Artists' rankings

Vittorio Nistri is a member and creative mind of one of the most original and innovative bands on the Italian independent music scene, Deadburger. Once again in 2019 I got in touch with him to discuss the albums he found most interesting this year and to take stock of the main events of the past twelve months.

Hi Vittorio, for a few years now we've been closing out the year by talking about the albums that struck you as most representative. To start, I wanted to ask how work on the new Deadburger album is going - from what we've heard so far, it sounds like a major release, packed with innovations and guest appearances.

Thanks, Valerio. I can confirm that "La chiamata", the new Deadburger Factory record, will come out in 2020. Recording is finished, and the cover art is ready too (once again the work of Paolo Bacilieri). All that's left is mixing and the booklet. Compared to "La fisica delle nuvole", which had already been conceived at the time as the first part of a diptych, the new album will be "the other side of the mirror". I have no idea how it will be received. I have to reckon with the possibility that those who liked our previous work might not like this one, because it will be its antithesis. That was a trip into the inner side, built around the evocative sounds of viola, flute and so on. This one will be a face-to-face with the outer side, external reality, built entirely around "material" sounds: first and foremost, pounded drum skins (the tracks feature double drums) and screaming horns. The album took a long, complicated gestation. We had a vision in our heads, and we managed to bring it to life, also thanks to the wonderful musicians who took part in this adventure: Zeno De Rossi, Cristiano Calcagnile, Bruno Dorella, Alfio Antico, Lalli, Enrico Gabrielli, Edoardo Marraffa, Silvia Bolognesi and many others.

I can also confirm that 2020 will bring, alongside the new Deadburger Factory record, the debut album by OSSI, a new project of mine with Simone Tilli (Deadburger's vocalist). Guitars were played by Dome la Muerte (Not Moving) and Appino (Zen Circus); on drums is Bruno Dorella. The music is ready (we finished mixing last month), and all that's left is to put together the artwork.

2019 is coming to a close, but so is a decade which, while not a particularly long stretch of time, still stands as a defining period. We often think in terms of 70s or 80s music or cinema, recognizing distinctive traits in each individual decade. What does this Tens decade leave us with?

These days it's hard to expect artistic movements that are unanimously recognized as defining a period, the way it used to be the rule in the past (you mention the 70s and 80s, but the same goes for the 50s, 60s and - last gasp? - the 90s). Starting in the 2000s, with the definitive mass explosion of the web and the arrival of the iPhone, music and cinema lost the centrality they once held in the collective imagination. In the past, the humus created by music and film shaped tastes that lasted at least a few years, and influenced choices in language, clothing, even ideology. Today what influences people is no longer rock - if anything, it's the Chiara Ferragnis and Luca Morisis of the world. With no more need to buy a record to hear music, or go to the cinema to see a film, we're immersed in an uninterrupted, virtually infinite stream of music and video. The colossal multiplication of stimuli favors horizontal consumption (one stimulus after another) rather than vertical consumption (dwelling on a limited number of stimuli to explore and "internalize" them). In short: compared to before, we listen to more music and watch more films (as well as TV series, YouTube videos, TikTok clips and so on), but we attach less importance to them, invest less emotionally. We rarely give them time to settle inside us. There's no more time to do that, now that speed is seen as an absolute value (think of social media communication, where what matters is not so much the soundness of what's said but how concisely and quickly it's said. Or the unsettling option of "streaming at 1.2x speed instead of 1.0x" that Netflix is testing for viewers pathologically addicted to audiovisual bulimia).

Getting back to your question: it's not that there are no more "trends" in music or film today. They pop up in a constant stream, but... either they're not experienced as "important", or - even when they do spark some interest - they burn out fast. Quickly pushed aside by a thousand other things competing for our screen time.

Even in the decade just gone by, the music scene saw plenty of trends, but none of them (except perhaps trap... which says it all!) had an echo lasting enough to define the decade. A few examples? The electrojazz of Flying Lotus, back in the days of "Cosmogramma", was a world full of possibilities, but by the very next record it already seemed absorbed and almost "classic". Same goes for the footwork brought into the mainstream by Jlin, or the white, minimal-electronic soul of James Blake, or the harsh-kraut of Horse Lords. Not to mention the constant recycling of postcards from the past - like shoegaze (now rebranded "dream-pop") or 80s synth-pop - repackaged as the latest novelty (of the moment? of the hour?).

Let's take comfort in the fact that this decade has given us plenty of great music. From old lions (first and foremost, the wonderful farewell from Bowie and the untamable Swans) as well as from new blood. Here are a few examples, with no claim to be exhaustive.

A handful of hyperactive neo-psychedelic acts, inessential but likeable (King Gizzard, Ty Segall, Oh Sees, Goat, Reverend Beat-Man). Some uncategorizable experimenters (Nadah el Shazly, Mats Gustafsson, Anna Von Hausswolff and so on). And a great, creative ferment in the "avant-jazz" area (though does it still make sense to call it "jazz"?), which for me has been the most fertile source of stimuli of the last decade: The Comet Is Coming, Sons of Kemet, Melt Yourself Down, Fire! Orchestra, the isolated but seminal "Cherry Thing" experiment, Rob Mazurek, Colin Stetson, Joshua Abrams, Damon Locks, Cristiano Calcagnile/Stoma, The Young Mothers, Heliocentrics, Maurice Louca, HHY & the Macumbas and more.

On the Italian scene, one defining trend of the 2010s really did emerge: the definitive rise of an indie-pop that - regardless of any value judgment - has little or nothing "indie" about it (at least, not in the sense the term used to carry). Still, there are plenty of artists who keep stubbornly treading paths far removed from the indie-pop world. Artists like Iosonouncane, Cesare Basile, In Zaire, C'mon Tigre, Claudio Milano, the now-disbanded Butcher Mind Collapse and St Ride, Luca Collivasone, Maisie, Forbici di Manitù, Hobocombo, Oteme, Ooopopoiooo, Paolo Risaliti, Lay Llamas and others. Special mention goes to the unexpected, fascinating experimental turn taken by Alfio Antico, and to "19m40s", a mail-order "anti-classical" series, the fearless project of Enrico Gabrielli and Sebastiano De Gennaro.

Beyond music, what would you briefly say about what this decade has been, and how do you think our lives and society have changed?

It's been a decade marked by Trump, Orban, Bolsonaro, Putin, Salvini and the like (with an attendant resurgence of fascism and racism). It's been the decade of Isis and the Bataclan, of the Kurds left to fend for themselves, of the Arab Springs fizzling out. Of walls, of haters, of sterile individualism. Of the immigration crisis and of the psychoses deliberately built around it to distract us from our real problems. And also the decade of the triumph of Netflix and Amazon. And so on.

Much of the above has stemmed from, or at least been made easier by, the exponential rise of the digitalization of everyday life, which is revolutionizing pretty much everything. Starting with politics, where social-media communication has enabled a day-to-day tuning between leaders and individual voters with a surgical precision unthinkable in earlier media; so that public support now rewards "gut-level" resonance more than the reasonableness or reliability of what a leader actually says. Our everyday life is getting worse: the job market is increasingly precarious, insecure and exploitative, the environment risks a collapse whose price our children will have to pay... but the distorted perception carried by the new media leads us to channel our discontent toward imaginary targets, or ones that have nothing to do with our real problems. Meanwhile, the gains painstakingly won by workers throughout the twentieth century are being eroded more and more. The dismantling of the welfare state... attacks on workers' rights... wages in free fall (or rock-bottom from the start, in the case of many newly emerging jobs, like "data-entry workers")... the triumph - helped along, ironically, by purchases from its own victims! - of the aggressive, unchecked turbo-capitalism of Amazon & co. The disappearance of any sense of belonging to a "social class" has been a decisive factor in the steady, seemingly unstoppable rise of inequality and injustice. The dominant self-centeredness of social media has been perfectly suited to this shift from a "community of people" to a formless mass of individuals, each lost in their own unbridled individualism. I see a coherent logical thread running from the political "backlash", Reagan-era hedonism, Thatcherite dismantling of the welfare state and so on, all the way to today's digital narcosis. It stands to reason that the next decade could bring a worsening of this scenario (along with the epoch-making upheavals, both positive and negative, tied to the arrival of Artificial Intelligence).

The Comet Is Coming – “Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery”

I'd recommend this album to my most "rockist" friends, the ones wary of "jazz". I too grew up on rock, and it will always be my frame of reference; the point is precisely that I find the pulsing heart and nerve of rock alive and well in a band like The Comet Is Coming, even though on paper it's a "jazz trio" signed to a historic label in that field (Impulse). Maybe it's because it's an unusual trio (sax, drums and synthesizers), maybe it's because saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings (also active in other projects, all of them interesting) is emerging as one of the most creative and forward-thinking musicians around today... but a track like "Summon The Fire" seems to slip free of every cliché. How to even define this stuff? New-new wave with a jazz twist? The Modern Dance, 2020 edition? James Chance flirting with space rock? A soundtrack for new urban tribes? I don't know the answer, but I know I like it. Then again, for quite a while now, the fences between genres seem to have lost all meaning (if they ever had any to begin with).

75 Dollar Bill - "I Was Real"

Like everyone else, I'm perpetually short on time, and it's very rare that I get to indulge in the luxury of switching off from everything, gifting myself half an hour of pure trip, eyes closed, in some parallel universe, the way I sometimes did as a kid with Terry Riley's "Rainbow In A Curved Air". This year, though, I did allow myself a trip like that, courtesy of this 75 Dollar Bill album, and damn if it doesn't work. 75 Dollar Bill are about as unlikely a duo as you could imagine. The guitarist is called Che Chen and, as the name suggests (identical to that of the guy who once terrified the West too), he's of Asian descent... except he was born in Connecticut, and studied modal music in Mauritania! The percussionist is called Rick Brown, he plays in crooked, wildly uneven time signatures... yet manages to bring them back to an archaic, elemental pulse, thanks to his use of minimal, almost spartan sonorities (sometimes his entire percussion set-up is just a cajón, or a cowbell). Rick is also something of a homo electronicus (incidentally, he's done remixes for artists like Tortoise), even though there isn't a single electronic instrument in 75 Dollar Bill (Rick's digital input comes into play in the studio assembly process, where he cuts and splices the group's improvisations into the finished shape in which they appear on record).

If the duo is strange, the music they make is no less so. Desert blues (Bo Diddley meets Tuareg music?), full-throttle psychedelic trance and avant-garde touches (the quarter-tone tuning of the microtonal guitars; the repeated, phase-shifted patterns, almost Steve Reich-like; the kraut-style hypnosis). This isn't music suited to a hurried listen on a laptop or iPhone; but I can guarantee that, heard in the right setting, it delivers a fine lysergic trip with no chemical additives required.

Maurice Louca - "Elephantine"

Louca is an Egyptian composer, conductor and guitarist. He's from Cairo, like Nadah El Shazly (whose "Ahwar" was one of the most experimental and innovative records of 2018, and who appears here as a guest). "Elephantine" is a very personal record; it brings to mind John Fahey meeting Sun Ra on a visit to Egypt! I mention Fahey because of the pivotal role of Maurice's acoustic guitar, which converses as an equal with a 12-piece jazz ensemble. The balance between the fragility of the former and the dense materiality of the latter is striking, as the opening track makes clear.

Fire! Orchestra - "Arrival"

Ok, I can't claim to be objective about this group, it's one of my absolute favorites of the 2010s, and I believe it's influenced some of the orchestrations on the forthcoming new Deadburger Factory album. This latest work from the ensemble led by the formidable Mats Gustafsson sees experimentation walking hand in hand with the warmth of soul music... which is quite surprising, given that this is hardly a "black" outfit. The Orchestra is based in Sweden, and all 14 members are about as white as you get, save for one of the two singers. The album has its jagged edges (just listen to "Dressed In Smoke. Blown Away", a slowcore piece where the sax moans and rasps as if there were no tomorrow, and the violins are used not to "sweeten" things but to deliver proper noise-lashings) as well as great melodies. Take, for instance, a beautiful, moving version of Chic's "At Last I'm Free" (already covered by Robert Wyatt), whose vocal at one point turns into a bird and takes flight.

Reverend Beat-Man & Izobel Garcia - "Baile Bruja Muerto"

My r'n'r album of 2019. Reverend Beat-Man (real name: Beat Zeller) is the least Swiss Swiss person I know. Genuinely unhinged, rotten voice, a face that's a walking invitation for Lombroso. On stage he's capable of miming pulling a spectator's brain out of their skull and eating it. Above all, he's capable of handling thoroughly historicized materials like garage rock, psychobilly, surf and psychedelia, managing to stamp his own personal mark on them and make them feel as alive and pulsating as if he'd just invented them himself. This album was recorded as a duo with Mexican artist Izobel Garcia. He plays guitar and drums, she plays a Farfisa or something similar, and they both sing. Working with a beautiful girl has clearly left its mark on the Reverend's psyche: the tracklist includes a song called "Viva La Figa", whose lyrics consist of the title repeated about twenty times with palpable enthusiasm. Among the many strong tracks, I'd point to "Come Back Lord" (worthy of the best Fuzztones, with an overwhelming vocal performance from the reverend) and "Pero te Amo" (Beauty and the Beast: Sister Izobel sings sensually and seductively, Brother Beat-Man plays the ogre both with his voice and his guitar).

5 MORE TITLES WORTH MENTIONING

Damon Locks & Black Monuments Ensemble – "Where Future Unfolds"

From Chicago, a project with an experimental sensibility that's also immediately warm and communicative. Grooves borrowed from hip-hop and afrobeat + gorgeous gospel voices + an antagonistic spirit (the record features various samples taken from civil rights protest rallies). The Ensemble includes around fifteen members, but most of them are singers and dancers, while the instrumental setup is minimalist and unusual: just percussion, loops and a clarinet.

Lingua Ignota – "Caligula"

As an antidote to the screams of haters, the beauty of a scream that is instead catharsis and redemption.

Caterina Barbieri – "Ecstatic Computation"

An Italian in Berlin (yet another case of brain drain), a composer of highly evocative electronic music, and a lover of Buchla synthesizers. The track "Fantas" is a luminous vertigo.

Paolo Angeli – "22.22. Free Radiohead"

Angeli's otherworldly prepared Sardinian guitar (capable of being guitar, bass, violin, percussion and noise generator all at once) revisits and stretches out several beautiful Radiohead melodies through improvisation.

Massimo Volume – "Il nuotatore"

There's really no need to say much about this: everyone knows (deservedly) Massimo Volume. But I'll say it anyway, because this new work strikes me as among their very best, both musically and lyrically. The title track's lyrics are gorgeous and visionary.

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18/11/2025