Fluxus - The horror of awareness

Can it be argued that Italian rock of the Nineties has aged better than its American counterpart from the same era, or at least better than the much-celebrated grunge scene? The doubt is a legitimate one for those - like the author of this piece - who today find themselves taking far more pleasure in listening to records by Csi and Afterhours than to those by Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains, which, however important they were at the time, now show every one of their years, and perhaps a few more besides. Above all, what tips the scales in favour of our homegrown Nineties is the work of Fluxus, a Turin band responsible for a desperately beautiful debut album and three further records of excellent craftsmanship, before vanishing into unjustified obscurity.

I never had the good fortune to see one of their shows, but by all accounts they raised a wall of sound of biblical proportions. At 16 I was struck dumb by the video for "Cosa hai visto fino ad ora", a track that assaulted the listener, even more than through its considerable sonic impact, through the uncompromising push toward self-awareness coming from the lyrics and from Franz Goria's low, terribly clear voice. Alongside the more famous and generally better-remembered Marlene Kuntz and Massimo Volume, Fluxus too carved out their own path in creating a style that was original and totally credible in wedding the Italian language to distorted guitars, though with far less recognition.

The best proof of this is their 1994 debut album, Vita in un Pacifico Mondo Nuovo, with its anonymous cover featuring a photo of an amplifier and blue plastic packaging (all four of the band's albums have artwork somewhere between hideous and anonymous): the line-up featured, alongside the already-mentioned Franz Goria on vocals, Luca Pastore on bass, drummer Roberto Rabellino, and no fewer than three guitarists, namely Adriano Cresto, Roberto Novero and former Nerorgasmo member Simone Cinotto.

The songs, all officially credited to Pastore alone, the only one registered with Siae at the time, were in fact the result of collective work, with the lyrics likewise split between the bassist and the singer. Much of the era's critical response filed them, somewhat superficially, under heavy metal, on account of their massive, heavy sound, well represented by the carpet-bombing of the already-mentioned "Cosa hai visto fino ad ora", placed at the start of the record. In truth, from metal - the Seventies kind, in the style of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, complete with the psychedelic aftertaste of a bad trip - as much as from hardcore, Fluxus borrowed a taste for direct impact and an absence of faux-alternative frills, but the influences shaping their music were considerable and skilfully reworked.

In the long track - both nightmare and high point of the album - "Pelle", the ghosts of New York's Suicide are summoned up in the Turin of a decade earlier: their "Frankie Teardrop" is a claustrophobic nine-minute journey, introduced by a sinister arpeggio, at an increasingly unbearable pace as time slips through our fingers, while reverb and hisses remind us of the need for a life worth living. "Logica di Possesso" is a punk bullet with desperate, prophetic lyrics about the illusion of guaranteed wellbeing. "Vedo" and "Sabbia" - two potential hit singles, the former more measured in its pacing, the latter a vicious electric funk - lead into the masterpiece "Il Tuo Nemico", whose lyrics rank among the most beautiful and rage-filled ever written for an Italian song. No rhetoric, no self-satisfaction, just the observation of how our economic, social and emotional securities are also the bricks of the prison that, day after day, we build around ourselves without ever asking the uncomfortable questions. And in the end, regardless, "quello che resta è paura".

"7/8" is an assembly-line nightmare, from which the only way to wake up is through the radical choices of "O.C.", menacing in its relentless march and in the filtered voice recounting bombing attacks. The title track, placed at the end of the album, allows a glimpse of hope - though one that only a strong individual choice can grant us (the whispered "devi essere tu!" at the close is a warning that stays with you).

The album went almost unnoticed, and the band underwent one of the first of the line-up upheavals that would undermine its stability in years to come: Cinotto and Novero departed, replaced by former Negazione guitarist Tax Farano and second bassist Marco Mathieu.

Non Esistere (1996) doesn't match the debut, but remains a work of real value nonetheless. The songs are much shorter, and there are no long nightmares on the scale of "Pelle" and "Il Tuo Nemico". "Veldt" and the unsettling "Immagine di un Cane Gigantesco" open the record decisively, sticking to familiar coordinates (driving rhythms and bone-crushing riffs). "Non Esistere", the album's high point and among their very best songs, is defined by a wonderful melodic soul amid a storm of distortion, in an almost shoegaze vein. The short "Noi Galleggiamo nel Vuoto" and "Sono Fuori di Qui" are hardcore-rooted tracks with constant tempo changes and hyperkinetic intensity, while the closing pair of "Iconoclasta" (its rhythm continually broken, with desperate screams) and the elaborate instrumental "Preghiera di un Pilota di Caccia Bombardiere" see the second album pass the test with flying colours.

As on the debut, alongside the distinctiveness of their musical approach, the band's strengths lie in their wonderful lyrics, which dig with clarity into the neuroses of the machinery that, perhaps unwittingly, we all end up trapped within (hardly the words a fifteen-year-old with faux-alternative leanings would scribble in her diary; far easier the snobbish, vaguely romantic navel-gazing of far more celebrated homegrown indie figureheads) and in the voice of Franz Goria, charged with a mounting rage barely held in check and only rarely allowed to explode - perhaps the finest singer on the Italian rock scene of that decade.

The album earned excellent reviews and, thanks to a live impact of the highest order, the band began to build a following. Yet its line-up found no peace: after Non Esistere, Marco, Tax and Adriano left the band, Simone Cinotto returned, and new members Marcello Marcelli on bass and Massimiliano Bellarosa on guitar came aboard, with whom the third album, Pura Lana Vergine, was recorded.

This latest work marks several new developments: first of all, the album was distributed as an insert with the newspaper "Il Manifesto" and, in keeping with this choice, the band's lyrics delve into certain social themes in a less subjective way than in the past (see, for instance, the attack on religious folklore in "Lacrime di Sangue" and on conformism in "Uomo Ghignante"). The sound also becomes harsher and more abrasive: the tracks seem to lose, though only partly, the metal flavour of the first two albums, veering towards noise, especially in the instrumental interludes between songs, even as the impact of those first two records is preserved.

"Giro di Vite" combines melodic lines with a driving rhythm for an almost vertiginous effect; the aforementioned "Lacrime di Sangue" and "Uomo Ghignante" are perfect live tracks, fast and cutting, sung by Franz in a surprisingly high register. The steady-paced "Latte" - though with a sharp shift in tempo at the end - and "Classe" both reference Pier Paolo Pasolini, the former drawing explicitly on his life and work, the latter seemingly inspired by his "Comizi d'Amore". "Le Cose che non cambiano mai" is the album's best track, monumental in its noisy forward march, with lyrics that this time foreshadow traumatic (but necessary) collective change.

The band's marketing choice (bold, but suicidal, especially in years when the left was ashamed to call itself that) didn't pay off in terms of success, and it would be four long years before the follow-up to Pura Lana Vergine hit the shelves.

On the self-titled album (the first with decent artwork), the line-up is stripped down to the bone: the project is now carried solely by Rabellino, Pastore and Goria, with the latter two splitting guitar duties - though on some tracks they're joined by Tax Farano on six-string and Roy Paci, before his mainstream breakthrough, on trumpet.

Fluxus leaves one rather thrown: it's by no means a bad record, but the band seems to have given up its trademark sound, considerably slowing the tempo and dropping the hardcore-rooted aggression that had defined them up to that point. It's a fairly "typical" Italian indie record, redeemed, however, by the trio's excellent songwriting, which once again proves capable of top-notch compositions, starting with the superb opening tracks "Nessuno si accorge di niente" and "Non c'è più niente di me" - proof that, even as the form changes, the substance remains the same. Still, right from this opening, it's easy to sense that the earlier drive toward some kind of reaction seems to have given way to acceptance of an inevitable surrender.

A certain taste for electronics peeks through, especially on "Strana Forma di Vita" and "Talidomide" - the latter stands as the album's best track, equally melodic and driving, enriched by an elaborate arrangement. "Una splendida giornata di luna" is an electric ballad with a rarefied atmosphere that leaves its mark. The slow-burning "Radiografie" (an unfortunate choice as lead single) is more memorable for its lyrics than its music, while the closing instrumental "Attraversando Managua" is a soundtrack-style divertissement.

Not even with this latest effort would the band receive the attention it deserved, and the following year the three went their separate ways. What remains is the story of a band with real potential that, for various reasons, never managed to rise above underdog status within Italy's thriving music scene of the '90s. And, of course, there remains that obscure masterpiece Vita in un pacifico mondo nuovo, which only a handful recognized as such at the time.

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