• Rating:
"I have always been leftist, I don't see why I should change my mind today. The people of Seattle are not communist, they are anti-capitalist. How could one not adhere to their reasons when capitalism has been the most ruthless ideology of this century?"
This is a statement from the director Gillo (Gilberto) Pontecorvo regarding his documentary "Un altro mondo è possibile" on the G8 in Genoa. Gillo, being Jewish, experienced firsthand the meaning of the racial laws in Italy, as he was forced to emigrate and found refuge in France. He joined the communist party and fought against the fascists during the resistance. His work as a director earned him two Oscar nominations and a Golden Lion for the film "The Battle of Algiers," a small neorealist masterpiece from the '60s. The film, sparse and raw, tells, in a documentary style, about the awakening of the Algerian people oppressed by the French, with music by Ennio Morricone that plays a crucial role by enhancing its rhythm.
55 years later, an indie trio from Atlanta formed a group named after the title of this film.
Already this premise should make us love Algiers; writing rebellious music, tackling themes like racism, freedom, religion, and justice, still definable today as "uncomfortable" to me, a former youth, brings to mind many great names from the past.
Musically, no. The incredible fact is the originality of their offering. I don't know a specific term to describe their music; it's a blend of post-punk, industrial, soul, gospel, noise…
But let's go in order, Lee Tesche, Ryan Mahan, and Franklin James Fisher took their first steps in Atlanta, Georgia, recording their self-titled debut album in June 2015.
The first track, "Remains." An organ holds the same note for a long time. Hand claps. Mmm Mmm. Franklin's voice (of the reverend, one might say) tells me that "the chained man sang in a sigh I feel like going home," just to make clear who is the father of Algiers.
It cites Muddy Waters!!
The voice, the hand clap, the organ… I'm not in church, but it certainly feels like listening to a gospel sermon. A debut with all the trimmings, monolithic but definitely to be counted among the best. It very much reminds me of an album from 1975, the year when a singer opened the album (Horses) with the phrase: Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine…
Two years later, the second album is released, with the new drummer Matt Tong (formerly of Bloc Party) joining the band. 2017, the year of Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the U.S. election of Donald Trump. Mahan explained: "This album was recorded in a political environment that collapses the economic crisis of the late '70s and the looming assault of arch-conservative neoliberalism, through Thatcher and Reagan, up to the end of the '30s, a world torn by fascist nationalism and white power fantasies in the United States and abroad."
The Underside of Power improves upon the ideas already present in the debut, Algiers appropriates the spirit of gospel music and updates its sound through a very personal reinterpretation. It's an impressive album.
"For us, it's essential not to separate music from its psychological and historical context," says Franklin James Fisher. His voice is deeply soulful, like Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke, and creates a contrast with the powerful rhythms played by the band. It's not just a matter of fusing different musical genres; it's about what the genres represent and which worlds they can open.
Watch how "soul man" Fisher moves on stage, occasionally improvising dance moves in Motown style, while Mahan moves jerkily, as if he were at a Depeche Mode night. The two souls of the band coexist and blend, enchanting the listener.
"The soft songs are even sweeter, and the angry ones even harder," explains Fisher. We don't get bored listening to Cleveland, which seems sung by Marvin Gaye with a Suicide background, or the overwhelming funk of the title track with Temptation-style choruses with the addition of icy keyboards and soulful voice, or Death March, hypnotic with lots of '80s new wave. What can be said about Mme Rieux? Stevie Wonder on piano…
Algiers could have limited themselves to re-proposing the sounds of their debut, but they have gone further, occupying an important space both musically and lyrically, the true backbone of the band. Mahan's statement makes everything much clearer (?): "In our music, the symbolism of the Old Testament overlaps with Marx's historical materialism."
The protagonists of these songs are the dead. They are the ones killed by the police and listed in "Cleveland," they're the words of Fred Hampton, a Black Panther activist killed in 1969, with which the album opens.
We only have to wait a little longer for the final blow, in January 2020, There is no year is released, an album that amazes and astonishes.
Their musical universe is constantly expanding, the result is albums - oxymorons - sharp and soft, heavy and soft, warm and cold, noise and soul, with ever-higher peaks. Spirituals of the '20s like Wait For The Sound, with the voice of the increasingly talented and inspired Franklin that tears the soul, paired with new wave pearls like Repeating Night, where Tesche's guitar moves to models dear to The Smiths; wonders appear when the ghosts of James Brown arm in arm with Michael Jackson manifest inChaka, a '70s pop melody. Everything moves incredibly when the former Bloc Party drummer Tong paves the way with the hardcore assault of Void, reminiscent of NIN, and it's immediately a punk orgy that tears everything apart.
There are no fillers here; every single track has its peculiarity, I'll mention the title track once more, which takes the soul and nails it to a disconcerting industrial wall of sound, a "black" child of Suicide, fast and slow, sweet and aggressive…
Algiers knows it well, and the killer mix of noise rock, soul, industrial, R&B, and post-punk delights is proposed here revised and further improved. A whole that sounds as new as ever, unique and intended to stay imprinted, necessary as never before.
January 2020, There is no year… A sinistrally prescient title, released at the dawn of the most incredible year that has befallen us in this century, challenging us to invent the most improbable dystopias beyond reality itself. The year that isn't, 2020, on the cover a man falling…
Loading comments slowly
