M¥SS KETA - .

It's written "“.”" and read as "Punto" [Period]: the third album by M¥SS KETA is eccentric right from its title, and it has a difficult job to do. After “CLUB TOPPERIA” (2022) and the double platinum of “Finimondo”, enthusiasm has cooled off somewhat, partly because the material no longer has the explosive force it once had, the kind heard in “Milan sushi and coke” or “Xananas”, and partly because the character - or rather the mask - has also been brought to a mainstream, or off-target, audience that either failed to grasp its parodic dimension or, worse still, took it damn seriously. This album's job is to relight the fuse, especially ahead of new live shows, which have always been the ideal dimension for the "blonde who abounds".

The three tracks that preceded the album haven't dispelled the doubts. “NEVROTIKA” (you do know it's all in caps, right?) and “VOGLIONO ESSERE ME” don't have the power of the un-PC anthems that once featured lines like “the Gabibbo and a whore”, even though they could easily have come off “PAPRIKA”, while “160 BPM”, a dark, tormented and hallucinated dance track with witch-house echoes and plenty of Crystal Castles, is far more convincing but shifts the album's center of gravity considerably: presenting it as the last single before release left us somewhat puzzled as to what to expect from the rest of the tracklist. The answer is simple enough: “.” is an album (almost) without features, highly danceable, moving between darksynth, synthwave, electro, fidget and witch-house that harks straight back to her earliest independent work while simultaneously aiming squarely at dancehalls, nightlife and a desperate, caricatured hedonism she's already explored in the past, before launching herself into the mainstream.

The rapped intro “LEI” makes it clear that the artist wants to go back to being sharp-edged, and while “LES MISÉRABLES” feels like a not-quite-successful stab at a hit, “CAFONAL” manages to recapture that blend of pop culture, kitsch and decadent hedonism: “Pasolini-style rallies between drag queens and Christian Democrats.”

But the Fiat Punto on the cover kicks the turbo into gear for the cougar anthem “DIVORZIATA” (“I grab the Rolex, don't you believe me?”) and floors it with “IT GIRL”, where Riva, who heads up production and is the ace up her sleeve even on the less thrilling tracks, really lets loose: trumpeting blasts, gunshots and distorted kick drums, while the Keta-esque hallucination reaches its peak, somewhere between “Cicciolina Craxi Driver” and a bitter moment of self-awareness:

Making noise to express inner pain

Making a scene to express inner emptiness

How this can coexist with the weird and kawaii vibe of “M¥SS KETA ♥ PEGASO” is part of the artist's eccentricity. Half-hidden as it may be, there is in fact a vocal collaboration here: actress and TV personality Vera Gemma features on “VENDETTA”, the most hip-hop track of the bunch, deafening and distorted.

“.” is a short album, maybe too short, that swerves away from the more simplistic “CLUB TOPPERIA” and darkens the sound rather than pushing it further toward hit-chasing. In short, it's on par with “PAPRIKA” yet different, an evolution of the project that seems better suited to preserving what's eccentric and creative about the formula rather than ruining it. The cover, meanwhile, is a masterpiece of bad taste.

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21/01/2025