ANNA FUNK DAMAGE - Tarantola

Tension runs constant throughout the new album by Livorno producer Andrea Natale, aka Anna Funk Damage, one of the most acclaimed artists within the Raw Culture stable. A tension that corresponds to a flight with no destination, in which feelings of alienation, resignation and disorientation chase one another. The specific thanks given to names of the calibre of Ian Curtis, Swans and Dead Kennedys can only serve as fitting company, not least because “Tarantola” is nothing less than an experience in which the nihilism of our times is filtered through an anger (by now repressed) turned into pure existential despair.

If the post-industrial of “Vivere distaccati” sounds like a stripped-down Godflesh, the delirious obsessions of “Trasmissione” let a certain unease seep through, which soon spreads into the album's best track, “Decadente”, a dark liturgy steeped in pain and decay. Bitter, disconsolate reflections that return in the caustic dance of “Non passerò a trovarti”, an alienating gem set between two instrumental pieces, where between ambient experiments (“Ho paura”) and more abrasive solutions (the title track) Andrea Natale does everything he can to leave us breathless.

Flipping the record over, there's a lot of Alan Vega in the no wave neurosis of “Chiang Mai”, but what really comes through is a creeping everyday terror in the following “Nelle Vene” and “Lavoro troppo” (“corro per niente sei giorni su sette, la vita si fa triste”), a battle against time immersed in the heart of a tormented existentialism.

There's little to celebrate either in the closing notes of “Festa di compleanno”, a programmatic title that sounds like the celebration of a birth-funeral in which every element cancels itself out.

When the curtain falls on "Tarantola", despite the emotional toll it takes, we manage to grasp a deep meaning behind these ten scars. Because we're in the presence of a record that endures, while everything around us dissolves.

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06/11/2025