IW Campania Selections - 5th night

Of chimeras, sleeping beauties and deserts of kisses…

I arrive at SudTerranea around 10. By now it feels like coming home. Walking in, I say hello to pretty much everyone, from the bouncer to the bartender, from the cleaning girl to Alberto, the venue's manager. On stage, Kymaera are wrapping up their sound check; they'll be playing last tonight. Salvador is tired, and deserves to relax a bit and grab something to eat. I've come to give him a break. Massimo, the sound engineer, keeps turning knob after knob, trying to please everyone while keeping the wall of sound as even and balanced as possible. Meanwhile, I notice people starting to crowd around the entrance. There are familiar faces and complete strangers. People who ended up here by chance, and others who were maybe dragged along by some enthusiastic friend. It might sound strange to anyone who had grown a bit disillusioned with these selection nights over the years, but the atmosphere this year is one of those you don't forget. I'm not saying the organization is doing a good job – others can say that... The fact is that around 11pm, when people start coming in, I realize we're heading for a packed house. In short, we'll close things out in style before the big finale night.

Four bands in competition tonight. Unfortunately, Cu43 are missing, due to "sudden and unavoidable commitments". First up are Sleeping Beauty, from Capua. They serve up an alternative rock with a very tight, "international" sound, and the crowd really seems to love it. Fabio, the singer, clearly knows what he's doing: a powerful, commanding voice, holding the stage with seasoned mastery, often accompanying the music's cinematic, atmospheric swells with studied, effective gestures. Mauro stands there in front of the drums, composed and calm, coaxing everything he needs out of his six strings without too many frills, while Angelo's bass thumps away robustly and Dino's drums clear the path like a mower through a cornfield. Sharp, powerful hits, rhythms brilliantly broken up during frantic progressions, and subtly shaded accents make him, without a doubt, one of the best drummers seen over these nights. Applause and howls from an enraptured crowd tell us we're in for a good time tonight too. Curtain closes. Change of stage. Pats on the back, compliments, quick small talk and a few sips of beer...

The backstage is a heap of cases, drumsticks, guitars, bottles and drums. A surreal location, with dim, vaguely colored lights. There's even a television. It will come in handy for Desert Kisses, an electro indie-pop trio from the Vesuvius area made up of Alessandra Prosperi (vocals) and Giuliano Orlando (electric and classical guitar), with the collaboration of Nicola Buono (electronics and effects). The set is enjoyable, even though the band still shows some rawness live. Images of everyday life scroll across the monitor. Distorted, sped-up images, mixed with black-and-white footage from very old films. An excellent visual backdrop for music that is at once pulsing and captivating, vibrant and "sugary" pop, even prone to marveling at a world beyond the world, a dreamlike elsewhere where all of this is pure illusion, let alone pain and sorrow. The voice of blonde Alessandra is a little lost, though not overly fearful, within the webs of sound. Lost but effective (I'll actually talk to her about this shortly) in sketching an almost fairy-tale scene: the wolf around the corner, salvation within reach but, deep down, not really essential. Meanwhile Nicola calmly works his gear on the right (he seems almost elsewhere, lost in his own world), while Giuliano runs his fingers along the guitar neck with fluid, "detached" movements, his eyes always fixed on the opposite wall. The latter, already a member of the excellent Natege, having narrowly missed the semifinals with his other solo project (Maegen und Craft), is by now something of a wildcard in this whole situation. Half-joking, but not entirely, I suggest he put together a Tunisian folk-noise duo. Laughter.

Meanwhile, people keep arriving. And they don't seem to be here by chance. That makes us happy. Once again. Alberto is beaming. And Dasauge (the name refers to a painting by the painter Paul Klee) are already on stage: Pierluigi "pg" Mazzei and Massimo Manzo on guitars, Claudio "Radio" Manzo on bass and Enzo "Spada" Spalice on vocals. They start from far away, with their post-metal. They lay bare the underground levels of a building that, time and again, mirrors itself within furious climaxes, even if, truth be told, they leave me with a slightly bitter taste, because I was hoping they could really bring the house down tonight, setting aside a few not-quite-calibrated "post" detours in favor of a formula that, when it catches fire, truly throws off sparks. Still, with the closing track they shake the venue's foundations, unleashing a knife-fight of an assault made of instrumental ferocity and destructive vocal rage. And the crowd goes wild, nearly collapsing into a wild, "jovial" pit: I stand still on the right, trying to make sense of it all, pretending to be "impartial", not to betray any emotion, while Salvador keeps creeping down toward the front, photographing this one, then that one, as if he were a Robert Mapplethorpe in the throes of a mystical crisis, and Ciro is busy sipping who knows what, shaking his head and body the way befits a law student about to graduate... (And please, don't go around saying I teach literature at a high school: I might end up on Youtube too...)

It's about half past one when the last band of the night takes the stage (which is also, in fact, the one that closes out these wonderful semifinal nights). Coming out of the backstage, I find myself the master of ceremonies. In front of me is truly a wall of boys and girls. I introduce Kymaera (from Riardo, Caserta), thanking everyone, the venue included. The light blinds me. I rush through it, forgetting to mention the date of the final. I throw myself into the fray, and Gian Battista (vocals and guitar), Marco (bass), Gianluca (guitar) and Luigi (drums) take off like a rocket with their raging thrash-metal, laced with sly psychedelic flare-ups. A fearsome tank of decibels and "cazzimma" (you don't have to be from Naples to understand what I'm talking about...) that lands the decisive blow of the night with everything that has always made rock, above all, music made for the gut. For about a quarter of an hour they play without blinking, without a single pause. The drumming of the incendiary Luigi (another war machine) grinds out rock-solid tempos. No limits. I'm right at the foot of the stage, on the right-hand side. And the speakers massage my eardrums with all the tenderness of a sumo wrestler who's furious black because he thinks I've stolen his wife. As if: at most his daughter!

And then, the goodbyes. The usual, pleasant chats in the backstage. Smiles, sweat, burning cigarettes, beer and satisfaction. But tonight there's something different. Tonight we have to pull out the names of the six finalists. That's why Ciro, Salvador and I are a bit on edge. A few ideas are already swirling in our heads, but nothing is certain yet. We step out of the venue. It's about three o'clock. The air is calm. A big crowd of boys and girls keeps gathering in front of the entrance. We go over the night, dredge up memories of the other four dates. We weigh things up, really agonizing over it, because there are so many bands that would deserve their shot at the final. And bit by bit, one, two, three, then four, five, and... finally the sixth name comes out too. But it's not a magic hat. It's an imaginary table of passion and the desire to reward the best. Naturally, not everyone will agree. In fact, most of the bands won't. But that's how things go. And so, here they are, the magnificent six, in strict alphabetical order: Naadir, Natege, Nembrot, Rosso Rubino, She's A Man, Sula Ventrebianco. You'll have already read about them on these very pages. But nothing stops us from refreshing our memory a little, as we get ready for the final, decisive stretch.

Rosso Rubino, from Benevento, are the architects of "a successful blend of singer-songwriter craft, jazz nuances and folk-inspired touches", and with their performance they conjured up a truly enchanted atmosphere. Stories of everyday life seen through a poet's eyes, set to music with just the right touch: that of a measured surrealism, never an end in itself. She's a Man is an electro-soul trio hanging on the thread of the unspeakable. They build impalpable stories chased by an indefinable voice, while the machines trace crooked, obsessive, diagonal trajectories. Moving instead along the lines of ambient crossed with IDM are Natege, a duo whose research also relies on the interplay between sound and image. What they work on are mental snapshots. Buried memories set free in an ascending vortex of rhythms/sounds that moves the body to make room for the soul. For their part, Sula Ventrebianco (from Bacoli, Naples) range from hard rock to indie, but with sudden digressions with a "progressive" flavor that catapult them into a strange no-man's-land, where there's also room for the roots of their own land. A mix that knows its destination, but doesn't scorn the journey, the ground to be covered. With Nembrot (from Saviano, Naples), we enter a parallel world. Music as a transfiguration of life. Music-as-noise: a mysterious union. Impro-noise as an adventure of the spirit, in constant search of itself. Decaying urban landscapes, evocations of evil, long tunnels crossed with eyes shut. Behind the chaos, the froth of reason. From Salerno, finally, come Naadir, a terrifying funk-metal quartet who impose their rage with frightening personality. A "geometric" sound (hyper-fluid bass, killer drums, inferno guitar and overflowing vocals) that made me think of that motto which holds no small truth within it: "violence is nothing without control".

We're well aware: it will be tough to single out just one name. Better that way, in the end.

(18/03/2008)

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google