CCCP - Fedeli alla Linea
Compagni, Cittadini, Fratelli, Partigiani

It's not easy to review an album by Ferretti and his associates! It's not easy because as soon as you type a letter about them, a indistinct swarm of musicologists, political scientists, mass media experts, sociologists, and know-it-alls brutally assail you, spouting a mountain of nonsense and disconnected phrases about you.

Then there's the "veteran" who considers you a kid (since you didn't personally experience the '80s), there's the militant who considers you insensitive to the revolutionary situationism proposed by our group, there's the usual "trash talker" who types insults to fill his empty day, and there's the "kritikino", the individual who thinks he's the only man, along with Federico Guglielmi, worthy of talking about CCCP.

Italy is an ugly country! Truly ugly and boring! I thought about abandoning this pathetic boot but then I did some calculations, and much to the misfortune of many, I decided not to betray the national borders. Healthcare hasn't been privatized yet, and importantly, there are several human cases to analyze and mock.

So, even without having read Foucault, without buying Rumore, without having Throbbing Gristle's discography at home, without studying Communication Sciences, and without sporting a little beard that says comrade (the type of comrade that has made the left unpopular and increasingly self-referential); I find it natural and amusing to expose my very personal considerations on this splendid chapter signed CCCP.

"Compagni, Cittadini, Fratelli, Partigiani" is a collection of the two debut EPs of the Emilian group. A dry and stripped-down sound, born from '77 punk and the darker post-punk (think Joy Division and Killing Joke), with some Arabic inflections and an approach that is sometimes German, sometimes Mediterranean. A raw and unripe record that however manages to focus on some very valid ideas. "Spara Jurij" recalls "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys but is still a fantastic piece, played on an apparently nonsensical text, yet so rich in meaning. Still nervous punk with "Militanz" and "Sono Come Tu Mi Vuoi", but it is with tracks like "Emilia Paranoica" and "Morire" that post-'77 echoes are felt, echoes of that type of sound that gave so much. "Emilia Paranoica" is, in fact, dark and oppressive as per Albion's lesson. "Morire", on the other hand, is a stunning manifesto about the decaying and rotting consumer society in which, fortunately or unfortunately, all of us are forced to live. Here, thanks to Ferretti's genius, the conservative Mishima and the revolutionary Mayakovsky shake hands. A theoretical operation not very different from the one inaugurated, in the early 1900s and in completely different contexts, by Georges Sorel with the Proudhon Circle.

Then there's "Live in Punkow", a sort of romantic and electric ode to the iron and dry austerity "beyond the wall". There's also "Punk Islam" that looks with interest, without however throwing us into the fair of trivialities, at Pan-Arabism and the Arab-Islamic worldview. But be careful: in front of a decadent and weakened West, degraded by the chatter of a bloody right and those of a left mentally even more bourgeois than a Giorgino Almirante, Ferretti does not dictate rules from a "central committee". He simply limits himself, with irony and disillusionment, to appreciate what alternative these cultures (political, social, religious, etc.) have managed to express. Paradoxically, and for the reasons just mentioned, this album demonstrates a remarkable maturity and a form of "ideological disillusion". While aware of the death of every utopia, our group talks to us about real alternatives to the liberal-capitalist model. Great, in this sense, is the ability to depict, with punk and wave notes as well as with surreal declamations, sound frescoes concerning systems/worlds distant and different from ours. Examples to be observed carefully, that is true, but with the sad awareness of not being able to reproduce them under the NATO umbrella.

A record of historical importance, perhaps not comparable to "Affinità e Divergenze"... but in the end... who cares!

Dear Ferretti: you have landed on the grim shores of neo-conservatism because, rightfully, you were disgusted by the wordsmiths and opportunists of the extreme and reformist left. Yet I am convinced that even there you will find the same gray and abject conformism. The mental and existential alternative to these two degrading para-political categories, however, you outlined yourself with albums like these!