Beth Ditto
EP

THE REVIEW

Having temporarily abdicated her fervent activity as the front-woman of the Gossip, the curious and "alternatively" charming Beth Ditto hurls herself headlong into a solo career, a choice that on one hand intends to maintain and also enhance the indie soul that has always characterized her band, while on the other hand puts the traditional punk-rock orientation—mentor of tracks such as Heavy Cross and Love Long Distance—in mothballs.

And so the musical "matron" of the rough and wild Arkansas indulges in a rather peculiar and interesting indie-electronic experimentation, although concentrated in a mini-album that contains only four tracks: few productions that nonetheless reach very high stylistic levels, embracing sounds techno-industrial, trance, and lounge-ambient, an authentic small indulgence of dreamlike, passionate, dark, and mysterious atmospheres. If you then add to such a tasty recipe Beth's not at all negligible charisma as well as her vocal tone that is nothing short of "catalyzing," here is a flavorful musical aperitif, to be consumed before a worthy continuation.

Elegantly stylizing Ditto's small debut is the first extract I Wrote The Book, a small electro-trance triumph soaked in Nineties-inspired lounge/trip hop sounds, a valid dance alternative to the tackiness/rowdiness of current DJs; I mention the accompanying clip that pays homage (with a pinch of cheekiness and irony) to Miss Ciccone's early '90s videography, particularly the porn-erotic atmospheres of Justify My Love, a mini-film that my debaserian colleagues and others will know perfectly well and therefore requires no further digressions about it.

Dynamic and at the same time presents itself as Good Night, Good Morning, a pleasant mix of evergreen synths accompanied by sporadic disco, chill out, and lounge inspirations; the atmosphere instead becomes more rarefied, acidic, and "ascetic" with Do You Need Someone in which a sort of lullaby/prayer enters into symbiosis with a robotic techno/trance mix. It closes the rather sparse tracklist with Open Heart Surgery, a track with clear 80s references that almost seems to recover the sounds of ancestral and raw Depeche Mode simil-disco of Just Can't Get Enough and Speak Spell.

An EP that despite the quantitative scarcity of content is not equally lacking in quality, quality that in the current electropop/dance context seems to diminish and standardize to the Guetta-RedOne prototype and the hyperbolization of glitz and glam: in the face of such underground-inspired packages decidedly less "commercial," one can still find the true "soul" of electronics, pure, sober, multifaceted, and manifestly authentic.

Beth Ditto, Beth Ditto EP

Do You Need Someone - Good Night, Good Morning - I Wrote The Book - Open Heart Surgery