Deca
Synthetic Lips

Years ahead of its time, the album "Synthetic Lips" revolves around the themes of love and sex in the era of plastic surgery, the most outrageous transplants, and body modifications. It does so through symbolisms and allegories that rarely instrumental music has managed to impose with such strength and intensity.

Far from the anguishing and experimental atmospheres of more recent albums, the Ligurian Deca - alias Federico De Caroli - in 1987 released his second official album while staying true to his stylistic line of the time, namely a mix of electronics à la J.M. Jarre, synth-pop, and classical suggestions. Ideally divided into two parts (a very common occurrence in the era of vinyl), "Synthetic Lips" starts with the dark and martial atmospheres of "Tangram" and then unfolds into a raid of rhythms and basslines enriched by orgies of synthesizers, sampled choirs, and background noises not always sunny but nonetheless destined to paint an optimistic metaphor at least in memory.

Memory that roots itself in a world where Nature governed the destinies of men and where the myth of Frankenstein had not yet turned into daily reality. Memory that remains so and is overshadowed by a new order of experiences that render tangible the unstoppable desire to "improve" thanks to science.

The long mechanical dance of "Aliena lips" introduces us to the transition between science fiction and History, with a first marked reference to the logic of silicone that nowadays spreads across all social strata; but in 1987 was still seen from a distance (and often with suspicion). Here Deca makes no secret of his youthful musical inspirations and follows in the footsteps of Jarric Oxygene with a clear verbal homage (the track "Hydrogene") and the sound choices of tracks like the aforesaid "Aliena lips" and "Neon glory"... which at the time was also the theme song of a sports program.

In the second part, which gradually fades towards a pessimistic future devoted to the split between emotion-passion and aesthetic aspirations, the atmospheres become more personal and the symbolic references more marked. After the moving beginning of "The crab," the synth-pop twist of "A juicy body" and the anxious music box of "Tecnomate," a splendid metaphor of sex in the virtual era (how forward-thinking was it?...) Then the slow breath of "This solitude" on the inevitable consequence of the absence of true human contact and then the satire on the commercialization of passion, namely "Hard-Expo": a piece halfway between funk, prog, and pre-packaged music, with an electric guitar insertion that remains unique in Deca’s discography.

To close the album, the beautiful "Death of sex," a melancholic twilight vision on the end of Love as such and the union between sentiment and physicality. A vibrant and romantic manifesto that disillusions from any possibility of redemption and clearly transmits the sense of discomfort inspired by the manipulation of the body seen as the material bridge of emotional communication.

Unequal in form and content, "Synthetic Lips" aligns with the tastes of the times (the late '80s) in sounds and rhythms, but in themes foresees what would become one of the focal points of human life from the late '90s, when cosmetic surgery and transplants of entire body parts began to be everyday occurrences.

Still underrated precisely in its allegorical value, it remains a shadowed chapter in Deca’s long career. For me, a musically sufficient album, superlative in communication.