TSIGOTI - Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party

Quasi-punk-free-jazz: this is the definition the Tsigoti have chosen for their music. A music that speaks the language of anti-militarism and despises every regime, political or religious, taking its stance behind the neurotic, debunking veil of a polymorphous sound, essentially born out of the most eccentric experiences of new-(no)wave. Jaggedness and lyricism, then, for Thollem McDonas (beat-up piano, vocals), Andy Cap (Andrea Caprara) (drums), Ben Itchy (Matteo Bennici) (bass) and Jack Andrews (Jacopo Andreini) (electric guitar), here backed in their effort by a numerous choir of friends and by a handful of Italian artists, among them Edoardo Ricci (saxophones), Samuele Venturin (accordion) and Francesco di Mauro (bajan).

“Private Poverty Speaks To The People Of The Party” (following the already interesting and more claustrophobic “The Brutal Reality of Modern Brutality”, released under the name Waristerror Terroriswar) is a crackling, intellectual work, mocking and solemn in its relentless, rollicking thrashing about between seemingly irreconcilable extremes. With amused nonchalance, they romp between jazz-punk, folkloric whiffs and arty rackets (“With A Mirror And A Magnifying Glass”), untangle themselves among contrapuntal lines and pianistic odds and ends (with festive touches of ragtime), in which prickly sax periphrases and a debunking attitude that comes from afar (Pere Ubu…) recalibrate their aim onto “negative” impulses (“Children Slaves Make Childrens Toys”), elsewhere combining tragicomic austerity and Zappa-esque cabaret (“This Is A Simplified Response…”, with guitar work not far from the lopsided insolence of the Zoot Horn Rollo/Antennae Jimmy Semens duo).

Exuberant and untamed, never banal, the record shows musicians in a state of grace, also capable of giving themselves over to pure and simple improvisation when needed. Alongside the instrumental tirades of “They Make Them For They” and “The Sickofwar Traine” (the latter, with possessed six-string, crackling piano and a long coda of raving voices), effervescent numbers parade by, like the Minutemen-turned-rock-in-opposition of “(Yes) The Border Crossed Us”, the ramshackle free-jazz fanfare of “(Can) Don’t Sleep Through This”, the racing psychedelic fireworks of “I May Not Get There With You” or the destructured pianistic romance of “Dust To People To Ashes”.

At the start of “(We?) This Is The Days Of Your Life”, the accordion even speaks the sensual language of tango, but it’s just another way to shatter the mirror of illusions and hurl itself toward yet another stylistic descent, with touches of vicious existentialism in “(We) Would You If You Could?”, an abyss lurking round the corner, the paranoia of a fractured “Dub Housing”…  

Applause.

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04/08/2010