STUDIO MURENA - Notturno

Certainly Studio Murena have by now become a landmark for the Italian independent scene. They carry forward a compositional and sonic idea that is layered and multifaceted, something only they do in Italy, which has posed the tough challenge of making a six-piece outfit both professional and sustainable.

But they're very young, skilled, and bolstered by a solid bond of friendship and mutual respect. It's no surprise, then, to see the unstoppable path that has led them to this new album, having left behind the pandemic and label changes, and above all having racked up a huge number of live dates, against all odds.

The new album is a landscape of shifting states, a race through the dark split open by sudden flashes dense with premonitions and reflections. The Milanese collective expands the sonic and semantic identity of an already ambitious project while simultaneously playing a game of subtraction, making its language more essential.

The record represents a formal and conceptual evolution from their previous work, more attentive to an “optimized” idea of sound and structure. The tracklist – eleven heterogeneous yet cohesive tracks – maps out a complex emotional and social topography, moving from radical lyrical introspection to a collective reflection on contemporary malaise. The language of the lyrics is raw, surgical, visceral: it builds powerfully evocative, at times disturbing images, voicing the anger and disillusionment of generations who were promised a future and guaranteed instead a present made of lockdowns, wars, global warming, 72-hour survival backpacks, tariffs, turbo-capitalism and hate speech.

Sonically, the fusion of jazz grooves, tight rap meters and electronic textures that has always defined the group's sound hits its mark here, achieving a dynamic balance between the individual instrumental and lyrical contributions. The result is a recognizable, original, non-derivative sound that edges toward song form without giving up the formal flexibility typical of contemporary jazz.

The six are joined by exceptional guests: among others, Fabrizio Bosso, Willie Peyote, MezzosSangue, Rodrigo D’Erasmo, Riccardo Sala and actress Valeria Perdonò. There's also room for a featuring from a postmodern mascot, 24kili, an invented, pitched-up and disturbing alter ego who embodies an extreme, nihilistic form of rap, a symbol of a fractured, disillusioned self. His dehumanized voice becomes a channel for visceral rage, in which body and technology merge in a way we might call futuristic, but which is really just the present.

“Baba Jaga” is a psychotic spiral between love and addiction, “Nostalgia” interpolates jazz, singer-songwriter tradition, the poetics of the sonic sketch, and urban landscapes. “Tunnel” is a picture saturated with tension, while “Tre porte di paura” explores the unconscious in a theatrical, modal key.

“Oskar Kokoschka” and “Vai via” are genuine performances captured on record: militant rhymes layered over free detonations, or chiaroscuro strings building to intensely emotional crescendos. “Fuori luogo”, with its dry, lucid, aching beat, tears the night to shreds and pushes toward a possible tomorrow that, if not hopeful, is at least defiant.

“Jazzhighlanders”'s declaration of artistic independence closes the record: a manifesto of authenticity that rejects the prepackaged logic of image and market, in the name of radical fidelity to one's own path. But these are rules that can be played by as many people as possible. “Notturno” is a feeling of the times, an intimate diary and a critical device. In any case, a necessary record for whoever wrote it and for whoever will listen to it.

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13/05/2025