Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti
Tabula rasa elettrificata

It feels strange to write this review at such a time. Some memories almost seem like a utopia because today they would no longer be possible. Not even probable. It's the story of a young Martello with a young girl whose name I cannot reveal, so I will call her... Erbetta, the mocking surname I gave her when talking with some gossiping girlfriends and an album that had little to do with our destination. But it kept my brain company during those days.

The summer of 2015 was unexpectedly one of the most beautiful of my life: in January, I had turned 18; I could finally go to school in the little yellow car that couldn't be any brighter, leaving the used Ape Piaggio behind forever and drinking all the world's alcoholic crap—in other words, the classic things to do right after turning 18. It was a period of new discoveries that I learned to control, thanks to my friends who had all been of age for a while, so I often ended up looking like the rookie. Around mid-August, Erbetta would also turn the fateful 18 years old, and for this small major event, I made an incredible gift for both of us, saving money for a year and a half: a 3-week trip to Japan, a cherished destination for both of us since we were kids. The departure was on August 17 from Fiumicino Airport, about 15 hours of flight. The flight went like this: seats next to each other, her watching the anime she had downloaded and stored on her phone, me browsing through an old mp3 player (sigh). Inside, I found old glories from the past that I listened to with immense joy: in the end, I spent 7 out of the 15 hours listening to Tabula Rasa Elettrificata, which is inexplicable to me. I was absolutely not in the mood for that granite rock with more than an eye on Mongolia. Still, today, it's unknown to me how my unconscious linked T.R.E with the moment I was living then and with the coveted destination. We arrived at 3 PM at Japan's most important airport, Narita. Immediately, emotion: to travel around the island, I found a small car just like the one from my childhood. Erbetta was furious, I was in tears.

We stayed in the burning Saitama, the name of the protagonist of a manga she was madly in love with, which had not yet arrived in Italy and which I much later watched and loved. The days went by marked by travel and untamed curiosity: we were both fascinated by this astonishing culture in constant evolution, the cities were as far as they could get from the European imagination. And in travels from one city to another, Tabula Rasa Elettrificata played inside the car: an archaic sense pervaded those hours, it almost seemed as if Tabula Rasa had been inspired by Japan. I felt that sacrality that pervaded the track Ongii blend with that territory, it was something magical and inexplicable.

The most touching moment was the visit to Hiroshima: seeing those destroyed buildings, those ravaged streets was like looking war and death in the face. I found myself mesmerized for 6 minutes staring at the ruins with Bolormaa in my ears: "monito terrorista, che la retta è per chi ha fretta." A unique moment in my life, where for the first time, I confronted the real world with extreme maturity, the one where men disastrously kill other men. As the wheel of fortune in tarot illustrates, progress brings decay as decay brings progress.

The highlights of this trip, however, did not end here: we spent a night in a tent in a park with some Italian tourists, I had a drinking contest with a Japanese person (which, unsurprisingly, I won), we both tried Wasabi for the first time, and immediately after, we were both dying, and finally... well... you can only imagine...

The three weeks passed quickly, September had already begun, and summer began to eclipse behind the thermometers, which day by day fell lower and lower. The return to holy Italy went happily well, the 16 hours passed between a song and an anime. And my mind began to wander: why did T.R.E characterize this trip so much? Hours-long journeys spent listening to the various Matrilineare, M'importa na sega, Forma e sostanza, and particularly Unità di produzione—how could they be remotely correlated to Japan? Erbetta, who endured this album for hours, tried to voice her opinion: "For me, your unconscious correlated the archaic sense of T.R.E with the modernity and evolution of Japan, almost as if you were admiring the future with a look towards the past." I both agreed and disagreed. And even today, I ponder over this matter. One thing is certain, however: when talking about Tabula Rasa Elettrificata, I link it to Japan and not Mongolia.

And perhaps there is no reason. It simply happened. Whether by chance or according to a plan, it doesn't matter. What must happen, happens.