|
|
| |
Listed in genres:
· Rock styles
· Improv
|
|
Notes:
|
One of the most enigmatic, eclectic and cosmopolitan bands of the Italian electronic scene returns with a singular sonorization - originally commissioned by the sci-fi festival Invasioni and performed live in Cosenza in Summer 2001 - paying a tribute to the cult movie Terrore nello spazio (1965, a.k.a. Planet of the Vampires and The Demon Planet) by Mario Bava (1914-1980), the undisputed and unforgotten Maestro of Italian gothic and macabre cinema (with films like Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, etc.), an ingenious and ironic innovator of the low budget productions that was appreciated and revalued in France, UK and USA much earlier than in his native country. Based freely on the story (later plagiarized by Ridley Scott’s Alien) of the spaceships Argot and Galliot, attracted to land on a dying planet by ectoplasmic alien-vampires that in order to escape to other worlds need to take possession of the body of astronauts turning them into living zombies, Le Forbici di Manitù have created a sharp-witted hybrid of B-movies retro-fascinations and stylized genre contaminations, by mixing samplers and analogic electronics with an instrumentation hinting at jazz (flute, clarinet, congas, vibraphone) and disseminating the score with surreal cut-ups of dialogues from vintage films (where horror queen Barbara Steele can be heard in conversation with the high-brow characters played by Monica Vitti or with the silly comedians Franco and Ciccio), to permeate it with a mid-Sixties mood.
Starting with the ironic and swinging intro of Razza in estinzione and going on to the thrilling keyboards of Invasioni (reminding of Dario Argento’s favourite band Goblin) and to the unusual lounge-jazz of Space Spiders, proceeding to the foggy and liquid horror-ambient of Una notte di 21 ore, the poignant cameristic requiem of La colonna flessibile and the lavic electro-beat of Pianeta di sangue, this is just another happily unclassifiable work by one of the best kept secrets of the Italian underground.
Short-circuiting B-movies with Author’s cinema, just like Bava’s Terrore nello spazio ends with an unexpected plot twist, we find at the end of the album a surprise cover version of Eclisse Twist, a song turned into a hit in the Sixties by the popular Italian singer Mina, originally penned by Ammonio (pseudonym of film director Michelangelo Antonioni) and Fusco for the film L’eclisse. As a cherry on top of the end-titles, the song summarizes the climate of apocalyptic romanticism of the whole imaginary soundtrack: "Radioactivity / sends a thrill through me / but you, but you / even more so".
Active since 1983 with an always transforming line-up - in this case composed by six individuals - rotating around the mysterious figure of the founder and guide Manitù Rossi, Le Forbici di Manitù start off with Terrore nello spazio the celebrations for their 20th Anniversary, that will continue in the following months with the release of the double album Tagliare (live + remixes). Moving freely between pop songs and electronic experimentation and crossing through the most diverse genres and styles, from conceptualistic noise to therapeutic trance-ambient, from folk-noir to technoid d’n’b, from progressive suites to plagiarist symphonies, the band has published till now, besides various cassettes and tracks on compilations, six CDs for prestigious Italian and international labels.
|
| |
|
