Disco Drive - Rock for export

2009 will also be remembered, as far as Italian independent music is concerned, as the year of Disco Drive's third effort. Shifting both attitude and line-up, these three lads, some from Bologna, some from Turin, have tapped into musical territory unexplored on the Italian scene, earning considerable success across Europe, especially in Germany and England. Fusing different genres, from punk to funk, from electronica to rock, Disco Drive have managed to shape a very distinctive sound. Their live shows, as fiery and passionate as few others, are genuine frenzies of climbing guitars, claustrophobic beats and screams.

The adventure begins in the Turin of Subsonica in the early 2000s; after a 7-inch released in 2003, the trio's potential (Alessio Natalizia on guitar, Jacopo Borrazzo on drums and Andrea Pomini on bass) is spotted by Max Casacci, bassist of Boosta and Samuel's band.

In 2005 the trio release their first album, titled What's Wrong With You, People?. A fiery debut, driven by the psychedelic video for "All About This", caught between funk and wave, a bit Devo, a bit Gang Of Four. And it's precisely along this line that the whole debut unfolds.

The stir caused by such an atypical creature on the Italian music scene pushes the trio to tour half of Europe, mixing clattering guitars with a dancefloor punch. The grainy groove of "The Leaving Feet" and the sonic wave of "Forward!" leave their mark. Right in the middle of the punk-funk wave, Disco Drive unleash a sound that is nonetheless personal and compelling. Get ready to clap, whistle and nod your head up and down: the party has only just begun.

A year goes by and a new short-form release comes out, Very Ep.

Disco Drive are also the expression of an energy that explodes in the "natural" setting of the live show (watch out: there are three of them, but they play like six), yet one that still manages to find a credible dimension in the studio too, and "Very" is proof of that. What awaits us is a lean sound, with no frills, but not thrown together either, whose key element is an adrenaline built on an ideal synthesis of catchy hooks and punk outbursts.

The substantial background is there, and it shows, whether in the noise-driven intro of "Abuse Of Power", jarring with its forty seconds of industrial scenery à la Einstürzende Neubauten, or in the following tracks, all geared towards a personal reinterpretation of funk's many shades.

In the end, it's precisely the perspective that surprises, much closer to the brashness of the Clash than to the polish of Rapture, and that says a lot about the punk trio's total lack of pandering.

That said, Disco Drive prove just as capable of writing dumb, catchy singles that stick in your head ("A Factory Of Minds", which matches "All About This" from the debut album and is revisited here in video form, heavily aired on Mtv Brand New), as they are of crafting mocking stop-and-go bursts of white tribalism ("Back And Forth"). They even go so far as to echo, perhaps unintentionally, the power-pop, or art-punk, of the very earliest Joe Jackson, on "Dot Dash Dew", which then dissolves into an instrumental coda recalling Pigbag stripped of horns, that is, the Pop Group territory that indeed erupts in the closing "Comes As No Surprise", with a furious percussive barrage that tries - and succeeds - to tear us apart.

Meanwhile, there's also a line-up change, with Matteo Lavagna stepping in for Andrea Pomini on bass.

Tireless as ever, they're ready with a new album after just a year. The title is telling: Things To Do Today can also be read self-referentially, or rather as an invitation from the band to better understand what the things to do/play today actually are, after the punk-funk whirlwind. A few seconds in and here's the first swerve: tedious hisses introduce the unusual structure of "Grow Up", a measured rhythm punctuated by dark pulses, overturned at the close by a sudden drumming. It's only the very first prelude to the new shape the band is taking.

We return to punk-funk "normality" with the pairing of "The Flower Stall" and "It's A Long Way To The Top", placed there to satisfy anyone still keen to reconnect with the old Disco Drive frequencies, and to best channel live that explosive urge that has always defined the trio. On the record, this stylistic alternation can also be sensed within individual tracks, with colourful openings à la Kieran Hebden overlapping rock structures, converging by the end into a single sonic union, as in the restless "Goodbye" or the cryptic "Find Me Animal", a synthetic metamorphosis of the new Disco Drive sound.

With a wizard of the calibre of Steve Revitte (Liars, Lcd Soundsystem, Black Dice) behind the desk, everything must surely have come easier: the trio have genuinely taken on a brand-new indie configuration, triggering new art-rock combinations and venturing boldly thanks also to greater compositional maturity. "What Are You Talking About and Why Are You Talking About It?", a small, eight-minute lysergic/floating jam written last year, is the treasure chest holding these new ambitions, reworked on Things To Do Today through a clever thematic variation.

And while "Fingers And Nails" drifts along the sonic fringes of the album with its beat noise, the title track plunges into a hypothetical rap/rock, complete with a two-step forming its rhythmic backdrop, while at the tail end the usual laptop noise-making deconstructs the entire harmonic section. Closing things out is "Cholsey", a melancholy ballad for wounded punk souls, which picks up the unease of the opening "Grow Up" with greater melodic sense, alternating synthetic bass with digital cacophonies.

Things To Do Today is the Italian watershed moment for the new generation of European punk-funk. A record that will divide audiences considerably, but one that immediately wins over plenty of supporters among those who have always appreciated bold stylistic shifts, a necessity in today's indie scene, where the endless pursuit of the unexpected sound is the order of the day.

Contributions by Marco Bercella ("Very Ep") and Giuliano Delli Paoli ("Things To Do Today")

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