Batsalsa Experience
Speleopunk

<< So are you going climbing on Sunday? >>

<<No, actually in caves you don't really climb... I mean, more or less, our techniques are similar to mountaineering but... BASICALLY... not quite... >>

<< ... so you just go into a cave, look at it, and then leave?>>

<< um... yessss... more or less...>>

<< But how do you breathe in a cave?>>

<< ….........>>

These are some of the questions that most speleologists get asked at least once in their lives, and they are questions that aren't always easy to answer. Sometimes words fail.

To avoid confusion, the speleologist is that creature that takes a course thinking it's all as easy as in the movies (and quickly changes their mind), spends all their money on technical gear (and the expenses never end), stops thinking of Sundays as a day for sleeping in (and stops going out to bars on Saturday, soon losing all their friends), studies the landscape like never before, always has too much laundry to do, is perpetually tired from the weekend, and has to attend exhausting training seminars.... so, why do they do it?!

The Batsalsa Experience is a punk/hardcore/crust/beatdown/power-violence group made up of Giorgio Dondi (vocals), Luca Pisani (drums), Luca Grandi (synthesizer), and Matteo Meli (bass guitar). To understand who they really were, I decided to ask them directly and this was Matteo's response:

<< We met at the Gruppo Speleologico Bolognese, for years we've been caving together, doing more or less complex explorations, living and sharing satisfactions and disappointments. During exploratory discoveries, a lot of ideas pop up and imagination flies, monologues and absurdities are improvised.

In the spring of 2018, our group decided to plan the inauguration of the Luigi Fantini Speleological Museum scheduled for 12/15/2018.

We came up with the crazy idea of improvising, for the occasion, a poorly executed concert by the most unlikely members of our group. I, a lifelong guitarist, on bass. Luca on drums (the only normal one) and Giorgio on vocals (never did a damn thing in music, tone-deaf, offbeat). Then the other Luca joins on keyboards (he too never touched an instrument).

This project is so terrible and promises to be so bad that we absolutely love it. We invent a name (inspired by a completely crazy group member) and in September 2018, we met for the first time in the rehearsal room. Since both Luca and I hate cover bands, we decided to make it even worse by only doing original songs, all based on ideas, absurdities, and monologues made in caves during the explorations of the Partisan.

Despite it being 4° and barely any alcohol, the concert at the inauguration under the arch of Porta Lame was wonderful for us. We decided to carry on, to keep doing worse, and in September, after a year, we released Speleopunk, our first album >>

Speleopunk is a delirium. An immediate ignition bomb. It shatters your eardrums and engages you from the first detonations.

But it's not just for this that I decided to write about them...

Four speleologists, for the first time in history, have been able to say what life in a cave truly is. They are violent, deep, poetic but above all innocent, with that adorably Romagnolo accent that Giorgio doesn't even try for a moment to disguise.

Their lyrics describe the strong sensations that anyone who lives the cave intensely knows. At first, the fear of not passing through a narrow passage, the terror of an unexpected collapse, a fall into the void, not getting out to see the light again... But soon the cave turns into a woman, at first dirty, cold, and cruel but eventually becoming a "warm and wet" lover when finally "passion" arises from "deep knowledge".

The speleologist does not live on the fringes of society and it is precisely in the silence of the cave that they put ideas together, reflecting, for example, on relationships with the opposite sex (Betrayed Loves), rebellion (Black Shutters in Flames), and ecology, especially grotesque (The story).

Thus, they are a person (man or woman) who has the privilege of comparing daily struggles to a cave (Black Mass) and redeeming them. And this is not without certain side effects: great effort, for example (and I'm not just talking about physical effort).

All of this is evident with disarming clarity from their "improvised" musician texts (thus so genuinely PUNK): they have provided THE answer.

The future of Italian music is underground, I tell you!

Instructions for use:

LIBERA: the call that a speleologist makes to the companion following to say OK, now DOWN/PASS THROUGH!

MEANDRO: a gap in the rock, with some linear development, requiring the speleologist to have: cool blood, agility, and, in the most difficult cases, a good number of curses directly proportional to its length and inversely proportional to its width.

PIEGA: from the manual “Ductile deformation of rock masses wherein surfaces, formerly planar, are bent and curved”. Pure psychedelia, use your imagination.

MANZO: ...

FULL LISTENING: https://batsalsaexperience.bandcamp.com/releases