FRANZONI - Aggettivi Poco Ortodossi per Ragazze Molto Poco Avvenenti

Franzoni is a moniker under which ungrammatical improvisers from the Mestre underground gather, born from an idea of Massimiliano Vio (bass, formerly of Snakioplatz and others).

Since 2006 the "ensemble" (in which everyone plays everything) has taken on dozens of incarnations, reaching - in the concert of March 8, 2009 - its peak of completeness, with the participation of German cellist Roland Graeter, for an uninterrupted hour of sub-musical improvisation, their masterpiece. At the start of 2011 they reached a new record of absurdity, collecting this string of extemporaneous actions onto a physical release, "Aggettivi Poco Ortodossi Per Ragazze Molto Poco Avvenenti".

The record is a catalogue, a best/worst of, a snapshot of what the ensemble represents: a highly variable ensemble of impoverished jazz-rock sections, amateur electronics, vocal interventions, everyday objects, toys. It's all so threadbare that it ends up sounding like a counterpoint to lo-fi, no wave, plain studio run-throughs, and aimless wanderings through the free-form spectres of Red Crayola.

"Sono Quivi Amore (Mio)", "Bahatman Gandhi" and "Toh, Salma E Sangue Freddo" are collective improvisations with a random shape, while "Sinking Pedalove", "Hansel & Graeter", "Tzh! Let's Go!" are devoted to pure, irrational gestural improvisation.

On a lower level, "Funghie Of The Feet" plays the part of a little episode of childlike sounds, while "Cagnarifrangente, Yeah!" and "Under The Pulpebra" (a nauseating chamber meditation) are small harmonic nightmares in the form of repellent duets between electronics - even musique concrète - and instruments. Echoes of Residents-style pamphlets surface on "Mastro Olindo Cancer Time".

Moving through the influences of the dissonant gypsy marches (which degenerate after just two minutes) of "Enjoy Your Tracheotomaia" and "Wild Variococelere For Free Party", we arrive at the more ambitious compositions: "Another Cup Of Pleurito Satanico, Darling?!" (seven minutes, an album within the album), which starts as a quiet jumble of irritating sounds placed side by side, then turns into a sort of post-industrial ballet, and finally anaemic fusion; and above all "Cena Coi Parenti Now?", the gem, an original reworking of Captain Beefheart as Sado might redo him.

Recorded in low quality and live to tape, the work is a harmonic martyrdom with no need for redemption. That of Franzoni (yes, the surname of that Annamaria) aspires to become a plot without a plot - one that covers virtually any length, from twenty seconds to seven minutes - a dazed beating, pounding, gesticulating, stripped of the skeleton of motive, meaning, necessity. Eccentricity and anarchy have little to do with it. Honorable mention goes to the titles, nineteen of them, even more creative than the music itself.

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11/07/2011