NUCCINI! - Matters Of Love And Death

"Matters Of Love And Death" is a hard record to pin down, for a number of reasons, all traceable to the vast background of its musicians, but above all to the undefined intentions of its creator. On the debut solo album by Corrado Nuccini, celebrated guitarist of Giardini di Mirò, what prevails is a constant pursuit of the surprise effect: post-rock scales get mixed in, in perfect Bologna indie tradition, along with rap in the style of an Mtv ad, Anticon-style hip-hop dissonance ("A Divine Example"), and nostalgically tinged shoegaze echoes ("God Is The Spider"). Nuccini has everything going for him to pull off something surprising: he's backed by a staff that's nothing short of excellent, musicians of the calibre of Jukka Reverberi (guitar and bass), Andrea Scarfone of Julie's Haircut (guitar, cider, sitar), Kaye Brewster (formerly vocalist with Giardini di Mirò), Emanuele Riverberi (trumpet and violin), Scott Da Ros (assisting with sound production), head of the Canadian label Endemik Music, joined as vocalists by Tom de Geeter (aka Siaz, leader of Zucchini Drive and Caveman Speak), Normad (Caveman Speak), Filkoe176 and Bluebird.

With all this fine company our man has managed to define his coordinates: melancholy sonic digressions capable of playing around with urban unease, rapped aggressively by his four mercenary henchmen. "The Dinosaur, The Monkey, The Brakdance" is the fusion of this unpredictable structure, while the violin on "You Father's Head" doubles down on that same dose, and the weary arpeggios of "Put Me In Your Shoes", pulsing the way they do, can't help but recall the much-praised Notwist. With an opening triptych of this calibre there's every reason to be pleased, a shame then that "My Wild Civilization" oversteers at the first bend, momentarily undercutting that excellent start with a contorted emulation of the carefree proto-rap refrains of the late millennium. A small skid that closes out its arc with "Tradiction & Abraction", a bland instrumental passage that adds nothing worth mentioning to the record. Peaks and troughs that often chase each other even within individual tracks, making plain the overall trajectory of a journey perhaps undertaken with too much vehemence.

And yet this jumble has a charm of its own, one that only comes into focus after repeated listens; in essence, Nuccini has pulled off the difficult task of making different instrumental entities and assorted sound types coincide. His ambitions emerge gradually: to urbanize Giardini di Mirò's conceptual digressions under the banner of hip-hop and shuffle them randomly through homemade electronic loops. Just listen to "Divine Example" to get a clearer picture, where an anguished bed of acoustic reverb, electrified by the beat, props up whichever speaker is on duty, a mournful violin harmonizing the whole context, pushed in the closing stretch by three piano chords softly whispered in the distance; this is, if nothing else, the album's standout track. With the following "You Killed My Father, Prepare To Die" we once again get a taste of the charming mediocrity of new school hip-hop, almost as if our man took pleasure in reliably reshuffling the deck; a shame he does so every time at the wrong moments, especially just as luck starts to properly line up with his talent.

To put it plainly: "Matters Of Love And Death" leaves a few underlying doubts, but within its certainties lies a (parallel) project for the future that shouldn't be overlooked; and it's precisely for this reason that Nuccini would only need a bit more clarity of intent and a handful more of the right melodies to nail an objective that already has the flavour of a fresh, energetic trend.

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08/04/2007