For reasons I'm not sure of, I've been asked to review independent Italian music, a genre I know nothing about. But when I admitted my total ignorance to my contact person, a guy named Renzo, he replied, it doesn't matter, we want your feelings as a non-Italian listener, it's fine if you give us slashing criticism or enthusiastic praise, just "say the truth, ever and ever".OK. I could handle that. I told Renzo I'll try it.
A few days later I received the album Odi Profanum Vulgus Et Arceo by the female artist Miss Violetta Beauregarde. The description that came with the album said Miss Violetta got into electronic punk because she was tired of all the pretentious techno-music maestros and wanted to show the world she could make equally good stuff by twisting knobs and punching buttons, without any training. It also said she throws lamb heads at her live show audiences. Interesting...
My 100-word review is here. To sum it up, this wasn't an album I would pay for, but it did grow on me and I came to like many parts of it. My attitude is, you might as well try listening to all sorts of music, dive into any sea of sound. What could go wrong? It's music, not a mined harbor.
Renzo kindly translated the review into elegant-sounding Italian on the website Rockit: "Ma poi ho capito che la signorina Urlatrice crea un interessante mondo sonoro – tetro, arido, inumano, grigio ..." etc. (You can read the original review in English if you scroll downa bit.) And the name of the series of reviews by me and the other foreign writers will be Legionestraniera, meaning we're the Foreign Legion of Music Reviewers. Bravo!
No comments:
Post a Comment