C.S.I.
Ko de Mondo

From No Future to Finis Terrae

With the emblematic name change (from CCCP-Fedeli Alla Linea to CSI), the formation of Massimo Zamboni, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, and the ex-Litfiba members Gianni Maroccolo (already working on "Epica Etica Etnica Pathos," the last chapter of the most important avant-garde punk group in Italy), Francesco Magnelli, and Giorgio Canali (Ringo De Palma, briefly a member, would prematurely pass away) seems to want to "underline" a kind of acknowledgment: always sensitive to the geopolitical setting of the world, and the human dimensions it encompasses, it seems to record the traumatic disintegration of the USSR (in Slavic language, CCCP) and the transition to the name Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti, it seems almost a pretext to continue a game of assonance ("CSI" is also the name of post-Soviet Russia).

Millenarian and alchemical from the title, the album musically aligns along a line of continuity with the aforementioned last work of the CCCP, but with more composure, reflectivity, introspection, more focused on the dimension of individual existence than in the past, electric guitars, hypnotic percussion, especially in the splendid opening "A Tratti," and in the post-modern "Celluloide," moments even more static, almost immobile, but whether it's a calm that is only apparent is a suspicion that surfaces.

Summarizing, if the poetic talent of G.L Ferretti is indisputable, (one could talk of post-punk songwriting) and this debut work is globally a perfect confirmation of it, the individual moments of what seems to find cohesion in an almost "concept" architecture should be examined more in detail.

"A Tratti," with its percussive and repetitive pace, the electric guitar loops, and the final explosion, implies a world seen in a minimalist perspective, focused on details "stronger than necessary", almost as if the part signifies the whole, a characteristic sign of the existential disintegration that characterizes the contemporary age. The key verse "a sleepy blink encompasses existence" and the refrain with Lindo Ferretti's shamanic voice "what to do not do when where why and remembering that everything goes as it goes but it doesn't go it doesn't go it doesn't go" is subtly (for now) but extremely unsettling; the anti-political and pseudo-individualistic finale (don't make me an idol I'll burn myself, what to do not do I don't know when where and why is only about me) seems to hold questions without answers, destinies destined to remain confined in the soul of the narrator (besides Lou Reed, Ian Curtis can also be heard quite a bit). "Palpitazione Tenue," on the other hand, is entirely autobiographical. G.L. Ferretti has declared himself to be extremely attached to this song, but in the album's economy, it sounds like a minor episode. Not too successful, to be honest (welcome to disputes). I don't like words such as "hallucinated dry, but it wasn't anchored and flew away." The subsequent "Celluloide" is a stunning idea of filmic "cut and paste", the speed is cranked up to the maximum, the guitars are harsh and corrosive, the text is a succession of film titles "gone with the wind the wind of the steppe dances with wolves..." interrupted by the punk-style shouted refrain "there is so much to learn," but the thematic line doesn't break: in a shattered social identity, in a disintegrated geopolitical scenario, with a terrifying and hidden war at the gates, G.L Ferretti's scream seems more a cry of existential pain than an insult for its own sake in the manner of the Sex Pistols.

"Del Mondo," in an ancient legend key, fairy-tale-like, but with an extremely bitter finale, symbolically tells of humanity's decay, it tends to look beyond the hedge to glimpse the profile of the abyss. But (personal opinion) although chosen as a lead single, it does not fully convince. The subsequent "Home Sweet Home" is instead astonishing: on a hard-rock riff like Deep Purple's, unfolds one of the best lyrics of the album: "to walk, I prefer the moorland at dawn, the rain beats on my steps and comforts them", symbolist poetry (like G. Pascoli), and refrain in English, not the most important song, but a truly fresh and original autobiographical-poetic excursus.

The millenarian and eschatological breath feels in "Occidente" and "Memorie di Una Testa Tagliata."

The first sums up the leitmotif of the entire work ("a place from which no sound comes, a place now lost"), the second, with a gentle, arpeggiated, caressing pace, is an explicit reference to the Balkan tragedy, its atrocities, an inexpressible horror, but which the Poet desperately tries to narrate (the attempt to imagine the line between life and death brings to mind the memory of "Ballad des Pendues" by George Brassens, taken up in the "Ballata degli Impiccati" by Fabrizio de André).

But the lyrical and musical peak is reached with "Finisterre": the title refers to the name of a place in Provence, but the double meaning is all too clear: "FinisTerre = Finis Terrae," meaning "End of the World": apocalyptic in verses and music, hammering in rhythm, lashing in guitar riffs, with the psalmodizing voice of Giovanni Lindo Ferretti: "annus horribilis in decade malefica obscene and cowardly dripping with blood and void of promises already written and lost," and again "the sky is a fragile shield, the dark side is advancing" the Void, no "horror vacui" but horror pure and simple, panic-inducing fear, dramatized in scorching rock and piercing verses.

After such a hurricane, calm and a more serene form of poetry is found: the instrumental-vocal interlude (the voice is by Ginevra di Marco) "La Lune du Prajou," and then "In Viaggio" (Ferretti himself would reveal he had thought several times of excluding it from the album) is a beautiful sequence of naturalistic-human images, on the theme of movement "the dust travels, the wind travels, the spring water travels" and the conclusion is entrusted to the verses "the travelers travel, the losers travel, better suited to the changes."

The closure of this five-star work is entrusted to a perhaps minor piece, but soothing: "Fuochi nella notte di San Giovanni." A tribal dance, almost an act of hope and an invocation of newfound humanity through contact with nature.

I might hazard, (although the dispute has already occurred) a parallelism: where similar forewarnings are detonated by the post-industrial-death rhythms of Fear Factory, by the noise-core-rap of Rage Against The Machine (but still in a politicized key, of supreme denunciation of a World on the margins), the CSI do not invoke the "Resurrection in Oppression" ("Rise Above Oppression") nor the trace of a firebomb ("Bombtrack"), their discourse starts from the punk matrix common to all these experiences (the mentioned ones are USA) but is placed on a different plane.

"Ko De Mondo" records spiritually the seismic shocks of the contemporary world, with extreme sensitivity, it captures the collapses, the fractures, and the tears of existence and entrusts Poetry with the attempt of a, albeit momentary, reconstruction.

"Beauty will save the World."

Who knows. For now, we can say that these are the CSI. And that is not at all insignificant.