Thalassa

April 4, 5 and 6, 2013: a parade of stars and a celebration of madness in Rome, in the infernal pit of Circolo Dal Verme. Excellently organized by Toni Cutrone, the “Thalassa – Italian Occult Psychedelia Festival” was a chance to see the best of the Italian underground of recent times at work. United by a convergent approach, by a way of understanding music built on a set of shared references (albeit with diverse sounds), the bands who took the Dal Verme stage embody, right now, a “quintessentially Italian way” of looking at rock and other sounds, rooted in a shared past that draws on a certain brand of cinema (until recently dismissed as B-movie fare) and a dark, morbid anthropology. The originality of this vision is drawing attention from abroad too, as shown by the reviews and mentions garnered by many of the bands in question.

And while their studio output had so far proven up to the mark, there was real curiosity about the costly business of putting it to the test live. Well, the response exceeded expectations, further proof that a music scene as strong as Italy's current one had been missing for far too long.

On April 4th, the infernal Taranta begins on radioactive beaches. Heroin In Tahiti, the project of Valerio Mattioli and Francesco de Figueiredo, not only confirm live everything that was good on record, but go further: their sound is so enveloping, dazing and sweetly hallucinated that it seems to fuse with the walls of the Circolo into a sun-yellow blend of a summer noon. Listless voodoobilly in an acid sauce, Morricone meets Sun Araw on a radioactive atoll.

Next up, the ethno-sickness of Gianni Giublena Rosacroce, whose lean, euphorically psychedelic set showed how the immortal spirit of Aktuala still dwells within this music.

Father Murphy come as no surprise, in the sense that their live set stays consistently at an extraordinary level. Their metallic despair booms off the walls of the club, in a crumpling tangle of iron and flesh.

Fabio Orsi closes out the first night with his cosmic drones, leading the audience to the gates of another world. Pure joy.

On April 5th, the opening is steeped in paranoia: Architeuthis Rex (Francesca Marongiu and Antonio Gallucci) lead the audience through the depths of a dark, murky drone music, crossed by tribal echoes and an abyssal sense of emptiness. Joined by Simon Balestrazzi, MSMiroslaw of Hermetic Brotherhood Of Lux-or conjures the image of a Sardinia crumbling into post-industrial decay. The anguished sounds that define the performance stand as a representation of animalistic claims to primitive instinct, seeking to reclaim an original Sardinian identity.

For Cannibal Movie, the same goes as for Father Murphy. Their top-notch performance proves this is a band now fully seasoned. Their tribal psychedelia turns the Dal Verme into an Amazon rainforest in the middle of a storm.

After Cannibal Movie's colourful set, things turn dark again with the anguished, rumbling Hmwwawciawccw. Long, leaden notes, desolate desert vaults, the road to the apocalypse is a painful ordeal.

Closing the second night is a set from Emiliano Maggi/Estasy, with a dreamlike psychedelia (or rather, a sickly-sweet nightmare) that's subtly hypnagogic.

On April 6th, things begin by drifting through the stillness of droned-out psychedelia. Rainbow Island deliver cosmic vertigo and trance-like noise. Visionary stuff.

Next up are Eternal Zio, who, hidden behind unsettling masks, deliver an equally unsettling performance: guitar barrages and cosmic ragas gone rotten, for the most hallucinated of bad trips.

After the mysterious Eternal Zio, it's the crushing Squadra Omega who take the stage, with their psychedelic rock shaded by kraut tones. Negative vibrations, motorik propulsion, a repetitive trance that would make Robert Hampson pale in comparison - what more is there to say? A psychedelic rock still capable of astonishing clearly still exists.

Closing the festival is a captivating performance from Golden Cup/Luca Massolin: the perfect interplay between minimal, dissonant electronics and evocative visuals results in a journey beyond the unknown.

Topping it all off is a strong sense of community that was hard to imagine in these terms. At this point, a Thalassa 2 becomes a must.

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