Hippies are back and they seems furious. Punk-like furious. White Stripes fans will gonna love it.
Hailing from the heart of the old empire – Rome, Italy -, Wildmen is a duo made of Giacomo Mancini and Matteo Vallicelli. Their self-titled debut album was release on 14th March on Shit Music For Shit People. Ten pounding, raw sounding, unpolished garage rock with roots back to the 70s and both to hard rock and psychedelic flavoured experimental rock. Energetic, sometimes quite wild and violently noisy, but fun throughout. This is Rock’N’Roll on steroid or on any other illegal drug. Read more Wildmen – Wildmen (2013)
experimental
Lush Rimbaud and zZz – Split, The V’ll Series # 1 (2013)
If you’re looking for something different, the Italian fromSCRATCH Records just released on February 2013 a split EP with the Italian band Lush Rimbaud and the Dutch duo zZz.
The V’LL series is a 12” coloured vinyl series released with artwork by Nico Villani (a.k.a. V’ll), handmade serigraphy (ltd. 300 copies) and featuring two different bands each release. The vinyl cost 16€ – shipping costs included.
This is a short, but consistent incursion into the alternative/experimental area of music. While Lush Rimbaud building upon the solid ground of the 70’s experimental and psychedelic rock, easily related to Hawkwind or more recently to the sound and explorations of The Flaming Lips. On the other hand, zZz have a more dance oriented approach building edge-cutting dance tracks with twisted out noise layers. Feels like Joy Division on steroids and some dangerous experimental drugs!
Trust me, this is addictive, serious shit! Awesome! For real. Read more Lush Rimbaud and zZz – Split, The V’ll Series # 1 (2013)
EarthBound – The Tales of EarthBound (2013)
EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother, is a role-playing video game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother (planned to be released in North America as “Earth Bound”) for the Famicom, and was then followed up by a sequel, released in North America as EarthBound for the Super NES in 1995, and followed up again 12 years later with the Japan only release of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. Itoi stated in an interview that the name “Mother” was greatly influenced by the John Lennon song “Mother”.
About the EarthBound trio it was damn difficult to dig out useful informations, although I find them on Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube. It seems they are an Australian band and probably “The Tales of EarthBound” it’s their debut album, as they declare, “a conceptual journey through a mystical musical land called Cleftopia.” Actually, this is a simultaneously familiar and refreshing adventure around several very famous and recognizable rock themes with a great combination of rock, funk, jazz and blues elements. Incredible talented musicians, great instrumentalists. All of them.
Joe Jeremiah – Keys, Jon “Oshy” Ooi – Drums and Jonathan “Menjeed” Mengede – Bass manage to twist in and out and back again some great themes and tied up together several different songs and at the bottom line it’s sound brand new, fresh and their own. Some things were out of my knowledge, I wasn’t able to identify precisely the source, but almost every passage sounded familiar. I’m still thinking of “Simple Bloom” and its tango flavoured aroma. Read more EarthBound – The Tales of EarthBound (2013)
Kickstarter/Support Needed!
As you eventually know, maybe not, I run my own musical project. I intentionally avoided using the word band, because it’s not a band, but a project build upon virtual internet-based friendship and collaboration between one American guitarist, an Italian bass player turned into saxophonist and me, one more or less vampiric Transylvanian (ex) singer and sampler/keyboard abuser.
We worked quite hard in the last one year to build songs around my ideas and managed to deliver two quite adventurous EP’s with the involvement of some outstanding and talent friends of ours from the Indaba community.
The feedback was quite positive so far. Read more Kickstarter/Support Needed!
Terra Tenebrosa – The Purging (2013)
Dark metal could not get darker and further into the hidden and tenebrous conscience and sub-conscience of the sick and twisted human soul and mind.
“The Purging” continues where the critically acclaimed and Manifest Award nominated debut album, “The Tunnels” left off in 2011. Eventually this is going more wicked and gloomy that its predecessor.
Terra Tenebrosa it’s definitively one of the most experimental and most bold metal acts of Sweden, but also one of the most interesting avant-garde acts that pushing the envelope and widening the horizon. Not an easy listening, not really friendly and definitively not for everybody, but once you get into the atmosphere of it, reveals unexpected dimensions and colors. Read more Terra Tenebrosa – The Purging (2013)
Miranda – Asylum: Brain Check After Dinner (2013)
If you’re into the wildest Sonic Youth like rock experiments and generally, into borderless, adventurous, noisy and raw, garage rooted rock with additional contorted electronic layers, Miranda is exactly the kind of “girl” you’re looking for. Really “kinky” stuff for your ears.
Miranda is a three piece band from the south of Italy (calabria and Puglia), but they relocated in Florence, Italy, since 1999. Piero Carafa playes bass, Giuseppe Caputo guitar, voice, synth and sampler, while Nicola Villani drum, electr. drum and synth.
During the several years of activity they’ve run different musical directions. Miranda’s artistic vision has been described “radical and broadminded, disaggregated and oblique, their attitude mocking and alienated” (Blowup Magazine 2006).
They’ve released 2 albums on fromScratch (Inside the whale, 2003, and Rectal exploration 2006) and a split CD with the Canadian band Creeping Nobodies. Defined “one of the most interesting Italian underground bands” (Rumore Magazine, nov. ’07) they’re becoming a cult band of the no wave scene, thanks to their incendiary shows and to their personal and uncompromising research constantly carried on. Read more Miranda – Asylum: Brain Check After Dinner (2013)
Fragment – Temporary Enlightenment (2013)
Merging shoegaze flavoured gloominess and endless distorted guitar chords; slow pulsing electronic layers and bitter sweet clean vocals; cinematic tension and mechanical monotony; Thierry Arnal, the one-man army behind Fragment, is back with his new album entitled “Temporary Enlightenment”. This is a quite dizzy mixture of alternative rock and drone, post-modern psychedelia and slowcore, dream-pop and shoegaze, a bridge build of sound and noises, but on solid emotional pillars, between Sunn O)))) and Sigur Rós, between Pink Floyd and Candlemass, and everything ever-after and above.
Not an easy listening, not refreshing, probably not gonna make you feel better or released, but it’s gonna make you feel miserable and eventually make you cry, but that’s alright. Crying it’s not something you should be ashamed of. And “Temporary Enlightenment” have several quieter, less weighty and depressing moments as well (like the nice acoustic “From This Moment”), so, no need to be desperate, there is still a pale stain of hope. Read more Fragment – Temporary Enlightenment (2013)
ZEUS! – Opera (2013)
Luca Cavina (Calibro 35, Craxi, Incident on South Street) : distorted Bass and Vocals and Paolo Mongardi (Fuzz Orchestra, Ronin, FulKanelli, ex-Jennifer Gentle) : distorted Drums, started this project in October 2010, aiming at “using the minimum in order to get the maximum and is: not metal, not punk, not math, not noise, not prog, absolutely not jazz-core, neither post-whatever” – as they firmly declared.
Althrough this is a quite rough and tumultous adventure out of most people’s musical and lyrical comfort zone, this is definitively a genuine and creative act of art, something actually (and unfortunately) damn rare these days. Read more ZEUS! – Opera (2013)
Vuyvr – Eiskalt (2013)
Über brutality – total aggression. But it feels good and sounds murderous. Raw, unpolished, furious and totally grinding into the ground type of black metal with well determined roots back to the traditional Nordic sound, but simultaneously looking boldly into the future and exploring yet virgin outer limits of the genre. Vuyvr are the new Swiss challengers and they are definitively the most devilish offspring of some glorious predecessors as Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Samael or Coroner.
My favorite butcheries are “War Of 100 000 Centuries”, “Idolatry”, “Dead Trees Are Wandering At” and the epic “The Wyvern”. Read more Vuyvr – Eiskalt (2013)
How to Destroy Angels – Welcome Oblivion (2013)
Traveling with Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Mariqueen Maandig and Rob Sheridan again. The long anticipated debut album finally it’s here and we’ve got 13 steps to go on, 13 levels of exploration, 13 ways to drowning and surfacing back to the light. Eventually.
About this Reznor’s post Nine Inch Nails project I wrote in details last year when they released their second EP entitled “An OMen”, so, if you’re interested in the full story of the bang, go back an read it HERE. Although, not really surprisingly, “An Omen” made it to my list of favorite releases of 2012 and it was definitively one of the most interesting musical experiments of the last year, a bold and ingenious method to leave the past behind, but staying true to themselves and digging into the wilderness and unknown of the future. Read more How to Destroy Angels – Welcome Oblivion (2013)
