Borgata Boredom

Borgata Boredom is at once the name of the event/showcase held on April 14 at the Circolo degli Artisti in Rome, and the title of the first vinyl-manifesto of the Rome East scene, produced by No=Fi Recordings, a label tied to a whole series of bands that represent, in a sense, the most outsider side of Rome's indie-noise-alternative scene. This is naturally to be understood both as a reflection of American noise-rock/musical drifts, and as our own (their own), distinctly Roman, way of conceiving the most radical wing of the various noise-garage-indie-pop-electronic-folk currents from across the ocean. These scenes are best understood more as convergences (or perhaps "divergences" would be the better word), rooted in a shared attitude toward making music, rather than as movements defined by adherence to any one genre; thus embodying the "underground of the underground", or perhaps the "underground squared".

But perhaps they're not so underground anymore (or perhaps they never really were), since playing at Circolo degli Artisti can already be seen as a kind of consecration, an official stamp on a certain status — and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's the layout of the stages that immediately sets apart the musical performances of the evening: alongside the "canonical" stage at the Circolo, a floor stage was set up halfway through the room, facing the bar. It's on this latter stage that Gingagaruga and Wolf Anus (?) make their appearance, their "ambient"-harsh noise shaping, through sound manipulation, the skewed, eccentric, off-kilter atmosphere of the event. The first to play the main stage are Maximillian I, who present an ultra-noisy no-wave somewhere between Mars and the Keiji Haino of Fushitsusha, with an extra pinch of madness thrown in. It's Duodenum, though, who set the weird-garage mood of the evening with their "primitivist" rock'n'roll: a duo capable of saturating the surrounding space with nothing more than a battered guitar, a filtered/deformed voice and the most basic of beats imaginable — at times recalling Thee Oh Sees — made up of a simple kick and snare played "with the feet": add in the madness/exuberance of the singer-performer and the picture is complete.

In the back-and-forth alternation between the two stages that shaped the whole run of performances, it's up to Cappottini I' Lignu to "tone down" the mood, offering an oblique blues that, after the initial outbursts, works more as a catalyst for the prevailing atmosphere, with the audience — even the most skeptical — by now fully immersed in the context. The strange country of Corpus Christi (the third duo in a row) will do the rest. With Hiroshima Rocks Around we're back in noisier territory; and here we're probably looking at the most destabilizing trio in the capital: a saxophonist recently freed from his straitjacket, a guitarist who produces serial earthquakes rather than riffs, and a drummer — perhaps the band's true soul — capable of single-handedly recreating a pneumatic drill and an atomic explosion at the same time (coincidence?).

Was it Grip Casino, lying on the floor uttering incomprehensible things with the microphone dangling and a noisy loop playing in the background? The doubt remains, and it's up to the skewed garage — as advertised — of Bobsleigh Baby to once again shift the general mood, this time toward a psycho-rock with indie shades, definitely enjoyable, but probably a bit too pleased with itself in the long run. With Valerio Mattioli's Heroin In Tahiti, we're faced with an approach that only superficially echoes the post-industrial ambient of Wolf Eyes and Black Dice, because the end result is a sort of new age-surf so transfigured as to become utterly unrecognizable — yet undoubtedly original, and at times downright brilliant in its outcomes. Closing the night are Trouble Vs Glue — another duo, with the drummer from Hiroshima — devoted to a dissonant, percussive electronic indie-pop.

It's hard, then, to find anything more thrilling, entertaining and off-kilter than a "festival" of this kind. Borgata Boredom truly is the ultimate representation of Italy's rock avant-garde, if by that we mean the most extreme expression of (dis)organized sounds and noise, based right here in Rome, the Capital. This is where, for one unique occasion, no-fidelity, shitgaze and the Italian take on Fort Thunder all converged, confirming once again the utterly inimitable, non-derivative style of each of these individual experiences. Now there's nothing left to do but wait impatiently for a repeat. Maybe while listening to the vinyl.

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