Marlene Kuntz - The catharsis of Italian alt-rock

For years a cult band with a small but fiercely loyal following, Marlene Kuntz are today a fixture of the Italian rock scene, also rewarded with solid sales figures, yet Cristiano Godano and co. have never abandoned their “commandments”, always striving to blend the noise-rock of their early days with a song format more accessible to a wider audience.

Younger than Csi and Afterhours, in the Nineties Marlene Kuntz were among the best at embodying the anxieties and suffering of a new alternative generation, who crowned them their own gurus, much as had happened a few years earlier with Cccp. It was a role the band never seemed entirely comfortable with, constantly searching for new modes of expression and driven by an evolutionary push that continues to this day.

Cuneo, late Eighties…

The core of Marlene Kuntz grew out of an idea by Riccardo Tesio and Luca Bergia, who, still teenagers, attended the same school in Cuneo. So began the search for a singer, which led to the choice of Cristiano Godano (who played in Jack On Fire). The first shows came in June 1989, and it was around that time that the name Marlene Kuntz was born. In the winter between 1989 and 1990 the band recorded their first demo, followed by two more, with no result either time. In the winter between 1992 and 1993, with nothing happening, they decided to make one last attempt, after which, had it failed, they would have reconsidered everything, with the real possibility of splitting up.

This seemed to be their fate until, in June 1993, "Rockerilla" published a very positive review of their third demo: “A great find, Marlene Kuntz from Cuneo, with an overwhelming electric impact, slashing waves of sound that cut through the best of extreme Italian rock; finally Italian bands are starting to sing in their mother tongue in a convincing and effective way. If the forthcoming EP lives up to the promise of this tape, we'll have an album of the year on our hands.” That review, combined with a set of favorable circumstances, would change everything, and Marlene Kuntz's original idea for a mini-CD grew into a full album.

The opening trilogy

Thus in 1994 came Catartica, the revelation record of the new Italian rock, capable of blending hymns to noise with gentle melodies, post-punk rage with bohemian lyricism. Just listen to the overture of “M.K.”, with its dense, abrasive sound, the furious “Festa mesta”, the sardonic “Merry X-Mas”, the desolate “Canzone di domani”, or the explosive riff of “Sonica”, destined to become one of their signature tracks.

But the emotional climax of the record is the poignant ballad “Nuotando nell’aria”, built on an irresistible melody and a spine-tingling final crescendo. Within a few weeks, Marlene Kuntz became the standard-bearers of the new Italian rock — bruised and searing, heavily influenced by the “noise rock” of Sonic Youth, their most obvious stylistic touchstone.

The next step saw them push their existential unease even further: Il Vile, another cornerstone of 90s Italian alternative rock, feels like the product of the band imploding into its own pain. The arrival of new bassist Dan Solo, with a metal background, shaped a sound that became even leaden and harder (“Cenere”, “Overflash”).

There's no shortage of ballads (“Come stavamo ieri”, “Ti giro intorno”), but the album's high points are to be found in the jagged ode of “Ape regina”, the heart-pounding distortions of “L’agguato”, and the vivid sonic force of “Retrattile” and “Il Vile”.

The mini-CD Come di sdegno follows the same path, mixing flashes of rage with pained introspection — a dichotomy well expressed by the opener “Aurora”, in which the sweetness of the sound pairs with a particularly raw lyric.

And while “Questo e Altro” flaunts an unusual abundance of samplers, the closing track, “La vampa delle impressioni”, pushes the band's experimental streak and pretension to the extreme, blending a half-hour studio improvisation with Godano's declamations, in a text steeped in anger and desolation.

Ho ucciso paranoia, with lyrics once again strong, refined and passionate, represents the compromise between the band's melodic soul and its more restless one. While some songs come across as conventional and easy (“L’abitudine”, “Una canzone arresa”), there's no shortage of bleak alienation, as in the opener “L’odio migliore”, or of moments of intense lyricism (the poignant “Infinità”).

The first hints of a contamination with a more conventional, easy-listening pop begin to surface. No commercial calculation, though, according to the band. “I'm only concerned that what we do is somehow complete, that it has a foundation and, as a creation, is unassailable from every point of view,” explains Cristiano. In confirmation of this, Marlene Kuntz left it up to the listener whether or not to buy, alongside the album, the bonus CD “Spore”, containing studio trials, sonic explorations and assorted experiments.

Sealing the long promotional tour for Ho ucciso paranoia, the effective live album H.U.P. Live In Catharsis was released at the end of 1999, capturing the band at a high point and offering what remains the best possible selection from the Piedmontese quartet's early years, save for a few painful omissions (“L’odio migliore”, “Retrattile”) due to space constraints. The title itself sums up their first three efforts: H.U.P. is the acronym for “Ho Ucciso Paranoia”, LIVE is an anagram of Vile, and CATHARSIS is a clear reference to “Catartica”.

The tracklist gathers almost all of the best material released so far, making room both for essential classics (“Sonica”, “Nuotando nell’aria”, “Lieve”) and for improvised on-stage experiments (a couple of instrumental digressions that, as usual, take the name Spore, always followed by an identifying number), as well as for raw aggression (“1°, 2°, 3°”, “Il vile”, “Festa mesta”) and extraordinarily melodic moments (“Ineluttabile”, “Infinità”, “Come stavamo ieri”). H.U.P. Live In Catharsis also has the merit of presenting the chosen songs with a more polished, modern sound compared to what could be heard on the early records, further boosted by live energy. With this retrospective work, Marlene Kuntz confirmed themselves as the shining jewel of the Italian independent scene, which experienced its golden age in the 90s.

Marlene changes skin...

Their journey continued about a year later with Che cosa vedi, released in October 2000. A journey still balanced between Sonic Youth-style noise and melody, which in some ways brought them close to the experiments of Italian-Americans Blonde Redhead. The hallmarks of the Marlene sound remain. And the opening thirty seconds of “Cara è la fine” explain it well: driving rhythm, scratching guitars, anguished vocals. Compared to the previous record, the compositional approach has changed, no longer afraid to open up to melody — always present in the Piedmontese band's songs, but often hidden beneath the aggression of the guitars. Marlene Kuntz haven't lost their obsessive attention to detail (just listen to the keyboards on the record, played by Gianfranco Fornaciari), nor their style. But they've transplanted it onto ground it had never occupied before — with results that don't always live up to expectations.

Across the album's thirteen songs, the mood ranges from denser, more saturated atmospheres to rarefied ones. And while the whispers of “La canzone che scrivo per te”, a duet with Skin of Skunk Anansie, might legitimately stir a sense of slackness (and boredom), what stands out most are the lyrics — in murder ballads like “Cara è la fine” or simple love songs like “Malinconica”, where Cristiano Godano is at his very best, confirming himself as one of the most expressive voices on the Italian scene. Overall, though, the pop drift is more than evident, and it alienates many of Marlene Kuntz's earliest fans.

This pop drift is momentarily swept away by "Cometa", an abrasive new composition that once again positively shakes up longtime fans, used in 2001 as the title track of the EP of the same name. Cometa definitively closes the first chapter of Marlene Kuntz's career, after which the band would begin to shed its skin.

The EP, besides the title track, features the previously unreleased "Playboys latini", revisits "La mia promessa", offers new recordings of "Nuotando nell'aria" and "Trasudamerica", includes remixed versions of "Infinità" and "Come stavamo ieri", and closes with a live rendition of "La vampa delle impressioni".

Senza Peso (2003) expresses, right from its title, the contradiction that has always run through Marlene Kuntz's music: a sense of lightness ("Nuotando nell'aria"...) set against an idea of dark gravity. Their sound is as dry and immediate as ever, but also murky and decadent. Thanks in part to production from Rob Ellis and Head, the Piedmontese band confirms its rock forays on tracks like "Sacrosanta verità", "L'uscita di scena", "Con lubricità" and "A fior di pelle" (chosen as the single), alternating with moving, understated ballads such as "Ci siamo amati", "Notte" and "Schiele, lei, me".

Warren Ellis's violin (Dirty Three) adds a touch of magic, and aside from the occasional unforgivable banality ("Ci sono istanti/ che vivere è una merda..." in "A fior di pelle"), Godano's lyrics reach a remarkable poetic intensity, moving between dark imagery and notable references (Schiele, Updike). The band's experimental side is guaranteed by the long closing track "Spora 101".

The new Marlene phase has begun: many longtime devotees no longer recognize themselves in the shift of sonic axis willed by the Piedmontese quartet, confirmed in 2004 by the EP Fingendo la poesia, which, besides containing the lovely ballad already featured on Senza Peso, sparked debate for including two covers drawn from worlds far removed from Godano and co.'s usual habits.

"Non gioco più", originally made famous by Mina, and Paolo Conte's "Alle prese con una verde milonga", split both audience and critics down the middle: it would be only the first of a long series of choices many would later deem questionable.

"Bianco Sporco" and "Uno"...

The following album, Bianco Sporco (2005), marks the far from peaceful departure of bassist Dan Solo, replaced by Gianni Maroccolo (ex Litfiba and Csi), who took part in the recording sessions alongside Rob Ellis, who handled the keyboard and string arrangements. Bianco Sporco confirms the shift in Marlene's musical axis toward the refined singer-songwriter territory already touched on by the previous record, even if the band doesn't give up the occasional surge of visceral rock. In doing so, the Piedmontese outfit remains caught between abandoning the "roar and crash" of their early days to pursue a refined pop-rock path embellished by Godano and Tesio's delicate interplay, and seeking a fragile balance between the two impulses. The chosen title seems to echo this duality: a white, clear, pure, crystalline sound, yet still capable of replicating a dirty, hard, distorted rock mode.

The album opens with "Mondo cattivo", a fairly driving song that carries almost a warning to whoever is about to listen to this record, a message aimed at "those bastards who will never appreciate it", who haven't approved of the sonic turn taken so far. Godano's voice drives the track, one of the most clearly marked by the influence of Sonic Youth, toward an instrumental finale where Maroccolo's bass emerges alongside the usual guitar dialogue between Godano himself and Tesio. "A chi succhia" starts out as a quiet pop song before arriving at an unexpected ending. The same goes for "Il solitario", which evolves into a distorted, noisy atmosphere. Marlene Kuntz still don't give up being nasty, but now they do it with class and purity, lacking however the inspiration, the "sacred fire" that animated their early work. "Bellezza", the single that preceded the album's release, features a violin reminiscent of Dirty Three's music and a chorus that reads almost like a manifesto of Godano and co.'s expressive choices, marked by an unending pursuit of refinement. "Poeti", bolstered by a remarkable lyric, is among the album's best tracks and is followed by an infernal "Amen", rich with a pathos that recalls - in due proportion - the atmospheres of "Ape Regina". "La lira di Narciso" escapes the usual structure of many songs on the record thanks to a spoken-word section that recalls "La vampa delle impressioni" and "Vortice", some of the band's "experimental" peaks. "L'inganno" draws on slow-core (Codeine) and post-rock (Mogwai) textures in its instrumental passages. Also worth noting is "La cognizione del dolore", loosely inspired by Gadda's work, in which Godano forcefully howls the verses, building to an ending that vaguely recalls that of the epic "Nuotando nell'aria". The record closes with "Nel peggio", an extremely driving track that finds an apparent calm by its end.

The artistry pursued "at all costs" by Cristiano Godano during this phase of Marlene's life leads the band to seek out new solutions, ever less abrasive compared to their overwhelming early days.

In 2006 they embarked on a tour in which old warhorses and new compositions alike were reworked with gentler, more controlled arrangements.

What emerges is a blunted Marlene Kuntz, not always in focus.

At the end of the dates, the live album S-low was released, taking its title directly from the name of the tour.

With the following album, Uno (2007), the Cuneo band arrives at a dark, elaborate, multi-faceted auteur rock. A record full of imbalances, where everything is a gamble, starting with the voice, with the evocative half-falsetto of "Canto", a deliberately improper use of the instrument, yet still acceptable in its delivery. The opening track itself is one of the boldest experiments: vaguely jazzy drums, crystal strikes, tense and convoluted guitar work, Maroccolo's endless labor on bass, counter-choruses and an almost operatic hook. A pleasing result, brought to fruition on the following "Musa", a track with pop shadings, a luminous ode featuring Paolo Conte on piano. "111", on the other hand, is a two-sided song: a first part built on slow, enveloping guitar work is followed by a second marked by violent bursts of sound. "La ballata dell'ignavo", overly inflated by its orchestration, and the saccharine "Canzone sensuale" are both heavy with romantic pathos.

Marlene Kuntz are at their best when they load up on strangeness, as in the far-west atmosphere built on dark guitar circles in "Fantasmi", with its wonderfully graceless counter-howls and the electric charge of its finale. The record's central section, however, pays a price for some less brilliant tracks (the dreamlike "Abbracciami", the slow-motion push-and-pull of "Sapore di miele", the blurred tenderness of "Canzone ecologica"). To find a meaningful spark again, one has to head into Csi territory, with the title track, a traditional, epic rock song with an effective hook and wall of guitars. An atypical and courageous record with a solid underlying idea, Uno fails to translate its ambitions into fully realized songs, managing only to hint at the atmospheres the band aspired to reach.

The long tour that followed the release of Uno saw the arrival of multi-instrumentalist Davide Arneodo and bassist Luca Legash Saporiti, replacing the departing Gianni Maroccolo. In the meantime Godano published the short story collection "I vivi", his personal debut as a writer. In 2008 came a theatre tour, a contribution to a tribute album to Diaframma with a cover of "Siberia", and (in early 2009) the release of a greatest-hits collection featuring three covers: one of PFM ("Impressioni di settembre", a staple of their live shows at the time), one of Giorgio Gaber ("La libertà") and one of Mina ("Non gioco più").

With "Canzone in prigione" Marlene Kuntz contributed to the soundtrack of the film "Tutta colpa di Giuda", directed by Davide Ferrario, with Godano also appearing on screen. Late 2009 brought the live album Cercavamo il silenzio.

The 2010s

In 2010 Cristiano, Riccardo and Luca shut themselves away in the studio for two weeks with Gianni Maroccolo and Howie B., the Scottish producer and DJ known for his background in club culture and for having helped steer U2's controversial "Pop" from the mixing desk. Two weeks of jam sessions carried out in total creative freedom produced long, largely instrumental suites.

The best moments were gathered on Beautiful (also the name given to the impromptu side project), a record on which Marlene Kuntz reclaimed the avant-noise ambitions of their past, setting aside conventional song structures for the time being. The choice was to merge the Piedmontese band's fundamentally guitar-driven power with Howie B.'s electronic drift, with the producer steering the whole thing toward a more international sound, even inviting Godano to write the lyrics in English. It's a record that embodies the courage to keep questioning oneself, reassessing one's own position. In some moments ("Single Too") Howie B.'s hand is so heavy that you feel (pleasantly) catapulted into a club-culture universe; elsewhere it's the band's typical approach that prevails ("Tarantino" recalls the Spore of "Ho ucciso paranoia", "Gorilla" revives dormant noise-rock aromas). Elsewhere not everything quite comes together, between unfocused experimental detours ("Giorgis"), psychedelic ragas built on obsessive repetition ("Suzuki"), improvisations bordering on ambient ("Fatiche"), bursts of rambling disorder (the opening "Pow Pow Pow"), and dispensable covers (Grace Slick's "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane). The conventional song form resurfaces on "In Your Eyes", fittingly chosen as the promotional single, and on "What's My Name?".

In 2010 Virtual hospital stays and sexy solitudes confirmed the intention to return to more electric, nervier territory. Produced by Howie B., with valuable contributions from Saporiti on bass and Arneodo on keyboards, the album was preceded by the single "Paolo anima salva", an effective examination of the loss of certainties and the excess of virtual realities that fill our days. For the average Marlene Kuntz fan, Virtual hospital stays and sexy solitudes represents a return to old ways: the clattering "Orizzonti" brings the Cuneo band close to certain Sonic Youth-like edges, the same ones found in the closing section of "Io e me", an exemplary mix of groove and noise over which Godano rages. "Ricoveri virtuali", the track that opens the tracklist, is a firm invective against digital technology and the reckless abuse of downloading, accused of disrespecting the sensitivity and work of today's musicians. With the aggressive falsetto of "Pornorima", Godano also allows himself the satisfaction of railing against all the indie snobs who he feels have unfairly attacked him. Whether or not you share these forthright positions, the fact remains that Virtual hospital stays and sexy solitudes is an album perhaps no one still expected from Marlene Kuntz. Between moments of unmatched poetry ("Scatti") and seemingly calmer tracks ("Vivo", "Oasi", "L'artista") that still maintain the right level of electricity, the band forcefully reclaims an absolutely central role in the Italian alt-rock scene.

2012 opened with an appearance at the Sanremo festival, where they performed "Canzone per un figlio" and won one of the critics' awards, despite being eliminated in the first round.

They nonetheless took part in the evening dedicated to duets, delivering the most moving moment of the entire event: paired with Patti Smith, they performed "Impressioni di settembre" and a rapturously applauded "Because The Night".

To capitalize on their appearance at the festival, Songs for a son was released, a retrospective containing two new tracks and twelve "old" songs revisited with revised and reworked arrangements, almost always tamed to fit a new sensibility. Although "Virtual hospital stays and sexy solitudes" had been hailed as a welcome return to sharper-edged sounds, "Songs for a son" settles into territory that's decidedly less noise and more "pop". A refined kind of pop, certainly, but one that pulls Cristiano Godano's creature even further from the band so many had adored years earlier. The songs can all be considered wonderfully beautiful, no question, but it's hard to prefer these versions to the originals. Everything becomes more acoustic ("Stato d'animo", "Ti giro intorno"), everything becomes more orchestral ("A fior di pelle"), with some moments of great tenderness ("Canzone ecologica", "Bellezza") reworked for just piano and voice, or left to skilled, muted, brushed touches ("Serrande alzate"). A recycling effort enriched by a Tex-Mex rendition of "Trasudamerica", featuring Roy Paci, and by the preserved aggression of "Io e me" (with a long sonic-instrumental coda stretching this version to nine minutes) and "Lieve", seasoned with languid slide guitar. The swirling arrangements of "Pensa", the collection's second new track, are excellent, featuring Gianni Maroccolo on bass, while "Canzone in prigione" (left in its original form) can be considered another near-novelty, having so far only appeared on the soundtrack of Davide Ferrario's film "Tutta colpa di Giuda". This is a more lyrical Marlene Kuntz, one that tends to soften its proverbial sharp edges, with the dual aim of promoting the festival song to an adult audience and giving old episodes a second chance. The record takes on the shape of a delicate concept album, almost an intense reflection meant to be passed on to a growing child, and Godano, who has a 14-year-old of his own, slips perfectly into the role, including short summaries in the liner notes that fully explain each theme. Alongside Godano play his lifelong bandmates Riccardo Tesio and Luca Bergia, and the by-now additional members Saporiti and Davide Arneodo.

On 27 August 2013 Nella tua luce was released, the ninth studio chapter (not counting EPs, live albums and assorted compilations). Like a modern-day Dante Alighieri, on the track that opens and gives the new record its title, Cristiano Godano addresses his own Beatrice, a luminous muse, chasing vertigo, dizziness, the right momentum. Inspiration strikes right away amid the clattering guitar dissonances of "Il genio (l'importanza di essere Oscar Wilde)", streamed online a few weeks earlier. These are the best possible premises for a band presenting itself to its audience in a new way, unexpectedly opening up to social media, through which fans were able to follow the album's making. There's great refinement in the arrangements but also energy to spare, combined with the usual intense lyrics, dense with cultured literary references, from Oscar Wilde – explicitly cited in the title of "Il genio" – to the story of Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, sentenced to death by Stalin for his irreverence. The lyrics of "Osja, amore mio" are a snapshot taken from the perspective of Osip's wife, who in a remarkable act of love memorized all of the poet's verses in order to pass them on to future generations. Writing is also the subject of "Su quelle sponde", which claims that writing helps you know yourself better, and of "Seduzione", an invocation to choose the right words in order to skillfully win over enchanting creatures – yes, because many women still prefer the art of seduction to a parade of chiseled abs and flawless biceps. There's no shortage of strictly topical themes either, such as femicide and stalking, examined with class and tact in "Adele" (one of the album's high points), or the twists of fate that in "Catastrofe" lead an ordinary person to become homeless.

Nella tua luce doesn't have the masculine force of "Il Vile" or the visionary quality of "Ho Ucciso Paranoia"; you won't find career-defining anthems like "Sonica" or "Nuotando nell'aria" on it, but it stands as a sincere and honest work, through which Marlene Kuntz – with seriousness, passion and dedication – confirm their return to the roots of Italian alt-rock (just listen to the sonic surges in the closing moments of "Senza rete"): managing, after two decades of career, to produce albums at this level is anything but a given. Nella tua luce is a record on which Marlene Kuntz do absolutely nothing new compared to their glorious past, but do everything damn well. Alongside the historic trio (with Riccardo Tesio this time also handling the bass parts and responsible for the arrangements and overall sound supervision) stands the by-now consolidated presence of Davide Arneodo, who contributed piano, synth, violins and the string arrangements.

During the summer of 2014 the release of Pansonica was announced: seven songs, six of them new, marking the way the band chose to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of "Catartica" and twenty-five years of the group. The album came out on 16 September and gathers compositions dating back to the Piedmontese band's most abrasive musical period, straddling 1990 and Il Vile, but left unreleased until now, with the exception of "Donna L", which appeared in a devastating live version on the EP Come di sdegno.

Pansonica wasn't conceived as a cold container of B-sides, assorted rarities and leftover warehouse stock, but rather as a creative gift Marlene Kuntz wanted to give their fans: those songs were re-recorded, rethought and sent into the present day, while keeping the spirit of the era intact. The end result is a collection that brings back the sound of the early 90s, made up of jagged guitars, scratchy textures, unconventional tunings, irregular geometries, slogans spat out angrily at the listener – in short, all the ingredients that made Marlene Kuntz a symbol of a generation.

On 29 January 2016 came Lunga Attesa, an album marking a return to a decidedly guitar-driven approach. The record was preceded by an unusual initiative: a few days earlier the band made a lyric from the new album available and invited anyone interested to set it to music, posting the results on a Facebook page. The best entries were invited to open a date on the promotional tour.

The intention during the sessions that led to the writing of Long wait was to step on the gas; the result is that not only do Riccardo and Cristiano's guitars spin with real pleasure ("La noia" sounds like it came straight out of "Il vile"), overlapping in choice dissonances ("La strada dei ricordi" is tangible proof of this), but even Godano's voice benefits from renewed energy, most evident when he declaims with skill on the effective "Narrazione", a perfect, gutsy opener for the album. The project is geared toward recalling the 90s, built to push effects and amplification to the limit, but also making room for a couple of ballads (the title track and "Un po' di requie", placed one after the other, almost as if to represent an island of peace in a stormy, full-blooded ocean), because that's always been part of Marlene Kuntz's stylistic signature, and because, all things considered, they almost always pull it off well.

One of the first tracks to stand out is "Leda", as rough as it is catchy, a scorching instant classic for the band, but the album moves in many directions, from the almost hard-rock drive of "La città dormitorio" to the classic-rock-style solo that closes "Niente di nuovo".

Luca Bergia behind the drums seems intent on experimenting with rhythms rarely explored until now, while “Lagash” is granted official-member status, after years of playing the bass that once belonged to Dan Solo and Gianni Maroccolo. Long wait is a stubbornly alt-rock record (in the good sense of the word), as full of rough edges (“Fecondità”) as it is willing to temper its sonic approach with rounder, more hummable structures and melodies (“Un attimo divino”, “Formidabile”), always and invariably achieving vibrant results. The lyrics reveal a renewed urgency to tell stories, digging not only into the inner selves of their protagonists (probing in particular themes of love, loss and sensuality), but also venturing into “social” territory, asserting the importance of a carefully crafted narrative, never built to be disposable, but always thought through (as usual) with precision, word by word.

The tour for “Long wait”, which confirms Marlene Kuntz are still running on the same electric tracks as their early days, is followed by a series of dates celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their second album, “Il Vile”.

It is precisely in the live dimension that, in these years, the band has sought out new expressive horizons, moving effortlessly from “conventional” tours to live-scoring scientific documentaries about underwater environments (relying heavily on improvisation), from celebratory events (as with the twentieth anniversaries of “Catartica“ and “Il Vile”) to performances shared with an entire dance company.

In October 2017 a new project posed an even more demanding challenge: a theatrical show conceived to score the images of Il Castello di Vogelod (Schloss Vogelöd), a masterpiece of silent cinema (1921) by German expressionist director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, interacting not only with the film but also with the presence of guest actor Claudio Santamaria. Synchronising the musical commentary to heighten the narrative without ever overpowering it, finding the right emotional dynamics while respecting the pauses dictated by the script, and weaving together sounds somewhere between noise digressions, psychedelic streaks and post-rock soundscapes in the Mogwai mould, able to add something extra to Murnau's black and white – that was the new challenge.

In this context Cristiano Godano sets aside his role as frontman to focus exclusively on the electric ups and downs of the six-string, Riccardo Tesio moves nimbly between guitars (acoustic too), synths and bass, showing a versatility never seen from him before, while Luca Bergia, behind the skins, is not merely the reliable drummer we all know, but works in parallel on percussion, taking on the unprecedented role of noise-maker. The aim is to take their instruments into artistic situations far removed from the band's origins, making contact with new potential listeners. And in this case Marlene Kuntz proved a pleasant discovery for the many film buffs who flocked to Rome's Ambra Jovinelli, the theatre that hosted the first six performances of a decidedly unconventional show.

For 31 May 2018 a special date was scheduled at Magazzini Generali in Milan, called “Il Doppio”, a concert featuring both an acoustic and an electric set. The event was however postponed to 21 September due to tendinitis suffered by drummer Luca Bergia, but the day before, Milan's police headquarters ordered the venue closed for ten days for reasons entirely unrelated to Marlene Kuntz, forcing them to postpone a second time, to 20 October. On 21 September, the band nonetheless showed up outside the venue's gates to meet fans who had already arrived in Milan for the show, and in the public gardens nearby, in front of about a hundred people, sitting on a bench, with no amplification whatsoever, lit only by the glow of phones held up by those present, they performed two songs. On 20 October the double concert took place as planned.

On 2 July of the same year they took part in the Collisioni Festival in Barolo, opening for Depeche Mode, at the express invitation of Dave Gahan's band's management.

On 7 March 2019 they announced a tour called “30:20:10 MK al quadrato”, conceived to celebrate thirty years of career with ten double concerts: one acoustic and one electric, while also marking the twentieth anniversary of “Ho ucciso paranoia”, performed in full. The tour, originally planned for summer in breathtaking locations, was postponed to autumn due to drummer Luca Bergia's health problems.

On 25 April they released a new version of “Bella Ciao”, an anthem of Freedom and Resistance the world over, in duet with Skin. On 20 June 2019 the book “Nuotando nell’aria. Dietro 35 canzoni dei Marlene Kuntz” was published, an unconventional autobiography written by Cristiano Godano about the band's origins, dense with anecdotes, reflections and unreleased material.

On 28 June 2019 the compilations MK30 – Best & Beautiful, a 3-CD box set containing the band's most significant songs along with material from the Beautiful project, and MK30 – Covers & Rarities, a double vinyl containing covers and rarities, were released, preceded by the single and accompanying video for “Karma Police”, a reworked cover of the Radiohead classic.

The 2020s

In those same days Cristiano Godano announced he had begun recording his first solo work, I had lost my heart, whose release would be pushed back to 25 June 2020 due to the Covid-19 emergency. For the occasion Godano gathered around him a small, carefully chosen group of musicians, some of whom had worked with him before, such as Gianni Maroccolo, or esteemed colleagues like the two former Ustmamò members, Luca Rossi and Simone Filippi (already seen touring alongside Giovanni Lindo Ferretti), and maestro Enrico Gabrielli, who colours the arrangements with flutes, sax and violins. The result is a record that, on one hand, picks up the thread of the melodic, reflective mid-period Marlene Kuntz, the “Senza peso”-“Dirty white”-“Uno” era, and on the other aims to explore paths that would have been harder to tread with the rest of the original band. An “American” project, but this time it's not the gritty, metropolitan America of Sonic Youth, but rather that of vast prairies, complete with slide guitar resonating from the back of the room and the inclusion of visions and landscapes evoking country music, especially on “Com’è possibile” and “Ma il cuore batte”. A record that is largely “hushed”, one might even dare say – forgive the term – “elegant”, with drums often played with brushes and tones that are never too intrusive. A kind of “musical audiobook”, a collection of poems written by choosing words that are never banal, onto which Cristiano has stitched, like a craftsman, a sonic garment, from which emerges, powerfully, a poetic sensibility that is at times already familiar, yet at the same time in search of new, unexplored solutions.

Setting the tone for this new chapter is the instant classic aptly chosen to precede the whole record, the exquisitely delicate “Ti voglio dire”, with its chord progression full of harmonic surprises, a song Cristiano had already tried out with Riccardo Tesio and Luca Bergia before shelving it for a future occasion. “Ho bisogno di te”, on the other hand, had originally been conceived as a duet, and is enriched, besides Vittorio Cosma's piano, by the vocal contributions of Valentina Santini and Alice Frigerio, who also appear elsewhere on the album. “Il lamento del depresso” looks back to the sound of early Marlene Kuntz, with closing screams underscoring the song's theme, as does the frenetic spoken-word delivery of “Panico”, complete with a free-jazz drift, another territory the Piedmontese musician had never explored before. Cristiano opens up about himself (no fewer than two songs focus on the not-always-easy father-son relationship, already touched on in the song that brought Marlene Kuntz to the stage of the Sanremo Festival), enunciating every single word as perhaps he had never done before, reflecting his effort to make himself understood, aware as he is of having important themes to delve into. And he does so without protective shields, bare, without a band to shelter him. An artist who appears at peace, settled, ready to present the record as “an intense and delicate way of conceiving the song”, exactly what shines through the 13 tracks sequenced on the album, plus one bonus track with a distinctly “Marlene” feel, “Per sempre mi avrai”, reserved for the vinyl edition only. The courage to go it alone paid off, with a record that, not a short one at that, showcases his songwriting talents, finally placing him among the finest singer-songwriters this country has to offer.

In 2022 Marlene Kuntz released the soundtrack to the film directed by Beniamino Catena, Io sono Vera, thus renewing their bond with the big screen. It consists of nine tracks with a strongly hypnotic quality, able to capture the hyperrealistic tone of the film, centred on the theme of returning to life after a near-death experience. It is a kind of evolution of the Spore that populated the bonus disc of “Ho ucciso paranoia” and that often found room, in diluted, psychedelic-leaning forms, in the trio's live shows too. But this time we encounter not only ambient-noise situationism (“Il fiato dell’universo”, “Suoni dal mistero”), achieved through effects applied to the guitars, a craft at which Marlene Kuntz have always excelled, or brief sketches meant to characterise individual scenes, in which what prevails can be a rhythm bordering on deep house (“Inquietudine”) or marked Afrocentric influences (“Tribalità”).

In some cases the arpeggios crafted by Cristiano Godano and Riccardo Tesio give rise to genuinely captivating songs that, even without lyrics, are instantly recognisable as quintessential Marlene Kuntz. These include “Armonie”, “Raggi di luce” and “Una sottile malinconia”, enriched by Godano's distinctive vocalisations, as he sets aside his role as frontman for this project to focus on the possibilities of his instrument, leading it (or letting himself be led by it?) into artistic territories far removed from the band's origins. Weaving together sounds that alternate between noise, psych, ambient and post-rock, the aim is to heighten the narrative without ever overpowering it, finding the right emotional dynamics while respecting the timing dictated by the script. Marlene Kuntz thus confirm themselves to be constantly in search of new expressive horizons, capable of broadening an artistic vision that grows ever more shape-shifting.

Io sono Vera takes on even deeper meaning when considered alongside what was being released at the same time by Verdena (authors of the soundtrack for “America Latina” by the D'Innocenzo brothers) and by Manuel Agnelli (who penned the lead song for the Manetti Bros' “Diabolik”, winning the David di Donatello award). A simultaneous convergence of intent around the realm of the soundtrack that undoubtedly carries great significance, and one that few would have expected just a few years earlier from this triumvirate of Italian alternative rock.

In late September 2022 came Karma Clima, the album that will be remembered as Marlene Kuntz's concept record, nine tracks tackling climate change and environmental sustainability. A cry of alarm meant to shake listeners out of indifference, handled with boundless poetry in Cristiano Godano's lyrics, who this time shared the musical decisions with Riccardo Tesio, Luca “Lagash” Saporiti and Davide Arneodo. For the first time Luca Bergia did not take part in the recordings, replaced behind the drums by Sergio Carnevale, completing the core quintet, supported on production duties by Taketo Gohara and enriched by arrangements performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra.

The search for purity, silence and sacredness needed to tackle such subject matter was carried out in isolation in the hills of Piedmont, where Karma Clima was conceived, developed and recorded across three different residencies. The album reveals an unprecedented energy, less shouted and more introspective, matched by the band's usual extreme attention to detail; for once the guitars stay in the background, making way for pianos, analogue synths and orchestration. Just listen to “L'aria era l'anima” to grasp the decisive shift in sonic perspective, but unprecedented instrumental solutions in the vein of “played electronics” also surface in the ironic “Vita su Marte” and in “Scusami”, where the beats take centre stage, or in “Acqua e vento”, where it's not hard to spot a tribute to “Karma Police” by Radiohead, clearly the inspiration behind the album's title.

The more “classic” Marlene Kuntz resurface instead in the imperious, chorus-less crescendo of “La fuga”, the track that opens the album hurling an invective against the control of the masses, in the frantic naturalistic litanies of “Lacrima” and in the gentle descent to the centre of the Earth described in “Tutto tace”. References to intergenerational relationships – son and father, grandchild and grandfather – recur throughout, relationships that haven't always gone the way they could have, helping to underline the inevitable passage of time. There's also a longing for redemption (“Laica preghiera”, with an angelic contribution from Elisa), and a portrait of love in the age of environmental disaster (“Bastasse”). The characters become aware of the issues tied to land regeneration and sustainability, but the lyrics never overreach by trying to offer solutions, instead simply capturing a situation that has by now become inescapable. The result is an album “old-fashioned” in approach but thoroughly modern in its solutions, a serious, well-structured project that also spawned a documentary and a limited-edition craft beer, born from a partnership with the local Baladin brewery.

On 23 March 2023 terrible news struck the band's history: Luca Bergia, 54, former drummer and one of the founders of Marlene Kuntz, was found dead at home. He had played in the Cuneo rock band since 1989, the year the project was born, which he had helped found alongside Riccardo Tesio. In 2020 he had decided to leave the band to devote himself to teaching, taking up a post as a science teacher at middle schools in Madonna dell'Olmo di Cuneo and Chiusa Pesio. That same year he had also overcome a difficult period after contracting Covid.

After a long tour organised to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of “Catartica”, in early April 2025 Cristiano Godano released a new solo work, Stammi Accanto, crafted with the three members of Ustmamò: Luca Rossi (also co-producer), Simone Filippi and Ezio Bonicelli, plus Vittorio Cosma on keyboards. Stammi Accanto contains eight deep, personal, intimate tracks, born of a difficult period marked by sacrifice, distance, reduced social contact and uncertainty. Sometimes it's piano keys that sketch out the scenery, other times guitar strings, strings sections, or an organ, with the drums always ready to step in to soften the atmosphere.

There's dream, poetry and beauty, all elements firmly established in Godano's poetics, all grafted onto musical architectures that might seem fragile but in fact reveal considerable density, both because of the subjects tackled and the weight of pathos the songwriter always manages to develop and convey. There's torment but also reassurance, vulnerability but also a fierce kind of hope, and there's a duet, “Dentro la ferita”, with Samuele Bersani, another sensitive soul and accomplished artist.

A few days before the release of Stammi Accanto came news of a prestigious honour: Cristiano Godano was awarded the Premio Buscaglione for lifetime achievement, reserved for songwriters who have distinguished themselves over the course of their career by decisively influencing the path of Italian music. The road has been long and winding, but he too stands among the greats.

In early March 2026 it was once again time to “Honour Il Vile”: for the thirtieth anniversary of their second album, Marlene Kuntz released a special numbered reissue, distributed in a limited edition, with new cover art and illustrations by Alessandro Baronciani. The reissue was accompanied by the new tour “Marlene Kuntz suona Il Vile”. Three decades on, it's still regarded as a necessary, indispensable album, one that has lost none of its impact.

Contributions by Francesco Paolo Conteduca (“Dirty white”), Ciro Frattini (“Uno”)

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