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Italian Noise Circa Now

Piedmont, as I've recently learned, is one of the twenty regions of Italy, far up in the northwestern reaches of the country, nestled in between France and Switzerland. The name comes from the medieval Latin a pedem montium, literally "at the foot of the mountains", and that's no joke—the Alps surround the region on three sides. Maybe it's the majestic landscape that inspires people in this area to create such goddamn phenomenal music.

Now, to be clear, I intend to write about amazing, unusual, current Italian music in general here, and there are some examples from outside of Piedmont. Genoan Godfleshy/prog hybrid band Vanessa Van Basten would be one of them. Aggro free jazz Jooklo Duo—who, according to every bit of information I've ever been able to dig up, are simply from "Italy"—might very well be another. I would have assumed initially that a discussion about the cutting-edge music of Italy would focus mostly on that nation's largest city, Rome, but interestingly that isn't quite the case. Not to say there isn't some great stuff coming out of Rome, because there most assuredly is. Take Zu for example. You've probably heard of them. Instrumental drums/sax/upright bass trio on Ipecac Records who play some kind of John Zorn infused post-punkish hardcore jazz metal. Simply put: they're great. I'm sure you knew that. But did you also know they have a more electronic four piece side project called Black Engine who are even better? I bet you didn't know that.

Let's talk about Luca T. Mai for a moment. Here is one busy ass musician. Not only is he the stunningly talented saxophone player in Zu, able to make his horn sound like a wall of guitar noise at will; not only does he also record as part of the aforementioned Black Engine; not only is he a talented jazz musician who plays in backing bands for a variety of artists; but he's even able to take time out of his hectic schedule to help string together my fragmented narrative by being the sax player for Piedmont-based oddball grindcore/powerviolence/jazz/experimental band Psychofagist, who also happen to be one of the greatest bands on earth at the moment. That's a fact.

So now we're back up in Piedmont. At the core of the region's generally noisy and off-kilter music scene there is a record label called Supernatural Cat, founded by the members of the astonishing drone/doom/pychedelic/space rock trio Ufomammut (check out my review of their album Idolum here) and Malleus, a visual artists' cooperative that involves some or all of the members of the aforementioned band (see artwork above). On this label are a small number of artists, all of whom are, at the very least, really, really good. At the top of the pile is, of course, Ufomammut and their consistently awesome (to use the word in its original sense) discography. Also worthy of special note is Morkobot, a bass/bass/drums instrumental trio that is heavy as hell, often groovy as hell, and frankly sounds like no one else I've ever heard in my life. And then there's the hardcore-with-a-slight-dash-of-electropop of Incoming Cerebral Overdrive, the weirdo minimalistic sludge of OvO, the one-off experimentalism of Farwest Zombee and the post-metal/hardcore of Lento—who are actually from Rome but they recorded a whole album with Ufomammut so we won't hold that against them.

The remainder of the Piedmont music scene outside of the Supernatural Cat roster is made up of a motley array of bands. Bachi da Pietra is one of the standouts. Featuring Bruno Dorella of OvO, this duo plays a style of subdued, David Lynchian minimalistic rock music that is nevertheless oddly doomy. And speaking of doom, let's not forget Dead Elephant, whose sprawling art doom compositions occupy a somewhat similar territory to Ufomammut. One other unusual Piedmond group out there who don't really fit in with the rest are Uochi Toki, a quirky hip hop act that could best be described as the Italian answer to Anticon.

So what's the story with Italy? It's a big country so makes sense that there would be at least some great music there, and of course it's no surprise to hear it coming from the nation's biggest city. But why does such a disproportionate amount come the far-flung and relatively sparsely populated Piedmont region? Maybe it really is a result of the grandeur of that alpine scenery. Maybe it's product of the region being the crossroads of multiple cultures. Or maybe it's just magic.

Yeah, that's it. It's definitely just magic.

:eek: I think I'm going to worship this journal...
Those were some amazing tracks. I'm definitely looking forward to what you'll write in here.

Thanks, and welcome to MB! :)

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Roller Skate 88

Nineteen eighty-eight was a big year for little eleven-year-old me: I had my first girlfriend, got my first kiss, grew out the mullet that would haunt my shoulders throughout junior high school, and I discovered my local college radio station. That last part, though, didn't occur until a little later on in the year, and when it did happen, my musical tastes were changed forever. Prior to that, what I listened to generally was a very mainstream amalgam of pop, rock, and pop rock from the seventies and eighties. Plus R.E.M. I guess they would have been my one little scrap of hipster cred at the time—had I known what "hipster cred" even was at that age.

Memories of the music I liked at this weird, transitional time of my life—when I was just starting to own my own tapes and records—are inextricably linked to my memories of this one particular roller skating rink that was a couple towns over from where I grew up. It all started at my friend's birthday party, which he had at this establishment, and which, if I remember correctly, was quite the little fifth grade throwdown—horrible rectangular pizza slices and all. I was having a nice time skating around, hanging out with my friends and whatnot, but my day got infinitely better when I ran into (figuratively, not literally) this really cute redheaded girl from my school. She was in sixth grade and thus a seemingly unattainable older woman to me, and of course she wasn't there for my friend's party, but nevertheless she seemed to want to talk to me and even wanted to—gasp—skate with me. Butterflies spawned exponentially in my stomach. Traitorous bastard that I was, I naturally drifted away from my friend's party and focused my attention completely on this girl who, for the sake of protecting the innocent, I'll call Lilly.

That one day was all it took, I asked her to "go out with me" and then we were an official junior high school item. From then on I went roller skating a hell of a lot. There were a handful of times we went over to each other's houses or went to the movies, but probably 90% of the time we were together it was at the roller skating rink. Her one contribution to my music taste was introducing me to Whitesnake—their track "Here I Go Again" was basically our song—but most of the music I loved at the time came directly from the extremely nerdy DJ that the roller rink employed. It was a mixed bag of pop flotsam that I probably would have hated if I were a little older, but at that undiscriminating age I loved it. The Dirty Dancing soundtrack was huge at the time so that always figures into my memories of those days, as does the sugar sweet pop squirted out by the likes of Tiffany and Belinda Carlisle and the mature-enough-to-be-slightly-over-my-head sex appeal of George Michael and Salt-n-Pepa. And, of course, we are talking about the late eighties here so I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some other other cock rockers like Def Leppard and Bon Jovi—I clearly remember the scream-along contests that the roller rink used to have for "Livin' on a Prayer". There was even one song that DJ played that I might possibly have actually liked even if I were older: "Pump Up the Volume" by M/A/R/R/S.

My first kiss was also at that roller rink, in a corner, on one of those carpet-covered benches that they have in those places, my friend Pat sitting right next to us. Maybe it's poetic memory but I swear that the song that was playing as we skated away after that kiss was "She's Like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze. It certainly felt that way. She was, indeed, like the wind through my tree. Whatever the fuck that means. My relationship with Lilly lasted for quite a few months, which is basically the equivalent of decades at that age, and when it ended, for reasons I no longer remember, that was pretty much the end of my visits to the roller skating rink. I soon discovered college radio, befriended kids who introduced me to thrash and death metal, and the next phase of my musical growth was well underway.

For your amusement, I present my top five roller skating tracks...

Fun read, Jans :) I've never seen a rollerskating rink in this country, but your story was relatable. My first serious relationship when I was 16 was with a girl at 18 who ran this cafè with two of her friends. This was possible here as the cafè building was an unused part of a communal building and after they'd asked, the office of culture in the town we lived in basically gave them the run of the place. They didn't even pay rent! That place became my second home for a good 4-5 years or so, much longer than your time in the skating rink, but there wasn't a massive amount of CDs in that place and so what we had, we played over and over. I don't much listen to that music today, but whenever I hear it, it's an instant reminder of my time in that cafè and, sometimes, that first romance.

Heh, that sounds really cool for them that they were about have a café like that. So what were some of the CDs you listened to there?

It's interesting that there aren't any roller rinks over there. It seems like the kind of thing that would be all over the place, but after a little Wikipedia research it sounds like they might be mostly an American thing. Apparently the inventor of the quad skate (the kind in the picture I posted) is actually from my home state. I had no idea!

It would be stuff like Best of Cat Stevens, Lisa Ekdahl's self-titled debut (swedish singer/songwriter), Eels' Daisies of the Galaxy or the music from Hair (the musical) which I have a difficult relationship with even today. I never thought it made for good cafè music!

There was also Beastie Boys (The Sounds of Science Anthology), The Cult, The Cure and various norwegian rock like Gartnerlosjen in the rotation, some of it played at high volume after closing hours when we were doing dishes and cleaning the place. :)

Stuff like Eels' Daisies of the Galaxy is basically music that I like, but it feels like I've heard it enough to last me a lifetime and I'm still tired of it!

One of my GF's favourite albums was Massive Attack's Mezzanine. We used to listen to it while .. you know. It was pretty sweet to have a GF at 18 as a 16 year old :)

Terrific read. Even though I was a 90s kid, this is very relatable for me. I don't know if it's still a popular thing to do nowadays (the roller rink I went to closed a while ago, anyways), but it's interesting that some things were still the same over a decade apart.

Any birthday party was always at a roller rink called Wheelies, and it was always a time where the boys and girls tried to push cooties aside and mingle a bit. Still awkward as hell though. :laughing:

This song will forever be ingrained in my brain in relation to Wheelies:



I swear it was the only song they played. I still love that song though.

Heh. Well you certainly had a way cooler soundtrack to your experience than I had for mine! It would have been pretty sweet to skate around to Massive Attack, though of course they hadn't even put out any albums yet in 1988.



I've always liked that song too, though I didn't realize it was popular enough to be played at roller skating rinks. Or maybe your rink was just a lot more hip mine was.

It's funny, I actually saw the Cardigans in concert when that song was new but I remember next to nothing about the show.

Really good read fella. I don't do skating but love the connection of music, growing up and nostalgia.

Besides this track is killer :) I had a massive crush on her. Still do really.