Marlene Kuntz

Ten years ago there was the 20th-anniversary tour, which in Rome passed through an unusual venue, Spazio Novecento, a location in the middle of the Eur district, usually dedicated to hosting electronic-leaning sounds. But a single run of shows certainly can't be enough to celebrate a work as important as “Il Vile”, a cornerstone of Italian alternative rock in the Nineties, and the driving force behind an enviable career. So here we all are again, gathered to watch the candles being blown out on the cake for its thirtieth birthday.

Marlene Kuntz recorded “Il Vile” in 1996, and I'm sure they're still proud of it today, perhaps even more than their debut “Catartica” and the follow-up “Ho ucciso paranoia”, the sacred trilogy crafted by the Piedmontese band. The album was also recently the subject of a reissue, featuring illustrations by Alessandro Baronciani.

What surprises me most, on this evening spent at the Orion in Ciampino, is seeing so many very young people singing every song by heart. Where could they have possibly heard them? How did they come to know them? Did they get to them through their parents? Through some nonconformist uncle, maybe a left-wing one? Did they seek them out on streaming platforms after reading something on the pages of OndaRock? I ask myself this throughout the whole concert. These kids aren't with their parents, no - they're gathered in groups of peers, mostly of university age, between 20 and 25, and I spot a great many of them, alongside grey heads like mine, the “old-timers” who, holding back a tear, look back on those unforgettable adventures of getting to the former Mattatoio or the Palacisalfa to see Marlene Kuntz again, maybe for the fourth or fifth time in a single year.

I bring this up after the show with Cristiano Godano and Riccardo Tesio, who are just as surprised. They tell me how this striking presence of a young audience has been repeating itself every night. So it's a phenomenon that can be noticed from the stage too, not just down in the crowd. Which means Cristiano and Riccardo (who on this run of dates perform as a four-piece, rounded out by Luca Lagash Saporiti on bass and Sergio Carnevale on drums) aren't in some kind of trance during the performance - they're fully aware, conscious of what's happening on the other side of the barrier, of all the love pouring out from hearts still smitten with their music. A band that understands it has become trans-generational, something far from a given, and something we could hardly have predicted back in 1996, when all we wanted was to hear “Retrattile” and “Il Vile“ (the song) on endless repeat.

And yet for years they stopped playing them live, who knows why, but not tonight: ten of the eleven tracks from “Il Vile”'s tracklist are here, lined up in the same sequence as the album, skipping only one, track number ten. All the others are present, starting with “3 di 3”, that joyful tangle of vipers, that violent erotic tension which a few minutes later finds further strength in the fiery guts of “Cenere”. Hard, blunt-force tracks, musically illuminating at the time: we had never heard anyone play like that in Italy before.

Rage alternates with rounder, almost radio-friendly moments, within the soft coils of "Come stavamo ieri" and "L'esangue Deborah". Today, as then, Marlene Kuntz remain unmatched in their ability to turn isolation, unease and the fog of provincial Piedmont into electric distortion, forging an Italian path through cultured noise, using saturated textures and feedback capable of capturing contemporary neuroses (of that era, but I'd say of today too), materializing a sonic noir that works both as an initiation rite and an act of defiance.

The destructive toxicity of “Ape Regina”, where existential malaise and sonic ferocity merge into a single, sick embrace, remains absolutely central to the show, a song that stays among the most beloved by fans across the entire Marlene Kuntz catalogue. After an almost complete run-through of “Il Vile” come the two heavyweights fished out of “Catartica”, “Sonica” and “Nuotando nell’aria”, the ones fans used to call sacrilege if they weren't played: “They didn't play Sonica!” was the ritual complaint whenever it was left out. Then comes the only concession to the new millennium, “La mia promessa” and “Cara è la fine”, from “Che cosa vedi” (2001), just before “Festa mesta” marks the temporary farewell. A couple of minutes later they're back on stage for the encore, two more tracks, “Infinità” and “Lieve”, enough to fully satisfy the appetite of any fan.

Many are young, as I said, let's call them “young adults”, a “new” audience that is making these celebratory shows even more special, because it strips away that patina of nostalgia that this kind of operation always risks carrying. The tour will continue in April, with two dates in Turin, one in Naples and one in Bari, followed by a warm summer tail end, with Marlene Kuntz already announced as headliners on one of the days of the La Prima Estate Festival, in Lido di Camaiore, the day entirely dedicated to Italian music, also featuring on the bill Ministri, Casino Royale and Sì! Boom! Voilà!. More details will follow in the coming days, so that everyone, wherever they are on the peninsula, can keep honoring Il Vile.

(Photo by Claudio Lancia)

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