representativeness of the compilation definitely makes it an interesting and pleasurable listening.

"Let's Talk about Muertepop" is the first release by young-born netlabel Muertepop, active mostly with indietronic music. The compilation features a wide inventory of artists, including quite prominent names such as Port-Royal, Ioioi, My Awesome Mixtape. It's available for free download on their website.

Tracklist:

1. Port-Royal - Internet Love
2. Etere - Dans les boulevards (Ohz remix)
3. Leben - Molly Has Been Cured
4. Mark Hamn - Akoustik Pool
5. My Awesome Mixtape - Ode to Poetry
6. Ioioi - Bright Future
7. Cocoon - Neural
8. Fever Asylum - Tomorrow You Will Listen to
9. Livi(d)o - Qualcosa nella mia mente
10. Guitar to Abdicate - A New Place
11. Let's Drive to Alaska! - As We Sleep
12. Rikieffe - Mosca ceca
13. Overtuner - Broken Melody
14. Monowatt - Brainwave #0
15. Urkuma&Strinqulu - Lundulu
16. Smart Drug - Rosina
17. Scientist&Cynic - The quite gnome (removed)
18. Le supersquillo - Go way John (removed) 
19. Falter Bramnk - Big Pink
20. Gilvia - Gls3

n.b. Tracks 17 and 18 have been removed on the label's website. If you have them please do contact me.
Download (192 kbps)

Similar music on the blog:
Tanake: 3ree (Fratto9/ Ebria, 2007)
Port-Royal: Flares (Resonant, 2005)

Transgender: Sen Soj Trumàs (Snowdonia/New LM Record, 2003)

A fiercely cross-style and cross-reference record, on the brink of prog-rock, post-rock, post-punk. The music plunges into King Crimson distorted assaults, Tortoise-like angular weavings, Mr. Bungle's provincial matchings, muscolarity, rarefyings. The vocals are mostly sung in a disquieting fictitious language and the treatment is often dystopian and futurist, maybe reminding the kitsch and hypertrophic imaginary of Trans AM. Some French here and there, an excerpt declaimed by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and nonchalantly overblown circus/fanfare episodes, noisy bursts and mellotron-soaked textures are just some of the many odd-tasting elements scattered like raisins in a panettone.

Transgender are an Emilian band. This is their second studio album after a bunch of demo CDs. "Mey Ark Vu" followed in 2006.

ps. If you have a bigger/higher definition artwork image, please give me a link!

Tracklist:

1. Dre Oucantèlva
2. Multìs
3. Le dernier jour
4. Craud
5. Dre Foè
6. Mavra (Sal a ruè)
7. Mantra
8. Spoony Geeza
9. A Crime Memoir
10. Dernier jour (Remix by Serial)

Download (160 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Corleone: Wei Wu Wei (Etnagigante/V2 Records Italia, 2005)

C.C.C.P. Fedeli alla linea: Epica etica etnica pathos (Virgin, 1990)

Airportman: Letters (Lizard records, 2008)

"Letters" sounds like Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" denuded of any guise of soul or emotion. What lasts in the music? The tail-swallowing stagnation of dangling piano progressions, the soaking sense of laziness of tired accordion drones, the dampened warmth of some sullen acoustic guitar chords. Then the jazzy, emptied-out atmospheres, the chamber-like breaches, the outworldly suspension of the slow minor-key tides permeating everything.
What's unique to "Letters"? Its homely creakings - a fossil recall of a hospitality which has somehow mutated in a Tortoise-like call for abstraction, made of dub drifts and sparse, cold-blooded electronic heartbeats.

Airportman are a band from Cuneo, Piedmont. This is their seventh album.


Tracklist:

1. trk #1
2. trk #2
3. trk #3
4. trk #4
5. trk #5
6. trk #6
7. trk #7
8. trk #8
9. trk #9

Download (320 kbps)

El Topo: Pigiama psicoattivo (Off, 2008)

On a first glance, El Topo sound exactly like Tortoise. And also after a second listening. Jazz + electronica with an undeniable passion for kraut-rock; Ry Cooder-like guitar slides, rhythm interlocks, vibraphone... And entirely instruental - yes, El Topo do sound exactly like Tortoise. That's not something anyone is able to.
Nevertheless, a careful listening reveals some peculiarities: "Pigiama psicoattivo" is warmer, less detached and abstract, more psychedelic and freeform than anything ever published by Tortoise. It's also even jazzier, surely more electronic and many times quite close to the style of quintessential jungle/jazz beatmaker Squarepusher.

They don't sound Italian at all, that's sure, but they are from Rome. The band was founded in 2006 and "Pigiama psicoattivo" is their second studio album, published by the young Belgian label Off.


Tracklist:

1. Tosca
2. Sonics
3. Seicento giri carico frontale
4. Pigiama psicoattivo
5. Telegraph Dakar
6. Scelsi
7. Errore meccanico
8. Crew'n'c
9. Macinino

Download (192 kbps)

Croma: Discromatopsia (Harlock, 1999)

Croma were a chamber-rock band from Bolzano whose members came from the most diverse experiences (hardcore punk, conservatory, visual arts). "Discromatopsia" is their only official recording and consists in a very personal take on minimalism, inspired by the most melodic works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass or Wim Mertens's Soft Verdict.
Though the melodic vein is always very prominent and the drums, the bass and the piano contribute to give the songs a consistent rhythm texture, Croma's music is as hieratic, soft and geometric as the one of the great masters of minimalism. The frequent pairing of oboe and soprano voice even emphasize the usual aura of ecstasy and abstractness of the genre.
As for the vocals, most of them are recited in a way that will surely recall Massimo Volume, even if the lyrical style is quite different. One of the songs, "P.g.m.g." is a readaptation of The Smiths' "Pretty Girls Make Graves".
The CD release is completed with two electronic remixes following a 5-minute track of silence.

Tracklist:

1. Bisettrice spazio-temporale
2. Butterflies' battery
3. P.g.m.g
4. Discromatopsia
5. Out of Control
6. Cenotaphé à Newton
7. -273,6°
8. [silenzio]
9. -273,6° [Remix]
10. Cenotaphé à Newton [Remix]

Download (320 kbps)

Madrigali Magri: Negarville [Wallace, 2000]

Madrigali Magri were a post-rock trio hailing from Nizza Monferrato, Piedmont. Their three LPs manifestly draw their inspiration from Slint: stripping away all of the post-hardcore elements in the stereotypical Louisville-sound formula, Madrigali Magri focus instead on destructured guitar wanderings and emptied-out landscapes, surrected by an obsessive, kraut-like drumming.
Vocals are deeply buried in the mix, often half-whispered and kept just to emphasize the murky, lazy mood of the guitar lines, which secretly cover desertic blues paths. The music of "Negarville" seems to come from the most dusty attics of the memory, and be forgotten in the very moment it is played (in a very post-rock way).
After the disbanding of Madrigali Magri, the guitarist Giambeppe Succi would team up with drummer Bruno Dorella (Wolfango, Ovo, Ronin) to form the post-rock/blues band Bachi da Pietra.


Tracklist:

1. Entro obliquo
2. Negarville
3. È un giorno normale
4. Porto dentro
5. Non hai mai pace
6. Un posto per un altro
7. Giorno è notte
8. Uomo ombra
9. Esco obliquo
10. Porte dell'inverno
11. Parti non mie

Download (160 kbps)

L'enfance rouge: Trapani - Halq al Waady (Wallace, 2008)

Italo-French band L'enfance rouge has a veteran trans-European attitude: they record their albums all around the continent and dedicate them to European cities. Both their angular, noisy rock and their European internationalism link them directly with the cult Dutch post-punk band The Ex. With their sixth album, they borrow a very strong Mediterranean influence thanks to the collaboration of the Institut Superieur de Musique of Tunisi.

The overall atmosphere has the charm of remote, millenary trade routes. It evocates the last centuries of a decadent Costantinopolis, a crucible of cultures, dangers and long-lost wealth. Ruthless noise-rock sabre blows, dreary French poetries about galleys and kalashnikovs, pachidermal, lethargic basslines hybridate the French noise-rock school (Bästard, Ulan Bator) with bewitching oud vapours and flute arabesques.
Light peeps out very rarely: just a few times Pink Floyd and Godspeed You Black Emperor! substitute Slint and Massimo Volume as guardian angels of the disillusioned, mature and extremely captivating fusion of the album.


Tracklist:

1. Otranto
2. Ras et Ahmar
3. Ana Lastu Amrikyyan
4. Tombeau pour New York
5. Azizati
6. Lame de fond
7. Vendicatori
8. Nous
9. Hurricane Lily
10. Terre d'élection
11. Petite-mort

Download (192 kbps)

Taras Bul'ba: Incisione (Wallace, 2005)

The music of Taras Bul'ba is deeply haunting and blazing. They bridge the compound-meter constructions of math-rock, the ultra-Sabbathian grooves of stoner and sludge metal and the figurative dynamics of the soft/loud post-rock school (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky), finally combining them with a mesmerizing psychedelic approach. Heavy, harsh and hot-tempered, their second album "Incisione" is dominated by an esoteric, Tool-like spirit propelled by overwhelming bass-drums interlocks. Though entirely instrumental, the music perfectly succeeds in creating a mind-blowing, blistering claustrophobia.


Tracklist:

1. Moder (under Uns)
2. Miyuki
3. Hari
4. Congo
5. Imothep
6. Mrs. Mary St. Aubin
7. Solyaristika
8. Der Golem

Download (224 kbps)

Aidoru: 13 piccoli singoli radiofonici (Snowdonia, 2005)

Now here we have something very peculiar. Aidoru sound like dozens of bands and like no one else at the same time. Their music is overtly in debt with Kid A-era Radiohead, some post-rock (Disco Inferno? Starfuckers? Gastr Del Sol? I don't know), Air, Robert Wyatt, kraut-like stuff (everyone from Neu! to This Heat), but they rework all these influences into a personal avant-pop pastiche taking all this variety to its best. The 13 "radiophonic" (no radio station would ever play them of course) songs range from Chopin "cover" versions ("Preludio 28 n° 2") to dancey electro-punk ("Ni-Roku"), awkward heavy dilatations ("Ossicine"), Branduardi spoofs ("Angelo-gnomo") and many other oddities.
Guest artists include former Quintorigo singer John De Leo and actresses Morena Tamborrino and Mariangela Gualtieri.


Tracklist:

1. 90 (la paura)
2. Nothing Infinity Reality
3. Io guardo spesso il cielo
4. Giorni
5. Se dormi
6. Ossicine
7. Angelo-gnomo
8. Parole Porte Parole Ali
9. Ni-Roku
10. Preludio op. 28 n° 2
11. Fas 3 Bis
12. Phase Difference
13. Se la parola amore

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