Blow Up – Stefano Isidoro Bianchi
ITALIANS DO IT MUCH BETTER
Lovexpress
stars- LP Furry Heart Records- 6t-35.00
Luca Collivasone (chitarra preparata,
synth e voce), Daniele La Barbera (bat.
teria e voce) e Lorenzo Chiesa (synth e
voce) sono i Lovexpress, da Pavia. Back-
ground: Collivasone, altrimenti Doc Lo-
oksharp nonché inventore del cacopho-
nator (generatore di suoni concreti da
qualunque materiale e oggetto), ha ini-
ziato in epoca di wave italiana con Aus
Decline e poi, dopo una lunga pausa, è
tornato nei primi ’00 con dischi di Stilet-
to, Masked Marvels, Maciste, Cranio,
LL.Looksharp e oggi Lovexpress; su La
Barbera e Chiesa, evidentemente più
giovani, non ho trovato altre notizie che
non rimandassero ai Lovexpress. Co-
munque sia, “Stars”, il loro primo disco,
è un gran bell’album, strano e originale
quanto basta per non farsi ingabbiare
in alcuno stereotipo e lasciare il recen-
sore incerto e dubbioso sulle indicazio-
ni da dare al lettore. Proviamo. Enfant
postic è una specie di rock- wave che ri.
corda il 1980 esatto, a mezzo tra i king
Crimson di “Discipline” e qualche disco
wave dal ritmo sostenuto su basso.
sunth corpulento e ricami di chitarra;
oggi direi che potrebbe piacere ai fan (si
fa per dire…) dei Denseland. Il secondo
enigma si chiama Upsidedown: ancora
un ritmo solido e rotolante, voci beffar.
de e incastri strumentali tanto elemen.
tari quanto imprendibili. Chiude il pri-
mo lato Puncture, sostanzialmente le
stesse coordinate ma tutte insieme in
un letterale tripudio dove retroterra
prog e wave vanno di pari passo ada-
giandosi su climi leggermente più diste-
si. Secondo lato. Stars monocromizza i
tempi da qualche parte verso il kraut e i
synth seguono con afflato vagamente
cosmico; King Kong li riaggiusta con un
tot d’anfetamina, una voce filtrata che
piacerebbe a David Thomas e tanti gio-
chetti strumentali che piacerebbero ai
Residents; infine c’è Yes Sir, ennesima
variabile ma sulle scoscese strade di un
blues astratto. Prendete tutti questi az-
zardati riferimenti con le pinze ma
prendeteli, almeno sono un lume. Per
quanto mi riguarda, disco italiano del
2017 senza neanche un dubbio. (8)
Stefano I. Bianchi- Blow Up
Mark Burton- The sunday experience.
Sincerest of apologies to Luca Collivasone who sent over copies of his latest aural adventure, admittedly a while back now, turntable teething issues partly being blamed for the thus far lack of coverage along with our own inept absent mindedness to get to it earlier. Now for regular visitors to these pages, the name Mr Collivasone might well indeed strike a distant bell, for at least two of his previous releases as Doc Luden Looksharp and Cranio where featured, loved and dispatched with fond words in earlier missives. This time, as part of a trio, he heads up a curiously off kilter combo going by the name L♥XP⥌⥌ – which to us mere mortals roughly translates as Lovexpress who’ve just put out a new full length, incidentally pressed on blue wax, called ‘Stars’ for the Furry Heart imprint of Italy. Agreeably skedaddled, not so much in a fried and freaky way as his previous two incarnations (Cranio a misfitting post punk sponge that provided that year with one of its finest releases, Doc Luc Sharp – a more insular manifestation that peered through the apertures of outsider pop fusing elements of glitch, dub and industrial) but rather more for the fact that this gathering is straight ahead and instantly more accessible in terms of sound, style and technique. That said with Mr Collivasone in attendance, both yours, ours and his idea of straight ahead might well vary quite vastly in description, appreciation and appearance. Listened to in one sitting, ‘Stars’ sounds oddly, yet satisfyingly, out of time, fashion and currency, a strangely mutant affair that has the sense and wherewithal of something that’s been dropkicked out of 1980. At once clever and impish, it trains its sonic eyeline on the vibrant anything goes fluidity of punk’s fallout period, stirring into its genre hopping brew a sonic concoction drawn from a peculiarly crooked pop palette that waywardly appears to absorb and retune everything it touches and hears – art wave, new wave, no wave, post wave, minimalist funk etc….. Still scratching your heads, well maybe a short description from the trio might help .. ‘pop culture meets industrial, noise, psychedelia, shitty jazz, improv ….’ In truth I’m seriously of the mind that they are underplaying their collective craft, no more so is this in perfect evidence than on opener ‘enfant plastic’ which across its 8.27 duration starts and finishes from and at the same point, yet between those two book ends goes off for a wander via a series of cul de sacs, dead ends and a brief moment of dreamily noodling oddness all the time constantly morphing anew touching at various junctures Devo, Wire, Yello and strangely enough Henry Cow, I kid you not. Parting track ‘yes sir’ I think I might be right in saying rewires, blanches and skews Baccara’s 70’s global pop juggernaut ‘yes sir I can boogie’ into a shapeshifting after dark anti-anthem whose austere sheening and head tripping funk floatiness, not to mention, wiry electronic daubing channels elements of Simple Kid a la ‘the road’ and Clinic albeit as though jettisoned back several decades and found sporting their wares on a newly fledging Some Bizarre imprint. Both title track ‘Stars’ and the pursuing ‘puncture’ on the other hand mooch and feed in the shadowy terrains muddying the fault lines between Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, the former additionally spiked with some seriously smoky eastern-esque riffola that much recalls the superior flip side of Bowie’s ‘the lodger’ album with the latter employed of the same tropes though freefalling more into a pre ‘Godstar’ PTV back catalogue replete with niftily edgy fret work a la Fripp via ‘scary monsters…’ All said, we must admit something of a soft spot for the seizure inducing skittish sore thumb ‘king kong’ which initially I was minded to cite Atari Teenage Riot and Locust as close relatives, but then again, its strange mutant funkiness distantly owes its dues to Herbie Hancock’s ‘future shock’ though here as though radically rephrased and fractured by a gathering of Basement Jaxx and Battles types.