"L’OCCIDENTE" @ HEATHEN HARVEST (USA) by Il Levriero Staff
20/03/2008 at 00:10
Great review @ HEATHEN HARVEST (USA) by ZG
“It is difficult to start because there’s so much to say that I’m afraid to loose something on the way. For those who is not familiar with Ianva, it is an Italian project that was born as a collaboration of many musicians: Mercy, responsible for Vocals, Marranzano "malandrino", Concept, Lyrics, Music, Choir; Stefania D’Alterio, responsibleVocals, Lyrics; Fabio Gremo, responsible for Guitar, Music, Choir; Francesco La Rosa (Percussion, Programming, Mixing, Recording, Mastering), Fabio Carfagna (Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Music, Choir), Giuseppe Span? (Piano, Choir), Davide La Rosa (Accordion, Percussion, Choir), Azoth (Bass), M° Fulvio Di Clemente (Trumpet, Trombone). Il Levriero is an italian label dedicated to issuing Ianva’s albums and holds the same conception as the band itself. You can feel it just by visiting their webpage: sophisticated banner and menu bring us back in time. I felt a slight touch of retro-futurism, if I may say so - the combination of menu stable design and those rotating gears made me think to a wonderful animated movie – Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello. I think Ianva is one of those bands being an example that ones can be serious without any politics in their music. You may call the band neofolk, because the form looks quite similar (trumpets, marching drums, work with samples, accordeon), but it won’t stand in a row with those bands that prefer filling the form with some propaganda. I like Ianva, because they have a style, a style that they follow through their works – retro, vintage, which I find really attractive and worthy to come back to it again and again. In L’Occidente Ianva continues the musical line we could hear in “Disobbedisco!”, but L’Occidente sounds less militant, kind of softer and more prideful – maybe because it is shorter (only 4 tracks). We don’t hear so many military drums as we could hear in Disobbedisco and it sounds less “industrial”, there’re no tracks like Vittoria Mutilata, for example, and there’re no tracks that draw some absolutely defined pics, like “Tango Della Menada”, but there’s this atmosphere that gets your attention in the very beginning and makes you listen to the album again and again to enjoy each sound and not allow the CD to stop. ’L’Occidente’ is passionate, it is an Italian album. I cannot imagine such an album issued by any other band in any other country (it is like with Spiritual Front – there’s no band that may sound the same way and it is again Italian). And even more passionate it is made with the voice of lead singer – I have to confess: this is the kind of female vocals I enjoy and most of those pretentious female vocals lose their face in front of Stefania D’Alterio. As for the tracks, each of them is written with a purpose to express themselves and speak their mind. I don’t insist on the words that’ll be written below, it is the matter of interpretation and understanding poetry, which is filled with metaphors and puns, more than that – translated ones. My interpretations may be wrong, but I’ll try to share my way of perceiving the album. 1. ’L’Occidente’, which means “The West”. It may be referred to people who’re not satisfied with the contemporary way of things in Europe and pretend to be kind of saviours while in reality they are nothing but the same “evil” they’d like to sweep from Europe. It is kind of seeing a beam in one’s eye while being not able to recognise the same in their own one. 2. ’Santa Luce dei Macelli’, means “St. Luce Of Abattoirs” or “Holy Light Of The Abattoirs” and seems to be connected with religion and the text has roots in tradition of Southern Italy, history and may have personal value for Ianva’s singer, Stefania, whose hometown appears in the lyrics of this song. This track gets a listener into the whirl of sound stretching from cabaret music (maybe even some dark cabaret influences?) to folk music, performed as ever with passion. 3. ’Il Sereno E La Tempesta’, which means “The Cloudless and the Tempest”, sounds as a kind of journey to medieval folklore. It doesn’t have any lyrics and any special sense can be hardly guessed. However, it may be again the track about confrontation. “Tempest” may be used both for charactirizing the kind of weather and an anxious crowd of people, type of human character, his temperament. While “Cloudless” clearly refers to opposite things. Maybe the idea behind this track is presenting their own country, which has so many different landscapes and therefore perceptible weather changes, which may result in dualism of one’s nature. 4. The last track – ’The Battle’ – refers to an old UK band which started back in 60s-70s, called The Strawbs. I regret I can’t understand Italian. Yes, there’s english version of lyrics on official webpage, but nevertheless we all know that poetry is better to be read on the original language since reading a translation we rather read translator’s poem".
(ZG - Heathen Harvest (USA) - March 2008)
Our biggest thnx to ZG, Sage, Malahki and all Heathen Harvest Staff
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