Teen Sound Records
Massimo Dalpozzo's Teen Sound Records, a division of Misty Lane, seems to have long since taken up a challenge with itself, periodically churning out new productions and new bands, always within a realm hovering between Italian and international sixties beat, garage and psychedelia.
It's rare for them to strike a wrong note: even between late 2007 and the start of this 2008 they've released three little masterpieces, each different in its own way, three Italian bands who go on to swell the already vast catalogue of the Misty Lane Appreciation Society, a uniquely Italian musical and artistic heritage that has managed to throw a precious bridge between the homegrown garage scene and the international one.
The Narcotics – "All The Purple Pussies"
Truth be told, these four guys have very little Italian about them: it's hard to believe they're actually from Bologna. Starting with the extraordinary "American" grit of lead vocalist Muddy George on the opening, Dylan-esque, drawling "All The Purple Pussies", right down through the "garage" numbers "Fuckin' Shootin' Star", "Stuck In The Station", "Troubles (Give Me A Hard On)", "Vanishing" — a ballad rich in light and shade — and "(My) Death Party".
In these songs, played with rigor and passion and built on the tight duelling guitars of Juan Ventura and Ramblin' Flep, you can almost hear the Miracle Workers of the '80s again, the band behind a glorious record like "Overdose" (1988) — without even realizing that, buried at the bottom of the album, lies a pounding cover of that very Portland band's "Love Has No Time", taken from their debut.
Here Muddy George gets the chance to unleash his animalistic vocal timbres at their best, remarkably close to those of the unforgettable Miracle Workers frontman, W. Gerry Mohr.
There are traces of Rochester's godfathers The Chesterfield Kings and of the Fuzztones in "Jenny", but also in the aforementioned tracks: on "Narcotic Mess-a-round" Muddy pushes even further — how can you not hear echoes of the mature Iggy Pop in his vigorous performance?
A flawless "Take Me To The Streets", built on an admirable electro-acoustic balance, seals a timeless half-hour of hard-garage that never lets you catch your breath, not even for a second.
Web references:
www.myspace.com/xxxthenarcoticsxxx
The Temponauts – "A Million Year Picnic"
Simone Modicamore, from Piacenza and frontman of the fine Rookies, had also put his name to two interesting acoustic records with Warm Morning between 2004 and 2005.
He now reaffirms his versatility as both singer and guitarist by joining this new project, The Temponauts, an extraordinary sonic creature led by Stefano "Pibio" Silva, who wrote 11 of the 12 tracks on "A Million Year Picnic", rounded out by a cover of Jamison's soul classic "That's How Strong My Love Is".
Extraordinary because, like true Temponauts, the five of them manage to graft the gorgeous vocal and guitar interplay of Silva, Ferrari, Vascelli and Modicamore onto a thoroughly modern, distinctly personal rhythmic and compositional sensibility — a lesson drawn from far back in time: Byrds, Beach Boys, the absolute masters of the aesthetic embraced by The Temponauts on "A Million Year Picnic".
Spacious, airborne melodies and harmonies are lavished throughout "Captain Frustration", "Toxic & Lazy", "Come Back Saturday", "The Down Bums" and "Atomic Fire Sister", all dense with captivating, enveloping hooks: does it remind you of the dreamiest side of Australia's Church? Even the aforementioned cover gets a special "treatment", drifting off among the clouds, lost in a sky painted blue!
Still, The Temponauts know how to hit harder and scratch with more aggressive guitars on the surprising "Operation: Coroner" and "Not In The Morning". But if you want to catch them at their most inspired, you need to hear the intricate "Men Of Dangerous Maybe" and the closing "The Return Of Josie Wales", pure airborne psychedelia and the cerebral triumph of what feels like a concept-opera assembled aboard their own spaceship, hurtling into the new millennium with wicked sweetness to sketch out new, astonishing expressive horizons.
Web references:
The Cavemen – "Fiore Nero"
Does it still make sense, in 2008, to write an album in the purest tradition of Italian '60s beat?
On a first listen to "Fiore Nero", the second album by the not-so-young The Cavemen for Teen Records, you're left a tad puzzled by lines like "...tutti x uno balliamo lo shake!".
But then, when you give it another spin, you're won over by the aggressiveness and sincere attitude with which Michele Biondi, Matteo Lamargese & co. pull off the tricky feat of making such well-worn material feel current again, especially given that it's sung in their mother tongue.
It's above all the bite of the fuzz-guitars and the solos that pull off this little miracle, along with the pair's languid, at times feral vocals on "Fiore Nero", "Io sto qui", "Non mi odiar" and "L'ora delle streghe", and in the slow, bitter, nostalgic "Sogno" and "Il lungo addio" (with vintage keyboards well to the fore) — among the record's high points.
The instrumental "Mexicali" is a real treat, a kind of hard-surfin' number featuring Diego Frabetti's trumpet.
Three covers from the distant sixties round out the album: the best known is Michel Polnareff's "La lezione del capellone", followed by "Il treno della morte" (The Jaguars) and "Prima c'era luce" (New Trolls), all reworked with that strong personal stamp that runs through the whole record.
Web references:
www.myspace.com/thecavemenbeat
The A'dam Sikles – "Out Of The Circle Game" (2008)
A few sitar notes open Om, the opening track of "Out Of The Circle Game", the debut album by Rome's A'dam Sikles, the latest incarnation of Massimo Del Pozzo, here on lead vocals, guitar and songwriting duties.
The meditative, Eastern-tinged opening is already an excellent prelude to the melancholy, autumnal tones that envelop an album enriched by valuable instrumental contributions from various collaborators (flutes, violins, cello, horn, harpsichord, dulcimer, tabla drum).
The garage approach is considerably softened by the compositional delicacy of tracks like "Feel The Pain (Roby's Song)", "Mary Grace's Mind", "The Big Green" and the instrumental "Victor's Lullaby".
A'dam Sikles' versatility is further confirmed by the bossa nova of "Sunshine Girl", and by the folk/baroque atmosphere of the other instrumentals "Daisy" and "Sugarplum Fairy".
The more energetic "Yellow Day", "Rain Child" and "She Lives In My Mind", with Daniele Onorati's organ well to the fore, instead show the more forceful side of A.S.
What's striking about "Out Of The Circle Game" is how outside influences — Barrett-esque ones above all — are absorbed and transformed so skilfully, giving rise to a sound that's rich, well-blended in its various components, but above all decidedly personal: the result is a set of harmonically captivating songs, saturated with gorgeous harmonies and pitched to perfection, striking the spirit and mind on first listen, then winning over the senses and memory on subsequent ones, worming their way in with a subtlety and elegance rare in this day and age.
Web references:
www.myspace.com/adamsykles
The Strange Flowers – “Aeroplanes In The Backyard” (2008)
If there's one thing the Strange Flowers, from Pisa, excel at on their "Aeroplanes In The Backyard", it's writing lazy, languid mid-tempo ballads, alluring in their proto-garage attitude.
Never aggressive, vocalist Michele Marino (who wrote both music and lyrics) knows how to captivate with his decadent moves, while guitarist Nicola Cionini's measured playing strikes with an acidic edge ("Clouds Of Blonde Girls").
The whole album moves along these lines, turning at times more psychedelic ("Aeroplanes/Yellow Of Sun") and at others softly conversational ("Helen Says").
The sum of these elements comes together in the closing "Everyone Has A Spot In The Sunshine", nearly seven minutes of lysergic splendor with the lead guitar soaring acidic and blazing, sealing an album magically poised between hard-rock temptations and psychedelic oases.
Web references:
www.myspace.com/strangeflowers
Les Playboys – "Abracadabrantesque" (2008)
Five seasoned young Frenchmen devoted to sixties-rooted fuzz-garage rock, celebrating 30 years of musical life with this second effort.
They took their moniker from one of the biggest hits of Jacques Dutronc, among the most prominent French rockers of the '60s. It was in 1976 that three of the current members of Les Playboys (F. Albertini, F. Lejeune, F. Durban) founded one of the first French punk-garage acts, Les Dentistes, but it's from the arrival of Pierre Negre on lead guitar in 1979 that they became a Nuggets/Pebbles band, essentially falling in line with Fuzztones, Lyres and Chesterfield Kings in the international garage revival.
They recorded their first album in 1985, and after various twists and turns arrive at this "Abracadabrantesque", a half-hour celebration of their still razor-fresh beat-garage sound, very close in spirit to the party-sound of the ever-green Americans Fleshtones.
Tracks with typically "long-haired" titles like "Les jours ou' tout va da travers", "Je revendique", "Pour qui me prenez-vous?", "Mieux vaut etre seul" paradoxically embody, in 2009, the ideal soundtrack to a beat party from forty years ago, yet Albertini's insolent vocals, the omnipresent fuzz-guitar underscoring naive riffs, and the unobtrusive keyboards don't sound dated: they're the healthy carriers of a rough-and-ready, naif existential rage, Nino Ferrer-style (Albertini's vocal timbre strongly recalls him), still thoroughly engaging.
So are we dealing with French Fleshtones here? Absolutely - just listen to the raw “Mon obsession”, “Abracadabra” and “Qu'est-ce que je peux faire”.
“Animal”, slow and rarefied, is the only track to distance itself from the album's overall mood.
Lets' have a party with the Playboys!
Web references:
Tony Borlotti e i suoi Flauers – "A che serve protestare" (2008)
The opening of this new work by Tony Borlotti e i suoi Flauers is thrilling: "E voi e voi e voi", an old Gene Guglielmi song, a sort of building blues underscored by the aggressive entrance of the farfisa halfway through the track. It's an ideal dialogue between an alien and earthlings, highlighting the latter's many fatal existential flaws.
"A che serve protestare" flaunts the full arsenal of Italian sixties beat, both instrumentally (harmonica, farfisa, reverbed/distorted guitars, choruses, naive yet biting lead vocals) and thematically: the relationship with religion ("Giovane prete"), the desire for freedom ("Viaggio di un provo"/"Viva la libertà"), love ("Un giorno ancora"/"Gli occhi tuoi"), protest ("A che serve protestare?"). Also spot-on is the scratchy cover of "No no no no" by the legendary Sorrows and the beat instrumental "Bagordo Shake".
Worth highlighting are the catchiness and energy of "Viva la libertà" (a Carlo Pavone song), with Mick Coppola's cutting lead guitar, "Lei se ne va", and the Sergio Leone/graffiti atmosphere of "A che serve protestare", with trumpet and accordion, subtly ironic - all tracks that in the 1960s could have climbed the beat charts. The closing "Il peso delle ore" is nostalgic and instrumentally rich.
Tony Borlotti e i suoi Flauers deliver an intelligent Italian revival, full of humour and remarkably fresh, one that ends up feeling timeless, fit for any season.
Web references:
The June – "Magic Circles" (2009)
These The June also seem to be in full "Indian" trip mode, judging by the opening "Barber Shop", loaded with meditative sitar and bansuri. But that's just the start: from "Rolling Desperate" onward, through "Better Than You", they reveal themselves to be a sturdy mod trio with vital guitar work.
Then in "Big Black Mouth" and "Sir Eugene Maddox" brilliant choruses emerge amid tough Jam-style riffs.
"Daisy", with mellotron, flute, trumpet and reverbed guitars, lands them squarely amid dense Oasis aromas.
The three Italians, about as anglophile as it gets, continue to pit melodic, harmonic vocals against solid instrumental structures in "Getting High" and "Living In The Park".
And while Beatles ghosts ("Rain") and Byrds ghosts ("Notorius") alternate in the mind, The June sink their scalpel-necks into the sublime pop psychedelia of "Sketches Of Sound", "Revolver" and "Makes Me Feel Good".
"Magic Circles" is a shimmering gem straddling the 60s and 70s: don't ask how these three musicians from Parma managed to reach this magical balance in barely half an hour. Just enjoy "Magic Circles" in one single electric breath!
Web references:
Los Immediatos – "Second Chance" (2009)
The Spanish band Los Immediatos arrive at their second release for Teen Sound after their 2007 debut on For Monsters R., which leaned toward a fresh power-pop sound.
On "Second Chance" the tempos slow down and the tracks – "Something's Wrong With You", "A Crying Shame", "Princesa" – head down the path of a never-aggressive pop-garage sound, bolstered by the vox and acetone organ and the twin guitars of Mazarro and Perez.
And here power-pop emerges, with distinctly Spanish-flavored touches, in tracks like "No Vuelvas", "So Sad About Me", "Sad About Us", and the cover "I Wonder" (The Gants).
Los Immediatos can also be delicate, as on "Everybody Knows" and in the graceful songwriting of "Happy Story", before turning gritty again on the other cover, "Bajo El Sol" (Juan & Junior).
The soft ballad "Garden Paradise", rich with colorful keyboards, closes out an album with a light, enjoyable garage approach.
Web references:
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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Pasquale Boffoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.
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