Colour Haze
Tempel

LA RECENSIONE

'Germans, good people'
To be honest, my thoughts about Germans have always been somewhat negative. My first encounters with the bratwurst ethnicity were in Val Gardena, where I went on vacation with my family. As a good child, I didn't understand why, even though we were in Italy, the signs were in German and in certain restaurants, to communicate with the waiter, we had to stage a piece on the communicative abilities of the Australopithecus Afarensis.
At the time, I was a pseudo-patriotic child, and it really got on my nerves; I would say, "Why don't these four Nazi salamis go home and speak German!"
You see, growing up in the Pci section with my uncle didn't foster a, let's say, 'open' approach towards them. Add to that the sound beatings dished out in '82, my father calling them "magna – kartoffen", and finally my maternal uncle married to a krukka who couldn't be more krukka, and the picture should be clear.

Over time, coming into direct contact with them, in Italy and abroad, I realized how Germans are often quite friendly, precise but not too obsessive, and a lot of them are hippies. Certainly, mine, being an overall discourse, does not have any cultural validity, far from it, but I noticed how Italians are often territorialists.
Germans know Italy better than those who live there; they travel in campers even in their sixties, send their children barefoot everywhere, let them splash around in mud, and couldn't care less. Just like it should be and like it was for us until the '70s.

Even in music, the krukki have more than doubled us both in the past and now; just think about that horde of krautrock psychonauts, to internationally valuable realities, from Rammstein (there's not much to envy here, but let's move on), to Atari Teenage Riot, labels like Morr Music, just to mention a few examples. Colour Haze in their small way have become a cult band in the psychedelic scene, through free concerts around Europe. Kind of the Gong of today, not so much for musical similarities but for a similar anarcho-freak attitude. Compared to previous works, "Tempel" does not contain the usual 15-minute jams, favoring a uniform and evocative mood, through a less physical and more cerebral approach to compositions.

One might say they've gone from one Garcia (John of Kyuss) to another (Jerry of the Grateful Dead). Indeed, the guitar interplays and soliloquies of the same are the catalyzing element of these 8 tracks, which on more than one occasion remind one of the "cosmic chirping" of the Grateful Dead.
Songs mirroring each other, following a similar course, sinuous and calm, stormy and restless, playing a lot on the alternation of these two tones. Certainly retrograde by choice, but honestly, defying current musical trends and proud to wear socks with Birkenstocks. If only we had more of them around here.