Tag Archive: Ravenna


MARISSA NADLER – BLACKER THAN JULY

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September 28, 2014

MARISSA NADLER LIVE AT HANA-BI, RAVENNA, ITALY. 27th September 2014

marissaBlack becomes Marissa Nadler. It suits her pale complexion and matches the atmosphere of her songs.

On stage, however she is not dark and gloomy but polite and unpretentious. Her much publicised stage fright is not evident. It helps that she is accompanied by cellist Janel Leppin who lends gravitas to the tunes.

This being a free concert at a beachside bar/club, there’s always a chance that you get an audience of sightseers rather than true fans but the small but appreciative crowd were on Marissa’s side from the outset.

Of the thirteen songs she played in a one hour set, only three were from her earlier records; the rest were all from her latest album, July. This song-cycle covers a year in her life, from one July to the next, and centre on an acrimonious break up.

Bleak settings in cheap motels and lost highways add to the forlorn mood. The bitterness and anger is controlled and directed towards moving on rather than wallowing in self pity. Continue reading →

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MARK KOZELEK: LIFE IS COMPLICATED

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April 6, 2014
"Are you talking to me?"

Say cheese!

MARK KOZELEK LIVE AT THE BRONSON CLUB, RAVENNA, ITALY – 5th April 2014

There’s a quiet menace about Mark Kozelek. His songs reveal he’s a sensitive guy but his highly personal, story songs never stray into sentimentalism.

The lyrics are full of the humdrum details from his life at home or on the road yet are delivered with such intensity that they seem positively revelatory.

He sings of being unable to shake his melancholy nature, a condition that I imagine is exacerbated by touring on his own and having time to brood in lonely hotel rooms.

On stage during this two-hour solo performance he’s not ice cold but not warm either. There’s no charm offensive. He seems pissed off that the audience don’t talk to him but doesn’t do much to meet us half way. He doesn’t even know what city he’s playing in so you get the impression that part of him doesn’t give a damn who’s listening and why.

He wonders why there is so much graffiti in Rome but nobody dares venture an opinion as to why Italians are so into street art. In the US, Kozelek says, kids have better things to do; they’re too busy mugging and stabbing people. This is a topic he also touches on in song form in Richard Ramirez Died Of Natural Causes.

Having a few rows of seating and playing under dimmed lighting efficiently communicates the fact that you take pictures or videos at your own peril. And amazingly, no-one does. I can’t remember the last show I went to when there was so little chatter and so few pulling out smart phones. “You are a nice, respectful audience”, Kozelek acknowledges near the end and he was not wrong. Continue reading →

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RAVENNA TRANSMISSIONS FESTIVAL VII – DAY 3

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March 23, 2014

A Hawk & A Hacksaw – husband and wife duo Heather Trost & Jeremy Barnes performing at the Bronson club, Ravenna as part of the Transmissions Festival they curated.

 Father Murphy, A Hawk & A Hacksaw, Mouse On Mars at the Bronson Club, Ravenna.

The juxstaposition of styles presented during this concert  showed how sonic transmissions in our technically challenging (and challenged!) age can be by turns nostalgic, alienating and invigorating.

In Keywords (A vocabulary of culture and society) Marxist academic Raymond Williams wrote that, in the 18th century, the verb ‘to modernize’ was mainly applied to buildings and was not automatically regarded as something positive. Nowadays, modernization is generally associated with improvement and forward thinking. Williams noted that when we say modern now we generally refer to something which is “unquestionably favourable and desirable”. It signifies that you are up with the times and at one with the contemporary world.

Compare this to words like ‘tradition’ or ‘traditionalist’ which are commonly used to dismiss something as quaint yet old-fashioned and contrary to notions of innovation or change. We associate these terms with the work of artisans and craftsmen and think of outdated skills handed down from generation to generation.

When applied to music, ‘tradition’ is usually linked to an analog philosophy while to describe sounds as ‘modern’  is to say the artist is making a break with the past. However, an incessantly forward momentum has its pitfalls. The fact that discerning listeners will still seek out vinyl releases or lossless audio is a sign that the ‘modern’ day digital revolution is regarded in some quarters as a step backwards.

On the third and final day of Ravenna’s Transmissions festival the stark contrast between the old and the new was very evident. After being gently wooed by the Balkan-influenced folky charm of A Hawk And A Hacksaw (+ special guests) we were abruptly wowed by the uncompromising techno beats of German duo Mouse On Mars. Continue reading →

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RAVENNA TRANSMISSIONS FESTIVAL VII – DAY 2

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March 22, 2014

TRANSMISSIONSVII_poster70x100_aggiornatoIn 1999, David Byrne wrote an article for the New York Times provocatively entitled I Hate World Music . It isn’t the music itself that the ex-Talking Head hates but the media label that lumps everything which is not English-language pop/rock into the same category.

He wrote that “the use of the term world music is a way of dismissing artists or their music as irrelevant to one’s own life. It’s a way of relegating this “thing” into the realm of something exotic and therefore cute, weird but safe, because exotica is beautiful but irrelevant; they are, by definition, not like us”.

Byrne noted that by virtue of record sales alone some artists escaped such lazy pigeon-holing. No one refers to Ricky Martin or Sigur Ròs as world music artists even though most of their best known songs are sung in Spanish or Icelandic (or Hopelandic!) respectively.

Instead, this genre name is reserved  for the kind of artists who festival curators Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost (aka A Hawk And A Hacksaw) assembled for a unique concert at Ravenna last night. The performers flown in from Balkan countries are the kind that have most western listeners (myself included) automatically reaching for glib adjectives like ‘authentic’, ‘traditional’ and ‘exotic’. Continue reading →

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RAVENNA TRANSMISSIONS FESTIVAL VII – DAY 1

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March 21, 2014

RAVEN CHACON (USA), OvO (Italy), FIRE! (Sweden) and DEERHOOF (USA), Bronson Club, Ravenna 20th March 2014.

This year’s  three-day Transmissions Festival has been curated by a Albuquerque duo Hawk And A Hacksaw.

Experimental and uncompromising artists have been the staple of previous editions and this year is no different.  The opening show featured an impressively eclectic mix of styles and talents. Here are my impressions of each artist:
RAVEN CHACON – A heavy-set Native American who plays daunting noise on what looks like a purpose-built electronics board. The blast of harsh industrial sounds are as digestible as the plastic tubes he fed into his mouth to literally become part of the machinery. Rating 3/10

OvO

OvO – this menacing looking doom duo look as they have emerged from some dark pagan pit where they have sustained themselves on a diet of  horror b-movies. In a plain black vest, the tattooed and muscular drummer Bruno Dorella looks like a butcher or a wrestler while singer/guitarist Stefania Pedretti’s gothic stage gear is a cross between that of a wayward witch and a ragged prostitute. Her vocals could have been modelled on the demonic voice of Regan in The Exorcist. Her dreadlocks, stretching almost to her ankles add to the unearthly appearance. Her fierce, nightmarish screams and mantras are like a soundtrack to some dark rituals and is impressive for their raw physicality. Rating 7/10

Mats Gustafsson

FIRE! are relatively conventional by comparison. This musically accomplished trio deliver a solid 45 minutes worth of proggy free jazz. They are led by Mats Gustafsson who plays electric organ and a vintage saxophones with serious intent. Backed by a formidable rhythm section they are technically sophisticated yet I found it hard to engage with their dour, business-like performance. They make no attempt to connect with the audience as though wrapped up in their own desire to achieve perfection. Rating 6/10

Deerhoof

 

DEERHOOF Round off proceeding in great style. I’ve been vaguely aware of this band without ever following their career closely. More fool me as I’ve clearly been missing out on something very special. On stage they are one of the coolest bands I’ve ever seen. The four each have their own distinct personality but look and sound great together. Singer Satomi Matsuzaki moves like a go-go girl and has an appealingly fragile, deadpan voice that is always ever so slightly out of tune. John Dieterich is neat and energetic on rhythm guitar and occasional vocals; Ed Rodriguez on lead guitar is a hipster rock’n’roll reincarnation of Javier Bardem while Greg Saunier attacks his small drum kit as if his life depended on it. (He also drinks herbal tea and speaks bad Italian) . All have great hair. Their songs lurch and change direction almost of their own volition with a heady mix of J-pop and Punk rock. This hybrid sound is packed full of energy and it’s a delight to see a band playing their music with undisguised pleasure.  I was so wrapped up in their performance, I was surprised by how few people stayed to the end of the show. Those who left early missed a real treat. Rating 10/10.

Roll on Day 2

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