If “Italia: Ultimo Atto” was a literal Descent into Hell, now it’s time to stand up and rise again.
“La Mano di Gloria” is the secret tale of a protest that is both popular and aristocratic; a protest organized by a minority, whose aims are the liberation of everyone, the extreme and ultimate answer from a shattered and wretched country, which, in spite of all tribulations, still maintains its power of surprising.
To find the right atmosphere out for this scenery, it was necessary to leave History and enter the realms of Fiction.
Set in the immediate future, “La Mano di Gloria”, from the homonymous novel by Mercy, is one more time a concept album whose plot is based on Italy and Europe living the terrible nightmare of an “enlightened” oligarchy; and a bunch of brave people, coming from different cultural and ideological backgrounds, but sharing the very same fate, who dare to face the power of the institutions through the weapon of pure aesthetic subversion.
The reduction to the definition of “concept album” to describe a piece that, like this one, is actually a real saga finds its explanation on the focus made upon the story’s main characters, the action and, last but not least, the ultimate protagonist of this fresco: the “eternal” Italy, its landscapes and its art, two monumental elements in the middle of a desolate emptiness which leads to a variety of metaphysical artistic references.
As always, the score & the mood of this imposing operation bring to mind epic sounds with strong martial connotations, but, at the same time, they’re never afraid to stand comparison with the tradition of arcane Italian Melodrama.
The main innovation is represented by the display of a brand new fantasy dimension, with its subsequent gloomy and psychedelic effects which have entered, for the first time, into IANVA’s musical universe.
“La Mano di Gloria” ’s 73 minutes leave breathless, thanks to the distinctive soundtrack penchant IANVA is inclined and known for. Dinamo Innesco Rivoluzione helps closing the “aesthetical” loop with its refined artwork.
The final effect created by the artist, is both disturbing and dystopic. It “technologically” evokes XX century phantoms and let them lead the dance off to a near apocalypse that IANVA considers as the sole and painful solution to the present time, in which “living has become impossible”.
In 2029 Italy can be merely considered a geographical concept, as many other countries.
The 2012 monetary collapse represented a traumatic event and it started a domino effect, which rapidly redesigned the world equilibrium.
A virtual currency to be used in international transactions, and set under the control of a bankers’ governmental super-body, became the uniform co-used by the West. The whole western world was re-thought according to a model that represents an extreme version of the European Union bureaucracy. A new legislation came into force, and it was an exacerbated and even more liberticidal extension of the Lisbon Treaty. After a season characterized by civil war and the secession attempts by several countries, the USA became a military dictatorship backed by big private banks and by criminal cartels, which also refurnished a repressive apparatus to join the army and private contractors. In Europe an occult dictatorship was established, and gathered the ruling elites of the dissolved national states whose cusp was unknown. Actually, the elite consisted of an old esoteric organization, the most powerful and most cruel ever, practising foul ritual and human sacrifices, also mass sacrifices. The criminal use of financial leverage led to ruin the most of the population. Being that all armies and national police were dissolved, the social unrest was calmed down by an international legion of professionals, which reported only to the supranational super-powers. These military and para-military bodies benefited from large autonomy and accomplished their role in the control of the territory in arbitrary and autonomous ways. Intelligence bodies were almost exclusively involved in the detection and repression of internal dissidence, but their main activity aimed to mediate among the opposite positions that arise within the many interest groups.
This complex system made of political, industrial-military, criminal, sect, cartel, private finance bodies, and characterized by the incessant resettling of internal hostilities and alliances is called the “Combinat”.
IL BELLO DELLA SFIDA (THE BEAUTY OF THE DARE)
Have you ever wondered if the dare is nothing but
The ultimate stigmata of aristocracy
Stripped from its arrogance and balanced with humility
A connection between the future and a lost civilization?
The only art form that doesn’t pretend
To go against the tide while it’s shoving to work its way up,
And the only honest posture in a world prone to bend
Worthy of a man who wants to act openly, at last
But then…
We’re still here after one hundred years
With our burden made of meekness
Which is devouring us with jaws of conventionality
And making us grow brutish
And we don’t even realize that this posture
Reconfigures what we are
Since subjection always goes hand in hand
With the ignoble mugs of the mob –
Would you like this?
But I think that no dawn could permeate me
As the one that lights up the end of any Vigil Of Arms*
And I’d be glad to pay the price of this anxiety
To gain an archaic coat of arms that was denied til yesterday.
It’s a bow that can only be drawn by a regal hand
And if the forehead to be smashed
Belongs to plunderers, killers or parasites
Just like Odysseus** we will regain our kingdom through the challenge
Only if…
We think that the time has come:
The Italic cyclothymia
So that action and art are all as one
And they will be pandemic again.
After more than a century we’re not brothers
Or bitter fruits of war trenches anymore.
But the Proci*** at home are always the same ones
And you’re the only one who can personify the Bow and the Idea!
If you want to….
Although there’s a brand new field of action
The original patent that can only make you right doesn’t change:
Heart! Hand-grenade! Dagger!****
* http://www.essortment.com/medieval-history-vigil-arms-21329.html
** http://www.shmoop.com/odyssey/odysseus-bow-symbol.html
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitors_of_Penelope
** Symbols of the Arditi Corps
EDELWEISS
Her perseverance and powerful sobriety
Are present in the treasures she saved
From the ravages of time.
Some people still remember her
In her green age: long legs on the path,
And shy beauty.
They will tell you that she devoted her life
To rekindle what was wearing out because of absence.
In the big tapestry an ethereal warp weaves
A lanscape to its people, the root to its seed,
The valley bottom torrent to its spring water:
A collective fate lays in these threads of soul.
Edelweiss oh Edelweiss
In Dir atmet Ewigkeit
Edelweiss oh Edelweiss
In Dir lebt Ewigkeit
Oh Edelweiss!
She’s confluence of two bloodlines, crossroads of two lineages
Loving presence of a mother and yet
Hard-fighting devotion you can’t buy or conquer,
A living tradition you can’t undermine without taking your risk.
She was so bursting with life that her death was fertile enough
To regenerate the extreme nonchalance* of the revolt;
She’s the primer of people’s explosive device,
She belongs to the founding mythology of a future destiny.
But what is just a struggle today will be immortalized in myth tomorrow
And the bastard whose turn is now will have his bones calcined in the sun
Edelweiss oh Edelweiss
In Dir atmet Ewigkeit
Edelweiss oh Edelweiss
In Dir lebt Ewigkeit
Oh Edelweiss!
“Hier kommt die Frau
Sie schreitet mit uns vom Traum zur Tat,
Ein Herz voller Mut und Zuversicht
Und ihre Vision wird Wirklichkeit
Edelweiss,
Du bist der Schlüssel in einer Welt aus Stein
Eine Tür in eine neue Zukunft
In eine neues Sein
In ein neues Miteinander
Niemals gibst Du auf
Und alle Gefahren alle Warnungen
Schlägst Du in den Wind”
Now her name resounds among the gloomy spruces
And already inflames every heart among the valleys and the crags…
* the original Italian term is “sprezzatura” : to do a gesture with naturalness, facility, grace.
ALTA VIA*
If the wind-rose opens up to the west
The sky comes down like a bird of prey.
If the lunge of the Mistral comes fast from East
It rises the blaze of the sunset with an Avernus** breath.
The Sciroc-born spiral coming from South
Smells like a menagerie, like rotten fruit and opium,
But our winter very often saves for us
A kaleidoscope made of sun and ice.
You will have mournful, rainy paths
Thrown along these slopes,
Along these steep and cobbled tracks
In a thousand muddy streams.
And the wind will drive the foggy shreds
Along the ridges, tearing them to pieces
Just like bandages on a leper’s correded limbs.
But then the Northwind will come
In the exorcism of the evening
When its smooth song makes the sky resound
With the purest storm,
When the wind tears the sails apart
Catching them up to the most hidden coves
And when it forces a prayer out of the bells
To honour some forgotten gods.
Just as Ianvs*** riding the harsh, rugged ridge
That rams against the chest of the Alps’ western massif
Here people has two kind of looks, both distant
From the reeks typical of crowded beaches and the miasma of Po valley.
But I wish that this heritage made of indocility
Would not be so prone to pavid apathy.
And with the bricks and mortar of a new Idea
I could build a fortress: Alta Via, sweet home of mine!
I’d like to know where and when
That crime has been committed
And most of all the due date of this suit we rented,
This awful custom**** that takes shape of acquiescence
And puts up nothing but caresses
To those who decree our extinction.
But that mountain is my sanctuary,
Home of lightning and thunder
Stairway from where every storm
Comes down along ozone paths,
I’ll still be there, burning my runes
At every solstice gates
And my costume will still be dyed
In a livid shade of rainstorm.
My dear friend, it’s so sweet to walk by your side
But it’s better to get back home now: the weather is changing for the worse…
* The Alta Via dei Monti Liguri (also known as the High Trail or Ligurian Alta Via) is an ancient high altitude route that links the two Ligurian coasts, passing through the Tyrrhenian-Po Plain watershed of the Alpi Marittime and of the Ligurian Apennine mountain chains. The Alta Via follows the tracks of the ancient trails once devoted to trade and sheep breeding.
** a crater lake in Italy, near Naples, made of sulphurous water: in ancient times regarded as an entrance to hell
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
**** In the original Italian version the word “costume” has two different meanings: “custom” and “costume”, so it’s a pun.
SUL MIO SANGUE (ON MY OWN BLOOD)
The hour
So refreshing with blood
Just like the wound of sunset
Comforting the world with its bleeding,
That time is coming
With a sphynx’s appearance
Elusive enough
To encircle the weeping
And turn it into sharp madness
All my dear ones have been torn away from me
And surely you also know by whom…
It’s the hour
Before dawn
With its heart of ice
And its embrace of despair
Made of frost, shivers and chilly cold.
But it’s calling
With the flash of a blade
Whose grim reflection is the only light
Illuminating my path now…
Perfect Mother you are, Mistress of Mercy
You can give me eternal damnation if you want
Because I already know that
Here in front of you, my Lady Of The Stars
I swear I’ll see his skin turned inside out
I swear on you and though it’s a blasphemy
I’ll consecrate to you
This dagger of mine and its poison.
I believe
But I don’t pray since then,
I am what I am and I don’t beg for forgiveness
Because I shall never forgive.
But I live
Just for one purpose:
The most dreadful vengeance
As the only peak I crave to reach
From this day on…
I know, it’s a sublime example
The one you set,
But it’s an example I cannot follow.
Either now or never…
Here in front of you, my Sister In Pain
I swear I’ll tear his throbbing heart
From his chest.
Pray for me, for here
I swear on my own blood
That I’ll nail him down
Just like an insect
Against the wall.
L’ANARCA (THE ANARCH)
If one day your bells would ring
Their saddest and most racked toll
To mourn a dog dead on the street,
I don’t say I would change my mind
About any of your bell-towers
But as a dog alone in the world
I could even listen to your evensong.
On the contrary, these feral tolls
Urging all people to sorrow and grieve
Are reserved for some special “gentlemen”
To whom we owe everything, they say.
And the most vulgar peals,
So typical of August holidays
Are obviously reserved
To the most mundane celebrity weddings.
But there’s no alloy making such a clang
That could reach me in the heart of the woods.
Even though it would be beaten for hours
It couldn’t undermine the Voice dominating this place..
The Voice of the woods is an unlimited Myself
Who’s the final arbiter of Good and Evil.
And the only Law that fits me like a glove
Is written in the DNA of my moral code.
I keep friends at a distance
I do the same with love affairs, sorry
Because most of the time
They set traps for that self-awareness of mine.
Nevertheless I have the natural ability
To give credit where credit is due
And to give back redoubled respect when respect is given to me.
Tolerance is just not nonsense
Especially when referring to other people’s weakness
And I never looked down even on those
Who deserved my contempt.
And I never magnified nits or belittled other people’s greatness,
I’d rather be damned if I go back on a promise…
I keep away from social climbers,
From phoney and vile people and from plotters.
From those who win favour giving bad name to the others –
I only make sure to fend off their blows.
I don’t want to humble myself,
I don’t want to crawl or flatter anybody
Though the profit and the advantage are obvious.
I like to dispute but I don’t like to quarrel
I prefer explaining my reasons to indisputable dogmas.
If I’m impeccable and flawless in every duty
Is just because I like to be in the right.
Still I don’t woo and serve the Power
I only enjoy to allow it nothing.
And if the Power shows off
You’ll never see me in the audience
The only bell tolling inside of me
Is for those dogs who withdraw.
PORTATORI DEL FUOCO (THE FIRE-BRINGERS)
There was a time when
If you wanted to move a plough
There was nothing to do but
Putting an ox before it,
And adding both passivities
You got a furrow as a result.
Creature and tool assembled together by one yoke
In the servile grip of the very same knot.
The mineral eye of the ox is dull
And perspective to the usual sown field
In return it gets a tomorrow which is always the same
And is at one with the tool and the furrow.
Because of that you can hardly see the reason why
The abysmal difference making the bull a symbol of courage
Lies in just a few onces of balls*
But you can’t deny that this gap is unmistakable:
No yoke is strong enough – the bull doesn’t crawl, its gait is proud.
Its horns are in the shape of a bow
Throwing its enemy in the sky,
They’re special and good for forcing their way up
And ripping all bowels out of the wound
What will produce the uncontainable fire
That is supporting the bull in the arena, among you?
Come on, who’s going to be on the bull’s side?
Why don’t we all join it in the fight?
Somebody shares with this bull
The most barbaric idea:
The one according to which
Those who want to seize and confiscate your skin
Must surely pay hard for that.
Especially those who seem very accustomed
to flay many of them
Passing over a matter of price, just like you…
Four torpedoes under the surface of water
Will buttfuck you in the twinkling of an eye,
Four streams of redeeming wrath
Already chose you as their personal estuary.
Two of them will come equipped with light artillery,
But it’s only in a matter of speaking,
And another one advances like a scorpion:
Tail and poison, just to oblige!
Then there’s a fourth one, stuffed with TNT,
Trying to reach the last resort
Where he can spread his wings and fly…
A half-hour of raging hell
Has already snuffed your self-confidence out.
Although we bumped off some of them
The answer is that too many of them are still alive.
One day they will be called the Fire-bringers
A hand that knows how to kindle the fire in place of us
Friendly fire for those who are wearing a yoke
But still want to desert oxen and cattle.
LE STELLE E I FALO’ (THE STARS AND THE BONFIRES)
Here where the clear sky and the black sky mix
The night is the abysmal mirror
In which are reflected the Analogy and the Truth
That now it’s my turn to stare at.
It’s the apotheosis of my personal paradox:
To be clean but not innocent
And every fear is set aside
Taking my modesty away with it.
All around me there’s nothing but air
Just like the shipwrecked people have nothing but sea,
But it’s not an ordinary night’s darkness
That is welcoming me like an old friend.
And in your kingdom discouragement and fear are unconceivable
Even for a moment.
I’m following my own nature when I follow you
And I regain a lost comfort…
And there’s no more heartache because
Here among stars and bonfires
The wind is rising and is talking about you
And about the days of love that are coming…
Three identical peaks, each one with its fire
So that the whole world can gaze at it.
And new Arditi enthralled by a game
That bears the breath of an ancestral rite.
I’m sure you understand if I sneak away
Since I’m the only woman here, now.
Too many people are already acclaiming you
And I think it’s better to keep a low profile.
Why should I tell you that the stars and the bonfires
Are burning inside your eyes, inside of you.
Throwing the inflexible pride that
Is the only thing I own.
Your eyes are sparks in the darkness of this Age
And you are the star that I still don’t own.
Vittoria* is my name: omen or chimera
If you think so, I’ll be that for you…
* Vittoria in Italian means “Victory” as well
CANZONE DELL’ETERNA AURORA (THE SONG OF THE ETERNAL DAWN)
I like to observe him furtively
When, completely lost in his role and thoughts,
He’s planning and shaping his masterpiece
With some quick touches.
Yes, it’s all but less than usual
That the bomb is the tool he adopted
And that the whole world is his material.
Let’s say that I clinged to a rock
In the middle of a storm.
I don’t want to know
If he rose up from a hellish cave or if he’s heaven-sent,
At least not for now.
Because it’s clear: he’s beyond expressions and he’s a rouser
But I already know that he wants me to be near him.
When he talks I can feel behind him
Echoes made of ineluctability
Just like the rising wind that knows so well
It has its limit only in itself.
This inebriation he’s giving to us when
His imaginativeness
Can make you catch a glimpse of brand new worlds
Beyond views that are already dry and arid.
He inflicts his wonderful trauma
Just like Dyonisus or Cantharides…
It’s strange but it’s the same old story
Every cycle follows its set pattern:
In the end every hybrid hypothesis is a mess
And you can only stick to the extreme one,
The one that can give you a gleam of hope and joy.
The Night considers the Dawn as pure violence, after all…
But the dawn will always be back,
Maybe we’ll be burning together with it,
And the eternity of this moment
Is a flower of fire to gather.
If I penetrate that instant with him
I feel that it will be my everlasting home
And in the climax of this moment
Our souls will turn into music…
Because now I know
That this was meant to happen:
I was definitely born
For you…
… For you!
DELLA MORTE ME NE RIDO (JEERING AT THE DEATH)
I give you what I got
I’ll travel light and sober because
Nothing of what I collected is needed, you know that.
Where I’m heading for
You are not defined by what you have.
I don’t tremble, I have no fear
But it’s strange: I’m the first to be surprised
I can already feel the smash
Yet I don’t find and recognize my fears…
And I write my own end by myself
I who have found my gorgeous peak with you
Choosing my fate I reject my decline
I compress in one moment, in a dancing star
What I would miserably suffer in a second time
But I will never, ever be pitful and pathetic.
Because I’d rather jeer at the death
And we’ll both laugh, you’ll see…
But then I start to wonder that
It’s honestly not a vile thing
To think about the life I could live growing old with you
Yes, sure: it’s natural to feel that way…
But on the other end I think that it’s vile
To adapt myself to live in a pigsty.
Decaying and rotting West
Imposing what it despicably fears…
But it won’t be able to save itself from the death
By not mentioning its name,
The West gives death
And death will get in return.
And it will be a fertile death,
It will be the plough eradicating the deep clod,
If I cared about my own life
I couldn’t satisfy the wicked urge
To turn myself into a Judgement,
A Verdict and a Sentence for all of you.
Therefore I’m jeering at the death
And so much the worse for all of you
For all of you
For all of you!
ULTIMA STAZIONE (LAST STATION*)
Here I am at last
Armoured with jail bars
But bare-chested.
If it ended like this
I wasn’t so sure of any “Beautiful Death”, anyway
But the remedy will be ready
In the next few hours
The siege is lifted
I’ll be happy to end up on the gallows…
But before the curtain rises on the final act
Let me give the last glance at the whole script
Because although the life I led
Could be taken away from me
Emulating it is a whole different matter
I had brothers by my side til the end
In this fate I chose:
To be the thorn in your side.
And now that they’ve tasted blood
When I’m dead they’ll turn me
Into your worst nightmare
Yet I can’t deny
That I get frightened on the edge of Nowhere
There’s one thing I’m sure of:
I didn’t reach this verge
By force of habit or cowardice
Well, now you’re involved in the part
That I assigned you:
Just grubby executioners
But you revealed your real nature in the end.
You bastards, watch out
And mind the weapon
You’re going to put in my hands
With the wisdom of hindsight
You’ll learn that a man never dies in vain
If he stages the role that is not fit for you, worms!
The extreme pride of setting a shining exemple.
I’m thinking of a woman
And just to have her was more than enough
To solve the enigma of being born.
On her body I already died
And rose again every time.
You’re just killing the remnant
Of thousands deaths…
* as in the Stations of the Cross/Via Crucis
NELL’ORA DELL’ADDIO (IN TIME OF GOODBYES)
Every Man concurs in shaping a fragment of Creation
It’s a special moment of a gift that is given simultaneously
And that is doomed to be understood by his mortal nature
Only in the smallest doses.
And that feeling of uselessness
Pervading each action which guides the reality
Is just the empty power of those who triumph over the fleeting moment.
Once God has vanished, if everything changes nothing will really change,
And that intense, plotting activity discouraging every remaining willpower
Makes you sterile and turns into a metastasis.
But every single Man can find himself ready to amputate
The tissue to the bone and turn this whole world inside out
So much to lay it bare to the deepest bowels,
If he puts out his challenge.
Because every single Man can build empires simply by the act of thinking,
He can tell with his song what makes past ages so great
Every convict of present days, restrained by the chain of anonymity and insignificance,
This Man is coming…
Wicked souls of bureaucrats
Foolish sciences of DIY necromancers
Born to be sycophants of those who hold the reins.
Ecumenical prophets of a new mankind
Who act like doctors transmuting contagion into pleasure and lust,
But tongues made of honey* can only give you the urge o stand up and fight
Because every new-born Man is the segment of a story
And those who take it for granted, blinded by arrogance,
Are just doomed to get useless cards**
And blunt weapons in return.
In any case there will always be successful and good lineages.
Bright and bold saboteurs of plots and schemes***,
New daring people who will not tolerate to share their ancient landscapes
With the unrighteous.
It’s the Variant-Man reprocessed by the human species,
Antibody to its very tumoral area,
A Man who will face the abyss and the challenge serenely
And finally it will be time for Life again…
* See “asslickers” and/or “smooth-tongued people”
** as in card games
*** the original Italian phrase is “saboteurs of the web”