OndaFritta 2

OndaFritta is a format created in partnership with Fritto FM to combine music journalism with my activity as a DJ and selector. On the first Thursday of every month at 6:00 pm, a live set streamed on Fritto FM's radio: an hour to explore a genre, a movement or a theme from the contemporary music landscape. For this second episode, the choice fell on the dreamy atmospheres of dream pop and ambient pop. We're talking about two genres whose boundaries often overlap; the selection follows one guiding criterion: to give some space to names that are sometimes less discussed than Cocteau Twins, Sigur Ròs and Bel Canto, but who've still given us moments no less intense.

Opening yesterday's episode were Australia's Hydroplane, whose track from “Hope Against Hope” (1999) offers a perfect synthesis of both genres. Then, inevitably, Yo La Tengo make an appearance in any dream pop playlist (or alternative rock one, in plenty of other cases), here featured with an excerpt from the gloomy album “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out” (2000), which breathes the air of slowcore.

Next up are Northern Picture Library with a ballad that recalls Mazzy Star but in male form, originally released on the “Paris” EP and later reissued on the compilation “Postscript” (2005). Then the fog of Clientele, recognizable for their lo-fi atmosphere and filtered, dreamlike vocals, with a tender song included on “Suburban Light” (2000). Born from an offshoot of Slowdive, Mojave 3 continue the selection with an American-schooled indie legacy from the album “Spoon And Rafter” (2003). We move on to Canada's An April March with a track from their “Lessons In Vengeance” (1995), a product of the ethereal school built by This Mortal Coil and heir to the guitars of Robin Guthrie.

Japanese duo Sugar Plant continue the journey with their exquisitely refined mix of downtempo and lounge (“Dryfruit”, 2000), one of the most underrated records of the Naughts. We return to lo-fi pop with Sweden's Radio Dept., who bring an autumnal melancholy taken from the collection “I Don’t Need Love, I’ve Got My Band” (2019). Shoestrings bring some brightness with their jangle influences and their full-length “Wishing On Planes” (1997). We switch continents with singer-songwriter Naoki Asai and his dazed neo-psychedelia, taken from “アバ・ハイジ (Aber Heidschi)” (1988). Closing this leg is the romanticism of “You Will Never Know Why” by Sweet Trip (2009), a hybrid project between indie and electronica. We near the end with veterans His Name Is Alive and their hypnotic rhythm, adorned by a suspended female vocal (“Mouth By Mouth”, 1993).

Art Of Fighting brush up against slowcore and post-rock, only to find their true home in pop dreaminess (“Wires”, 2001). Faye Wong absorbs the lesson of “Treasure” and makes it her own, in a formula as devoted as it is brilliant (“Fúzào”, 1996), and closing out this second episode, Songs Of Green Pheasant, who with “Boats” from “Gyllyng Street” (2007) open up a saudade of intimate horizons.

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