MAISIE - Morte a 33 giri

Maisie had sweetly drilled through our eardrums with their early work, no-wave gems forged from a primordial magma made up of all the music in the world; they'd disguised themselves as pure composers, letting themselves be produced and arranged by brilliant grey eminences of the global underground in a masterpiece that likewise held all the music in the world within it, and they'd relaxed, distracted and entertained us with that lopsided, pop-leaning kaleidoscope that was "Bacharach For President, Bruno Maderna Superstar", containing all the melodies in the world.

But for anyone with ears to listen, within this sea of music one thing has always stood out above everything else: a soul, very often hidden, other times just barely hinted at, a melodic and Italian soul, the pride of being born and raised in a country that has produced extraordinary pages of music that is both popular and erudite at once - a kind of music that Maisie have never hidden loving viscerally, and toward which, consciously or unconsciously (as a listener I'll venture to guess - perhaps unconsciously -) they have reached since their very beginnings.

So here the Maisie return in 2005, and now they're a foursome: alongside founders Cinzia La Fauci and Alberto Scotti, the lineup includes Paolo Messere, head of Blessed Child Opera (rediscover them too) and of the Seahorse Recordings label, which co-produces the album with Snowdonia, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, engineer and producer, plus singer Carmen D'Onofrio, extraordinary, passionate, expressive, a wonderful voice that tastes of the south, that is the south, every word she utters becoming an act of love and feeling.

The album "Morte a 33 giri", sung entirely in Italian, is their absolute masterpiece, the final stage of a journey begun years ago and gradually reshaped, maturing a little more each day, and the opening chapter of a dazzling new musical adventure, a journey into the heart of music for the heart, an unbroken stream of emotion and feeling, joy and melancholy, a sentimental prism whose infinite facets range from the Velvet Underground to Heather Parisi and everything in between, as well as before and after.

Introducing us to the album's beauties are the modern beats of the title track, a train carrying the guitars (masterfully arranged throughout the record) and the crossed, doubled vocals of Cinzia and Paolo, with a poignant violin underscoring the humanity behind the machines — or rather, above the machines.

In these opening four minutes, the renewal work the Maisie carry out is already clearly visible — not only on their own music, but on Italian popular music as a whole, which they modernize while keeping a strong commercial appeal, enriching it with words so beautiful and natural they seem to have written themselves.

"Women, competing for the world record in suffering, appear to us like sweet ghosts of consistency. Fate arrabbiate in un videogame" (ah, ah, no global in un videogame)…"fai click su off e spegni il 68, scivola sul 77, sull'85, sui Duran Duran. O Duran o Spandau" goes the song, a clarifying statement of the Maisie's poetics, entirely made up of descriptions of feelings and small everyday events, most of the time so detailed and personal that their sense and meaning seem to slip away — and yet that's exactly where the universality of their lyrics lies, in the individual words, in the juxtaposition of phrases, in an automatic transfer that projects their concrete experiences onto ours, sketching a full picture and vision of the world around us and the reality we live in: honest, passionate, sincerely critical because driven by love, communist in the finest and most poetic sense of the word.

"Vivan Las Casadenas", ten minutes of ecstasy with a long, sweet, bucolic intro, pushed into sugary territory by the voices of Cinzia and Carmen (“La libertà ha delle controindicazioni che non hai considerato/ Te ne accorgi sul balcone di cui ti vanti/ che forse tre metri quadrati non sono poi tanti” — notice how the lines are always charged with multiple meanings, referring to social/universal themes and amorous/personal ones at the same time —) and a second part made of under-the-skin melodies, singing angels, innocence and Pastels-like shuttles, the music darkening as the words grow harsher ("La mia ansia di rivolta/ si annoia come un malato in barella/ come se si inceppasse la rivoltella") and then stretching out and relaxing into the spirit of a resignation that is actually a longing to act, to improve, to still succeed, in an age when the speed at which we receive information approaches that of light, in a world where songs themselves have mutated from works of ingenuity into mere clusters of bytes — a plea to take the time to reflect on things and to marvel at beautiful things ("Su coprire le carni!/ che vedono anche i bambini/ sì, ma poi, tutti al mare in bikini/ tutti al mare in bikini./ Urlo in rewind/ di fronte alla barricata/ rimettetemi in catene/ rimettetemi in catene").

The following "L'inverno precoce", the absolute peak of the album for this writer, is musically a perfect radio hit, compositionally flawless, flowing, moving, indie pop meeting the tastes of Luzzatto Fegiz with one of the finest choruses of recent years, capable of that emotional leap that elevates phrases you'd hum along to into pure poetry.

It's a song that, with all its echoes and reverbs, sounds like a dream and speaks of dreaming, of stories never lived, of that parallel world in which everyday reality merges with a cinematic plot, making impossible encounters possible and turning the sight and scent of a stranger into pure love, with chance driving it all ("Ora di punta/ cappotto sbagliato/ in mezzo al mercato/ sognavo di te").

And it speaks of it in an extraordinary way, with a deeply romantic, meaning-laden angle, all converging toward the creation of a feeling that, precisely because it's unreal, is all the more true, instinctive and primal than ever (“Lo vedo non parli/ parcheggi lontano/ la panda ammaccata/ la targa straniera/ la giacca rubata mi parla di te./ E non ti conosco/ e non mi conosci/ e mangi un gelato/ io bevo un caffè./ Tepore sognato di quelle coperte in offerta speciale/ le compro per te“) ; spiarsi, rubarsi cose e farsi i regali, immaginarsi scene insieme, amare l’odore, l’atmosfera che una persona emana senza nemmeno conoscerla, l’attaccamento morboso e feticista agli oggetti e, nel ritornello dolcissimo di zucchero colorato di blu nero e bianco (“Ma tu ti allontani/ che freddo alle mani/ aspetto gli amici e parlo con me/ un mare di piume che cade veloce/ l’inverno precoce odora di te“), la bellissima immagine di “un mare di piume che cade veloce”, the feathers of a feather jacket that is the early winter fall as fast as in a digitally altered film, a flash of reality that returns forcefully in the second verse (“sono una forza/ spingo i pulsanti/ maneggio la stecca come un campione/ e Luigi è un coglione se vuole sfidarmi/ ti giuro vent’anni/ lo ricorderà“), nella quale il richiamare contesti e argomenti quotidiani sembra l’unico modo per contrastare la voglia di rifiondarsi nel proprio spazio filmico (che sia “La Doppia Vita di Veronica” or "Sposerò Simon Le Bon" — it doesn't matter, with the Maisie it's both); but meanwhile, while waiting for friends, in this reality in which it often happens that we aren't ourselves and, above all, that we miss moments and feelings, the cold hands this song speaks of, and the mental processes from which it springs so well described, represent the complexity of one of the most beautiful feelings — if not the most beautiful, certainly the most "ours alone" — one can experience.

The following trio of songs, "Maria De Filippi (una vergine tra i morti viventi)", "Sistemo l'america e torno" and "?Uma.no", represent the darkest heart of the record and unfold as a single extended reflection that starts from the theme of general unease (“Ho messo da parte un altro cadavere perché/ non credo più a niente/ Ah, la luce blu/ vedo dal monitor che ci sei/ sono i tuoi ultimi istanti di vita/ sarai sepolto dalla saliva delle bocche“), attraversando la rivendicazione di una diversità rispetto agli abitanti dei “paloebarattoli” to put it in Zero's words (“Quel che mi disturba è la tua faccia/ quel modo di portare i capelli come se non fosse importante/ quel che mi disturba è vedere che ti commuovi con Bob Marley/ sognando una Harley nel deserto/ quel che mi disturba è che parli di Roberto/ morto di overdose/ come le mille altre cose da sistemare/ beh, ok, va bene/ ci si becca dopo/ vado a mangiare/ vado a mangiare“), arrivando a toccare amore e sentimento senza alcuna soluzione di continuità stilistica, narrativa (“il tuo senso critico/ il tuo fare logico/ mi butta giù….ti manco/ sento che ti manco (sei umano e non lo sai)/ ti manco/ sento che ti manco (sei umano anche se non vuoi più, non vuoi più)“) e musicale, passando dal cupo mantra di “Maria De Filippi” through the acoustic-apocalyptic ballad of "Sistemo l'america e torno" all the way to the 2005-vintage Matia Bazar of "?Uma.no".

“Finché la borsa va lasciala andare” is ironic from the title onward (but not too much so), quintessentially Italian synth-pop, revealing another facet of Maisie's thinking: the awareness that going “against” as a matter of principle isn't really going against anything at all, that playing the intellectual just for the sake of it is simply playing the fool, and that for those who never got to live certain Saturday afternoons, a new pair of shoes can represent a real turning point (“nel mio caso sto lodando il consumo e non avverto disgusto/ mi trovo bene/ non mi taglio le vene/ mi trovo bene/ non mi taglio le vene/ Magici sabato pomeriggio/ mai vissuti/ tipi in giro con le scarpe nuove/ e le vuoi anche tu/ le vuoi anche tu“).

And then comes "Sottosopra", a splendid love anthem, where the role of the couple, the complicity, the affinity, the caring for one another becomes so central and all-consuming that the rest of the world appears distorted, turned upside down, yet still beautiful, beyond space and time — and alongside the collapsing streetlamps, the green sky and the sun, even ideas become concrete, visible, and yellow ("mi ricordo che/ tu volavi morbida/ sotto il cielo stava verde su di noi/ Crolla tutto/ i lampioni su di noi/ qualche idea stava gialla su di noi/ mi ricordo che/ tu sembravi morbida/ e cadendo giù superavi il tempo/ sottosopra").

Sung by Cinzia and Bugo, almost entirely played by Messere, who gives it a languid, melancholic, poignant feel, with a long flute solo in the tail accompanying the bodies in free fall, "Sottosopra" is the perfect soundtrack for a Battisti-esque kind of "caring for one another," as well as a laying-bare of one's feelings so explicit it's almost frightening.

The record closes with the next two tracks, “Allargando le braccia,” as if the love of “Sottosopra” had passed but never truly ended, mystical, almost religious (“fai sì che la grazia su di noi ridiscenda/ allargando le braccia/ allargando le braccia“), ma anche prepotentemente terreno e carnale (“Ho bisogno del tuo paradiso/ di una sigaretta dal fuoco blu/ che accendendoti la guancia in un sorriso ci riporti su/ dove il più magico dei tuoi profumi/ diventa balsamo per il sole/ ho bisogno di questo dolce miele/ del tuo autentico sudore“) e “Una canzone riciclata”, placed at the close as a summation of all the themes tackled across the album, a final slap in the face from people who, in spite of robots and replicants, still live with a beating heart (“S’è un deficit di realtà/ me ne accorgo chiaramente da come cammina la gente/ e una vicina con la borsa della spesa/ ingombrante anche se non pesa… i muri non si abbattono a testate/ e le zuppe riscaldate e le maglie rilevate e cento morti rimandate/ L’esistenza chiusa in cella/ una canzone riciclata/ guarda lo schermo con attenzione/ è un attentato moltiplicato/ E non ci capisci niente e neanche ti lamenti/ e non ci capisci niente e neanche ti lamenti“).

With "Morte a 33 giri", the Maisie open up a new course for Italian popular music, managing to blend all their musical influences into a single whole that oozes passion and melody from every pore, writing lyrics of profound depth, metrically gorgeous as though they were already classics, all wrapped in a dazzling, light, popular surface charm, crafting one of the finest albums produced in Italy in recent years.

They'd deserve to make money, and then some.

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10/02/2016