OMOSUMO - Omosumo

The Sicilian trio Omosumo return to make their voice heard with an eponymous album, arriving two years after their brilliant debut “Surfin’Gaza”, a work inspired by the story of the Gaza Surf Club and Surf4Peace, a community of surfers of different nationalities (Palestinian, Israeli, American, etc.) who came together to surf on a sea that, for a moment, set aside the wars and conflicts that never stop tearing that land apart.

The tour took the band to the United States to play South By South West in Austin, and saw them perform on the stages of Italy's most important clubs and festivals. Angelo Sicurella (vocals, drum machine, synth), Roberto Cammarata (guitar, synth) and Antonio Di Martino (bass), joined by cellist Angelo Di Mino (already an additional member during the “Surfin' Gaza” tour), have conceived a work that tells of a journey, an exodus “from an earthly condition to another condition” as they themselves put it, with the intent of staying away from contemporary references and avoiding any direct link to current migrations.

The three prepared the album in a state of near-total isolation, seven months holed up in various uninhabited country houses, where they set up their mobile studio, far from any urban or metropolitan context. The sound, which loves to blend electronic and traditional instrumentation, was expertly mixed by Canadian producer Colin Stewart (Black Mountain, Sleepy Sun). Rounding things off is the cover art, featuring a detail from Fulvio Di Piazza's painting “Madre Blu” (oil on canvas, 2014), chosen as the visual interface precisely for the epic language that characterizes the artist's style, in perfect harmony with the content of this journey set in an Egypt steeped in mystery and esotericism, an ideal trait d’union with the scenario painted by the lyrics.

The journey beyond human boundaries begins by referencing the cover itself, with an entirely instrumental “Madre Blu” that warms up the synths before flowing into “In cielo come gli angeli,” which seems to be the manifesto of the new path taken by the Palermo band: a blend of electronic pop and ethnic suggestions, all filtered through Italian melodic sensibility. The opening of “Un po’ di te” brushes up against La Crus's “Dietro la curva del cuore” before waves of synth take over with a hypnotic loop, “Proveremo a nasconderci. Dentro i boschi. Nei ghiacciai, E sapremo disperderci. Come barche. Negli oceani.”

“Poco prima di andare” opens with an 80s-style Genesis intro before fully unfolding into one of the album's best-realized tracks, with its shifting scenes, overlapping choruses and the closing mantra “Prova a prendermi. Non mi troverai. Io ti cercherò”.  “Sei rintocchi di campane” is sparser: Di Martino, shedding his singer-songwriter clothes, stretches out the bass strings, while Cammarata pulls out distorted riffs that are then diluted over a bed of synths, for a track of great emotional tension. At times the trio lets itself be carried away by the catchiest electropop, as in the sticky refrain of “Tornerà la polvere”, or by the experimental electronic drift on which the few verses of “Forse no” float.

The pounding “Sui tramonti di Seth” rides the boat of the god of chaos, of the desert and of storms, in one of the most interesting and chameleonic tracks, bubbling with ideas and perfectly in focus. Too bad the same can't be said of the closing and messy “Sulle rive dell’Est”, a track that comes across as confused despite the addition of Veronica Lucchesi's backing vocals. It seems that in the final five minutes the band wanted to throw together their entire sonic arsenal to end the journey in memorable fashion. But mixing too many ingredients doesn't guarantee a successful dish, even if the ending doesn't undermine the overall result, which, to be clear, is very good.

Di Martino's bass is precise and serves as the backbone on which Cammarata's guitar can intervene with surgical precision, while the synths are used skillfully and with great balance. Psychedelia understood as a journey is evocative, the emotional tension is channeled time and again onto the right tracks by Sicurella's voice, and the lyrics are deliberately visionary, the fruit of the band's months of voluntary self-isolation.

The curiosity, the desire to break away from certain circuits laid out by others, to deliberately detach themselves from the social and musical reference points of the present, has produced an extremely interesting album, bubbling with ideas, which the trio often manages to convey in a convincing and lively way, putting themselves forward as a cornerstone of Palermo's lively scene.

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09/12/2016