Maximillian I, Basta (My Dance The Skull, 2020)
You know that old saying about Coltrane (or was it Miles?), the thing about when you make a mistake you just have to keep making the mistake and then wrong becomes right and vice versa or whatever? Basta is all about that. Maximillian I double down on everything. But what is down anyway? Up is down, down is left, up is inside, outside is bright yellow and green and pink, and kids are maniacally drawing on the walls—or is it the ceiling?
Based around the delirious personality of multi-instrumentalist and absolute demented multidisciplinary artist Stefano Di Trapani, on ‘Basta’ a genius recklessness shines: bass and drums hold down a stoogesian boogie, while SDT does his best impression of a drunken Paul Leary on a cheap synth guitar. But the addition of one Cinzia Cy Cy handling effects (and somebody else on “atomic smartphone”, whatever it is) really sends the whole thing to a different dimension, mangling and multiplying the sound of vocals and whatever goes through her machinery, turning what could’ve been a fun psychedelic punk trip into a mirrored tunnel to hell.
A cold surge of cartoonish LSD puke to the face, this record is the product of five people who don’t give a fuck: legend has it that some of the lyrics were written by Di Trapani when he was only in elementary school, and the colorful nonsense of “Sono un uovo” would seem to corroborate this theory. In maybe the only moment of clarity that happened during the conception of this work, they let Movie Star Junkies’ Alberto ‘Boto’ Dutto handle the recording, and I think that might have been instrumental in not allowing things to fly off the handle.
Fans of Monoshock, Hospitals, FNU Ronnies, Tropical Trash and Butthole Surfers shouldn’t sleep on this filthy, wild piece of Italian noise. The vinyl version was probably made as cheaply as possible (blank labels, no cardboard jacket, tracklist written in sharpie), but that never stopped anyone who was willing to go through something that sounds like this.
Click here to listen to Basta on Bandcamp.
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