My Review: The Slow Readers Club - The Slow Readers Club

The Slow Readers Club - The Slow Readers Club

The boomerang launched by Tony Wilson, and which had led Manchester to become one of the main centres of music distribution capable of shocking the world, returned to the city, crashing into the disaster of the yellow and black temple of the Hacienda. Oasis arrived a few years later to complete the previous work, but the quality was low and everything died: there are tragedies that do not need deaths...

Everything took only one direction: trying to be credible in the eyes of the Mancunians, the real judges, and the temperature of enthusiasm dropped towards indifference and indifference. Then came the Slow Readers Club and nothing seemed able to give a wake-up call to the totally disarmed musical capital. After experiencing a few successes (within the city walls), under the name Omerta, the band gave up, disbanded, and, as is rightly said in these cases, from the ashes came an ensemble that did not have the courage or perhaps even the ability to completely shake off its brief but intense past. The line-up changed, the bass player and singer-songwriter remained and, in a merry-go-round of searching for identity, they produced the album on their own, because no one really believed in the possibilities of this icy and fiery line-up. Songs that showed Manchester from above, under the microscope of a crisis that was surely becoming impossible to deny. Melancholy, dedication to the search for the miracles that faith and enthusiasm can produce, are some of the oxygen-deprived gills that emerge from these wet-skinned sonic arrows. What crashes down on Manchester is a meteorite that does not shatter, crumbles into indifference and falls into the crater where all the ambitions of dozens of bands that attempted success in that period rest. This record, unquestionably, is guilty: it is not truth that is sought, but a high degree of extraneousness that does not intoxicate the advancing void. Compositions that, like trees without colours (not visible), bend towards the pain that welcomes them with open arms, tearing...

And yet.

We are in front of an expanse that contemplates genius, experimentation, risks piled up and an aptitude for generating astonishment from the grey mantle. A debut that sacrifices dreams. As a harvest, like sowing without scattering, we find the musical synthesis of Aaron, the composer of most of these tracks, capable of stretching out his hand towards the centre of Europe, yet writing lyrics that surround the city: treaties of dangers, generous reminders, the muted flames that overhang everyday life, bewilderment, the economic crisis, the darkness of every nature. They are only a part of the themes he deals with, but what is important is the functionality of a musical writing capable of highlighting their features, their importance. Darts, bullets, invitations, an almost embarrassing sequence of boundless tension, with a voltage that falls in his voice.

Never has one been heard that knows how to be like his: a plough with blunt blades able to separate, gently, the anxieties of living with its disasters, and the desire to affirm the legitimacy of the heart. It should be pointed out that the decision to give electronics the most visible side apparently takes away space from the guitar which, we will see later, will return to dominance on the album BUILD A TOWER. But this is precisely where the trick is: to make the listener take a path of scouting, to devise a plan to catch overdubs, balanced arrangements, often unsettling in their intensity.

The mood is not leaden, decadent, turned towards a permissible discouragement, given the situation of the period of a town that from being fundamental had become one of many, with its head lowered to contemplate the glorious past.  The choice of electrodark as the permanent site of sensually electric oscillations establishes a uniqueness that, by attaching an indierock character, will give the whole thing a clear appearance of effervescent amazement. The love for The Smiths and David Bowie is not yet apparent, but the seeds of a ray of time that was to take time can already be felt.

Constructed like flashes of lightning with a wintry voice, the songs land in the heart like jumps of pirates never lost, never wavering. Sounds that, despite a production that leaves them unsatisfied, have the power to separate history, to create sparks of the future with dreamy breath. A cloak of limpid frenzy establishes contact with their youthfulness, never lacking in imperiously ingenious outbursts. This work is a free descent within concentric thoughts, structured to know the most violent of intimate sifts. The love for the organisational and structural plan is evident in the clamorous dimensions of an imagination that, frothing at the mouth, enters the jacks, in the resoundingly rock drumming, in the bass that never aligns with the Post-Punk past of the Mancunian nucleus. The keyboards are hisses, wheezes, stings that put security on a diet by conveying spasms of controlled fears...There is no doubt about the pop side that is held by the collar of the jacket, and yet shows its full value, in the impetus of the singles that sweep away tension, in the attempt to bless the need for a joyful side that does not clash with that eye-rolling. A combination, a mixture, that becomes a perfectly articulated skill. 

Fearless, sweaty, tenebrous, sunny, they play in the matryoshka of pain with confidence, giving at the end of the listening a generous push towards the future.

If Manchester has returned to a smile today, it owes it largely to this band, the purple-lipped diamond, the pleasure machine of a working day that doesn't wait until Sunday to weep with joy...

Song by Song 

1 One Chance

A track that was part of the Omerta period, here it finds absolute composure: an arpeggio and a voice and the melancholy that sticks to the lyrics (a golden map of a pessimism that you want to suspend...), lead to the tearful falsetto movement of the refrain, to give this semi-ballad the role of making us enter into the creaks of the human being...

2 One More Minute

This one, too, already with its years on its shoulders, finds in the guitar of Kurtis (Aaron's brother, who took over from the resigning previous guitarist) the way to breathe in the epic of the eighties, in the swaggering and dishevelled game of pleasant changes of rhythm and scenery. A rock funnel with melancholic shutters...

3 Frozen

Omerta's first single changes its skin in this album: it will be due to the decision to paint it with an arrangement full of strings (the Italian Lorenzo Castellari does a remarkable job), or to give the musical skin a shot towards the Mediterranean, fact is that, especially in the refrain, the tension becomes the training ground for our spoiled thoughts. Manchester has found a way to throw away its mirror…

4 Block Out The Sun

God chose the pupils, summoned them, gave them the keys to awareness, and broke the sky, making them enter the garage of a wrinkled, thorny, consciously grandiose melody to produce an emotional momentum that makes the listener a traveller without a compass

With the voice freezing every emotional conduit, the semi-acoustic and electric parts meet in a crescendo that, like a despotic seesaw, makes us see darkness from both near and far. When being sad and worried becomes a merit...

5 All Hope, All Faith

Kurtis' brush draws maritime trajectories until they flow into a robust rock afflatus, only to feed again on absurd melancholy. Aaron reveals all his commitment in a descriptive act that frightens, disconcerts and makes convictions sweat. Pragmatism and faith in a God argue, search for an agreement, as the song runs from Salford to Piccadilly, picking up the stage example of Post-Punk soaked glam rock. The electronic part here disappears and everything becomes more immediate…

6 Sirens

When a train loses control, its volume and weight seem to go crazy, heading towards the asphalt with great force. Killing. Sirens kills Manchester, leaving it crumbling, shattered. This guitar comes from Kurtis' passion for the United States, for Glam Rock, but Aaron's keyboard is a child of the Can: short, distorted, magmatic and magnetic, to support the song towards a crash where the melody picks up the detritus of rock, and give the song the feeling of being able to open the eyes of our conscience wide against a society that loves war... Sirens is a rhythmic mantra that paints the poetry of a tremendous truth...

7 Feet On Fire

Angry, nervous but with melodic diplomacy, this composition gives us all the difficult pleasure of an uppercut delivered against our bellies: like a march leading the condemned to execution, so the words, the keyboard, the robotic drums and the greasy bass, are surgically compacted to fix it all in our minds...

8 Follow Me Down

You go down, you plunge into the guitar with the clear feathers given by The Edge, to know the weight of life, everything gets complicated, and you find yourself with a voice that, like a drip full of morphine, tries to give relief. But the opposite happens: in a celestially stupendous way, it makes the situation dramatic and the falsetto becomes an atheistic prayer...

9 Lost Boys

Preceded by the intro where Aaron sings, the track sees Kurtis show off his powerful vocal chords, while the guitar is a buzzing, never annoying, heart-pounding, delivering the city of Manchester in its debauchery. Empathetic, bombastic, it gives the melody the role of making us swallow our sense of loss. Few chords but a lot of sonic poetry: the song is a mournful feast that firms the conviction that existence is a turbulent affair. And rock is kissed by timid electronics: perfection flies subtly in the centre of our heart...

10 Learn To Love The System

The planet Mars descends into the Readers' transistors, kisses the rocking rhythm, distributes a pandemic melody, making us sick with this delirium: a march, never martial but full of bullets of various consciousnesses, takes us into the territories of a profound invective, full of masks and metaphors. The music does the same: it is a riot of solutions that, enriched by a minimalist arrangement, establish a tension that finds in the drum rolls the capacity to drag us into a decomposed dance...

11 She Wears A Frown

The least convincing episode, with a touch of exaggerated propensity towards musical territories distant from their DNA, does not undermine the conviction that one is listening to a misunderstood gem. Everything here is inside a cylinder that hides the colours. The song is less immediate than the others. Only time will perhaps make us ashamed of what seems to be a negative judgement. But one can feel the sensation of a forcing hand, pushing the legs towards a previously untrodden path...

12 Stop Wasting My Time

What you don't expect arrives at the end: an acoustic ballad that elicits comparisons with the Bowie of 1974, only to get rid of this dangerous attitude and find a way to manifest a modernity that seemed impossible after the first few seconds. Mature, heavy words, which sound more like an apology than a criticism, are put into the heart of a voice that knows how to bless the enchantment of torment, to erudite it and bring it into awareness. The strings return, and tears, warm and silent, descend from these chords, from the words, to manifest the capacity for a hypnosis that becomes increasingly melancholic and necessary...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

30th July 2023

https://open.spotify.com/album/1h96U4Q5wLr400o0RsCgg5?si=wwEcguH7T_m_le0989JY3A

My Review: Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

There are vessels of liquid penumbras in thoughts, a slow wasp in search of guidance. Love, the pulsating one of uncontrollable spasms, seeks a force in the time of delirium, and it can be said that in art, specifically that of music, we can find an oblique flash, composed of a strategic plan that knows well how to involve the body in contact with the desire to sow tracks of silver dust, on which to run the conviction that it is the only correct thing to do.

Now at their second disc, the Italian pair has invested in a sound plot that appears to be a concept album, which in reality it is not, demonstrating rather the need to limit the field of possibilities in order to converge in a mantle on which to slide restlessness, hallucinations, symbolism, ending up gravitating around musical genres that are surrounded by their power: a work as an execution, as a transplant of sound waves to be introduced into the brain.

A journey that encompasses absences (from fear, to obscene vulgarity), contemplating instead the need to channel the destruction of the world as an oceanic, temporal tale, like diamonds fading in the sludge of everyday life. They are fierce shivers, one senses on their part the intention to make of essentiality a fist that, through melody, dance, knows how to prick the heart of existence, granting grace and warmth that through synths is not so much romantic as a vehicle of obsession. The tracks demonstrate the high capacity of the two to agree on strategies that can be cobwebs full of black honey, an agnostic mass in the sin of uncontrollable degradation. Fra and Philippe Marlat create a world of chasms for which it is easy to attract the senses, the embryonic macrocosms, to pay tribute to a highly emotive catchiness.

Pain becomes an opportunity to generate projects, with sinful and daring impulses, as the dress of a sphere involving feelings, instincts, like a magic with sharp nails. The rhythms are the terminals of melodic games full of a radioactive propensity for brevity to be repeated in dry riffs, with synths dominating, like allies of seeds from the 1980s.

Fra's voice is a silk glove soaked in oil: it makes the heart glisten, makes the mind clench, delivering a pleasantly toxic addiction. Light, like a feather that wants to be silent, she hints at short words, demonstrating a power that thousands of words would not be able to generate. The pair simplifies, invades the current vulgar will to give musical complication a meaning, destroying their adversaries with cascades of pure sparkling bubbles, in the fog of a time that grants no space for warlike disarmament. They shoot, shooting sound creatures clad in ancient magic, with Darkwave to which they put a black leather gag, giving the sinister Coldwave molecules a chance to rule the core of their hearts.  An album that will reach dancefloors in order to cast their gaze into the void and allow themselves the luxury of being afraid of this maturity that the pair has displayed with elegance and power, uniting the sky of defeated dreams with the dying heart of planet Earth...

Song by Song

1 - My Body is Moving

It all begins with a probe in the middle of the universe, a synth launching sweet missiles, then it all gets heavy and a cloud of asteroids becomes muscular, like steroids taking over our bodies. Synthpop imbued with intelligent electronics envelops us to feed the night with unexpected wisdom...

2 - Darkness

An electronic lightning bolt emerges from a grace-soaked synth, with the eye catching the nuance of a darkness, a nightmare waiting to be touched, and it is the magnetic and sensual voice of Fra Marlat, along with the work of his partner Philippe Marlat (Iamnoone), who carves a deep mark with his fingernails in this cloudburst of sound that falls from the celestial face. The two return and do so by writing a song that reveals an intimate propensity to combine different souls, a pact of strength that makes one wince as both the sung and played parts develop the alchemy of these creatures devoted to dark beauty. Fra has grown, a great deal: her voice is a lead feather breaking through the void, incisive, pragmatic, a queen of darkness painting her kingdom. Philippe is a talented machine with the intention of sweeping through the sea of possibilities: what he achieves is the marriage of melody and rhythm without any of the elements prevailing, for an indisputable final maturity. Synthwave, Coldwave, drops of Minimal Wave: it is not in these definitions that you will find the right amount of pain and fascination. Throw yourself into the ice-filled waves and the Gods of Thought, in a joyful way, will be the beacons of truth because this song, like an incredulous torch, will be able to make a small ray bloom, just enough for you to see the depths of this poignant track…

3 - Crystal World

With initial EBM petals intoxicated by a leaden Coldwave, we find ourselves in remembrances Italy Disco Dance of the eighties, with in addition a decadent mood totally current, for a dreamlike feeling as a trap for the inept, where the two probe the terrain of our thoughts. Voluminous display of a talent that can make stars dance...

4 - No Fear

A neurotic contamination (the intro is paralysing orgasm) sows bittersweet sadness, a welcome pass for a lack of fear that becomes necessary. On a robust Synthwave floor, the piece surrounds your thoughts and you find yourself in Electrowave atoms without being able to resist. It is a flight of sparks with a juicy burr that grazes us...

5 - Deep Hole

The synthesis of their musical narrative is revealed: a beat of desire overpowers every effort and we find ourselves in the deep hole of a contaminating dance, hints of singing, hints of playing, to manifest the contact between the essential and the epidermis of a dream capable of producing fatuous fires. When Coldwave gets rid of the genes of fear it becomes a stage for the Nordic part of our thoughts...

6 - Missing

Without respite, another missile loaded with electric Germanic propensity floods our breaths where, after a majestic introduction, we can unleash ourselves in spastic and generous dances. Musically, the track offers us the border between delirium and the robotic application of our pulsating bodies...

7 - Cold Sadness

The song Queen, the Goddess who petrifies breath, throws blades of ice at our legs, demonstrating how the marriage of different musical genres can generate benefit and cruel curiosity. Soft, with undulating movements of simple but devastating keyboards, it makes contact with the past possible and Fra raises her voice register, giving us shivers like star magnets…

8 - Thelema

The magician Philippe uses harmony like a gentle whip, with his Iamnoone reaching out to caress our hearts. Then Fra proves herself to be a performer without sweat in her thoughts, specifying her talent for imparting a poignant sensuality to the sonic mackintosh: you can dance while crying...

9 - No Lights

A comeback single, a decadent metaphor for our destiny, a producer of dark reminders of a past that has lost its dignity. They manage to give it back, letting us know that we cannot escape into the future without mourning lost opportunities. They extinguish the light of a millennium aggravated by sinful tendencies, with music that is a softened summer storm…

10 - Black Lies

A song that seemingly seems different from the others, instead reveals a talent for investigating the possibility of a widespread practice, that of lying covertly. But everything here is sincere, capable of accommodating us in the truth with an effective sound ensemble, where electronics support a sumptuous Synthwave...

11 - Lonelissen 

The pearl that closes this second work is an atomic, pulsating collar of a Post-Punk tested to generate points of contact with musical forms that are in their DNA. It takes us to the nerve centre of their talent, where everything appears to be a mysterious oasis but capable of arousing resounding gothic enthusiasm. One smiles with the tears that stick to these waves that, steeped in tribal minimalism, convince us even more of the clamorous display of class that is this album: give joy a black rose and lead it into the hypothermic desert of our desires...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

27th July 2023

https://on-ohnenomen.bandcamp.com/album/the-s-witch

La mia Recensione: Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

Ohne Nomen - The S-Witch

Esistono vascelli di penombre liquide nei pensieri, un vespaio lento in cerca di una guida. L’amore, quello pulsante di spasmi incontrollabili, cerca una forza nel tempo del delirio, e si può affermare che nell’arte, specificatamente quella della musica, possiamo trovare un lampo obliquo, composto di un piano strategico che sa bene come coinvolgere il corpo nel contatto con il desiderio di seminare binari di polvere argentata, sui quali far correre la convinzione che sia l’unica cosa corretta da farsi.

Giunta al secondo disco, la coppia italiana ha investito su una trama sonora che pare essere un concept album, che in realtà non è, dimostrando piuttosto il bisogno di limitare il campo delle possibilità per convergere in un manto sul quale far scivolare inquietudini, allucinazioni, simbolismi, finendo per gravitare intorno a generi musicali che si vedono circondati dal loro potere: un lavoro come esecuzione, come trapianto di onde sonore da immettere nel cervello.

Un tragitto che comprende assenze (dalla paura, alla oscena volgarità), contemplando invece il bisogno di canalizzare la distruzione del mondo come un racconto oceanico e temporale, come diamanti che si spengono nella melma della quotidianità. Sono brividi feroci, si coglie da parte loro l’intenzione di  fare dell’essenzialità un pugno che, attraverso la melodia, la danza, sappia pungere il cuore dell’esistenza, concedendo grazia e calore che attraverso i synth non sia tanto romantico quanto piuttosto un veicolo di ossessione. I brani dimostrano l’alta capacità dei due di concordare strategie che sappiano essere ragnatele piene di miele nero, una messa agnostica nel peccato del degrado incontrollabile. Fra e Philippe Marlat creano un mappamondo di voragini per le quali è semplice attirare i sensi, i macrocosmi embrionali, per tributare il giusto riconoscimento nei confronti di una orecchiabilità ad alta presa emotiva.

Il dolore diventa un’occasione per generare progetti, con slanci peccaminosi e audaci, come abito di una sfera che coinvolga sentimenti, istinti, come una magia dalle unghie affilate. I ritmi sono i terminali di giochi melodici pieni di una radioattiva propensione alla brevità per poter essere ripetuta in riff secchi, con i synth a dominare, come alleati di sementi giunte dagli anni Ottanta. La voce di Fra è un guanto di seta imbevuto di petrolio: fa luccicare il cuore, fa stringere la mente, consegnandoci una piacevole dipendenza tossica. Leggera, come piuma che vuole essere silenziosa, accenna brevi parole dimostrando una potenza che migliaia di vocaboli non sarebbero in grado di generare. La coppia semplifica, invade la volgare attuale volontà di dare alla complicazione musicale un senso, distruggendo gli avversari con cascate di pure bollicine frizzanti, nella nebbia di un tempo che non concede spazi per il disarmo bellico. Loro sparano, sparano creature sonore rivestendole di magie antiche, con la Darkwave alla quale mettono un bavaglio di pelle nera, dando alle sinistre molecole Coldwave la possibilità di governare il nucleo dei loro cuori.  Un album che arriverà alle dancefloor per poter gettare lo sguardo nel vuoto e concedersi il lusso di avere paura di questa maturità che la coppia ha mostrato con eleganza e potenza, unendo il cielo di sogni sconfitti con il cuore morente del pianeta Terra…

Song by Song

1 - My Body is Moving

Tutto comincia con una sonda nel bel mezzo dell’universo, un synth che lancia dolci missili, poi tutto si fa greve e una nube di asteroidi diventa muscolare, come steroidi che si impossessano del nostro corpo. Un Synthpop imbevuto di una elettronica intelligente ci avvolge per nutrire la notte di una saggezza imprevista…

2 - Darkness

Un fulmine elettronico esce da un synth imbevuto di grazia, con l’occhio attento a cogliere la sfumatura di una tenebra, un incubo che attende di essere toccato ed è la voce magnetica e sensuale di Fra Marlat, con il suo contributo sonoro, insieme al lavoro del partner Philippe Marlat (Iamnoone), a incidere con le proprie unghie un segno profondo in questo nubifragio sonoro che cade dal volto celeste. I due tornano e lo fanno scrivendo una canzone che rivela un’intima propensione a coniugare le diverse anime, un patto di forza che fa compiere un sobbalzo perché sia la parte cantata che quella suonata sviluppano l'alchimia di queste creature votate alla bellezza oscura. Fra è cresciuta, moltissimo: la sua voce è una piuma di piombo che spacca il vuoto, incisiva, pragmatica, una regina delle tenebre che dipinge il suo regno. Philippe è una macchina di talento con l’intenzione di spaziare nel mare delle possibilità: quello che realizza è il connubio tra melodia e ritmo senza che nessuno degli elementi prevalga, per una maturità finale indiscutibile. Synthwave, Coldwave, gocce di Minimal Wave: non è in queste definizioni che avrete la giusta dose di dolore e fascinazione. Buttatevi tra le onde colme di ghiaccio e gli Dei del pensiero, in modo gaudente, saranno i fari della verità perché questa canzone, come torcia incredula, saprà far fiorire un piccolo raggio, quello che vi basta per vedere la profondità di questo brano struggente…

3 - Crystal World

Con iniziali petali EBM intossicati da una plumbea Coldwave, ci troviamo in rimembranze Italy Disco Dance degli anni Ottanta, con in aggiunta un umore decadente totalmente attuale, per un sentimento onirico come trappola per gli inetti, dove i due sondano il terreno dei nostri pensieri. Voluminosa esibizione di un talento che riesce a far danzare le stelle…

4 - No Fear

Una contaminazione nevrotica (l’intro è orgasmo paralizzante) semina tristezza agrodolce, un beneplacito lasciapassare per una mancanza della paura che si fa necessaria. Su una robusta pavimentazione Synthwave, il pezzo circonda i pensieri e ci si ritrova in atomi Electrowave senza poter opporre resistenza. È un volo di scintille dalla bava succulenta quella che ci sfiora…

5 - Deep Hole

La sintesi della loro narrazione musicale si palesa: un battito del desiderio sovrasta ogni fatica e ci si ritrova nel profondo buco di una danza contaminante, accenni di cantato, accenni di suonato, per manifestare il contatto tra l’essenziale e l’epidermide di un sogno capace di produrre fuochi fatui. Quando la Coldwave si sbarazza dei geni della paura diventa un palcoscenico per la parte nordica dei nostri pensieri…

6 - Missing

Senza tregua, un altro missile carico di elettrica propensione germanica inonda i nostri respiri dove, dopo una maestosa introduzione, possiamo scatenarci in danze spastiche e generose. Musicalmente il brano ci offre il confine tra il delirio e l’applicazione robotica dei nostri corpi pulsanti…

7 - Cold Sadness

La canzone Regina, la Dea che pietrifica il respiro, getta lame di ghiaccio sulle nostre gambe, dimostrando come il connubio di diversi generi musicali possa generare beneficio e crudele curiosità. Soffice, con movimenti ondulati di tastiere semplici ma devastanti, rende possibile il contatto con il passato e Fra alza il suo registro di voce, regalandoci brividi come magneti stellari.

8 - Thelema

Il mago Philippe usa l’armonia come una frusta gentile, con i suoi Iamnoone che si affacciano per accarezzarci il cuore. Poi Fra si dimostra una interprete senza sudore nei pensieri, precisando il suo talento per conferire all’impermeabile sonoro una sensualità struggente: si può danzare piangendo…

9 - No Lights

Un singolo che ha annunciato il ritorno, una metafora decadente del nostro destino, produttore di richiami tenebrosi verso un passato che ha perso la sua dignità. Loro riescono a ridargliela, facendoci intendere che non ci si può rifugiare nel futuro senza aver saputo piangere le occasioni perdute. Spengono la luce di un millennio aggravato da peccaminose tendenze, con una musica che è un temporale estivo addolcito…

10 - Black Lies

Una canzone che apparentemente sembra diversa rispetto alle altre, rivela invece il talento di voler presenziare alla possibilità di indagine nei confronti di una pratica diffusa, quella di mentire nascostamente. Ma tutto qui è sincero, capace di farci accomodare nella verità con un ensemble sonoro efficace, dove l’elettronica supporta una Synthwave sontuosa…

11 - Lonelissen 

La perla che chiude questo secondo lavoro è un collare atomico, pulsante di un Post-Punk collaudato per generare punti di contatto nei confronti di forme musicali che sono nel loro DNA. Ci conduce nella zona nevralgica del loro talento, dove tutto appare un’oasi misteriosa ma in grado di suscitare un entusiasmo gotico clamoroso. Si sorride con le lacrime che rimangono appiccicate a queste onde che, pregne di un minimalismo tribale, ci convincono ancora di più della clamorosa esibizione di classe che è questo album: si dia alla gioia una rosa nera e la si conduca nel deserto ipotermico dei nostri desideri…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

27 Luglio 2023

https://on-ohnenomen.bandcamp.com/album/the-s-witch

La mia Recensione: Rain Tree Crow - Blackwater

Rain Tree Crow - Blackwater

Un fiume dipinto di seta scorre nell’involucro voluminoso di un genio dalla bellezza incontestabile che, una volta deciso che i Japan dovevano sostare per germogliare una nuova forza propulsiva, portò la band inglese a vivere dentro i raggi multipli di un nome nuovo, per benedire le foglie di un albero voglioso di lasciare scendere brani come cibo per la seduzione di chi avrebbe voluto seguire questa scelta. Il materiale visivo cavalca il cielo, rendendolo ancora più morbido del passato recente, per strutturare una strada in cui il pop sappia essere un vestito diversamente elegante, con annesse le radici che possono solo generare un lampione pieno di luce sottile dentro i vasi dei nostri cuori. Una canzone svetta, reclama, senza alzare la voce, avvitandosi nella calda atmosfera di note disegnate per stringerci in un abbraccio potente e lento. Un noise jazz che entra nella ethno-ambient, per silurare il rumore di una decade con i suoni saturi di idiozia ed esagerate propensioni verso l’annichilimento del puro suono. David Sylvian viveva male il rapporto con Karn: si doveva trovare un punto, nella foresta di quei due talenti, lasciando al cielo il consiglio nel suggerire melodie che guardassero al cuore dell’Europa. Via le dinamiche orientali, si torna a stabilire un approccio che mantiene viva la fiaccola della melodia che, partendo dalla Francia, sale su sino all’estremo Nord. Da questo gioiello musicale una pletora di band seguirono questo miracolo tenero per imbastire un percorso dal quale la World music potesse attingere a piene mani. Ciò che colpisce immediatamente è che, sebbene esista il meraviglioso cantato di David, il brano abbia nella musica il nucleo che sviluppa palme piene di olio tiepido, in grado di produrre luce con arrangiamenti mirati, continui, sempre in viaggio, per farci visitare la doverosa premura: cogliere la schiuma di questa produzione è alquanto faticoso ed è consigliabile munirsi di cuffie e un generoso silenzio mentale…

Sarebbe bene, e il Vecchio Scriba insiste, prestare attenzione al lavorio intenso nei confronti dei giochi degli strumenti, con la loro alternanza e la capacità di unirsi solo quando davvero è necessario farlo. La Dea vocale di Sylvian esercita un bisogno di quiete, come pacifica propensione a un deserto che lentamente si vede circondato da piume, foglie e viadotti di seducenti e amabili spinte verso il ventre. Scivola il brano nella dilatazione dei suoni, i vibrati, le scintille elettriche, i frammenti di Can e Kraftwerk che si intravedono, con una sostanziale capacità di comunicare l’impressione che il Prog qui abbia solo da imparare con l’esercito di creatività che sonda ogni possibilità per convergere in una sperimentazione che non sia mai esagerata. 

Piace in modo spudorato la frammentazione della forma canzone, nella quale il ritornello qui creerebbe solo un disagio, una perdita di tempo, un inutile eccesso di spettacolarità. Convince, quindi, la dinamica di un qualcosa di simile a una apparente monotonia, un’insistenza per trovare il petrolio che scaldi i cuori degli imbecilli. Nessun dubbio, tutto procede per essere una calamita con un polo tarato per far convergere la bellezza in questo soffio leggero che sa creare le scie di un fulmine in lento spostamento…

Concludendo: una battuta di caccia nella preda è una melodia essenziale, quasi scarna ma in grado di circondare un momento particolare, in cui chi provava disinteresse nei confronti della creazione di sacche vuote di emozioni vinceva e il premio era la gloria eterna…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

11 Luglio 2023

https://open.spotify.com/track/7niezp6Y3ArlH4yypQ6sul?si=e6362eb6b6c34008

My Review: Rain Tree Crow - Blackwater

Rain Tree Crow - Blackwater

A silk-painted river flows in the voluminous envelope of a genius of unquestionable beauty that, once it was decided that Japan had to pause to sprout a new propulsive force, led the English band to live within the multiple rays of a new name, to bless the leaves of a tree willing to let down tracks as food for the seduction of those who would follow this choice. The visual material rides the sky, making it even softer than the recent past, to structure a road in which pop knows how to be a differently elegant dress, with the roots attached that can only generate a streetlight full of subtle light inside the vessels of our hearts. A song soars, claiming, without raising its voice, screwing itself into the warm atmosphere of notes designed to hold us in a powerful and slow embrace. A noise jazz that enters the ethno-ambient, to torpedo the noise of a decade with sounds saturated with idiocy and exaggerated propensities towards the annihilation of pure sound. David Sylvian lived the relationship with Karn badly: a point had to be found, in the forest of those two talents, leaving the advice to heaven to suggest melodies that looked to the heart of Europe. Away with the eastern dynamics, we return to an approach that keeps alive the torch of melody that, starting in France, rises up to the far north. From this musical jewel, a plethora of bands followed this tender miracle to forge a path from which world music could draw heavily. What is immediately striking is that, although there is David's marvellous singing, the track has in its music the nucleus that develops palms full of warm oil, capable of producing light with targeted, continuous arrangements, always on the move, to make us visit the dutiful thoughtfulness: catching the foam of this production is rather tiring and it is advisable to equip oneself with headphones and a generous mental silence…

It would be good, and the Old Scribe insists, to pay attention to the intense workings of the instruments' interplay, with their alternation and ability to come together only when it is really necessary to do so. Sylvian's vocal Goddess exerts a need for stillness, as a peaceful propensity for a wilderness that slowly sees itself surrounded by feathers, leaves and viaducts of seductive, amiable thrusts towards the belly. It glides through the dilation of sounds, the vibratos, the electric sparks, the fragments of Can and Kraftwerk that are glimpsed, with a substantial ability to communicate the impression that Prog here has only to learn with the army of creativity that probes every possibility to converge in an experimentation that is never exaggerated. 

They unashamedly like the fragmentation of the song form, in which the refrain here would only create discomfort, a waste of time, an unnecessary excess of spectacularity. Convincing, then, is the dynamic of something akin to an apparent monotony, an insistence on finding the oil to warm the hearts of imbeciles. No doubt, everything proceeds to be a magnet with a pole calibrated to converge beauty in this light breath that can create the trails of slowly moving lightning...

In conclusion: a hunt for prey is an essential melody, almost meagre but capable of surrounding a special moment, in which the one who feels disinterest in creating empty pockets of emotion wins and the prize is eternal glory...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

11th July 2023

https://open.spotify.com/track/7niezp6Y3ArlH4yypQ6sul?si=e6362eb6b6c34008