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@puntini, I listened to your excellent link, thank you. I'm a bit at a loss with the connection between that Hip Hop and what Shabazz Palaces do, particularly in terms of the sounds used. Shabazz seems to have a different kind of "beats," maybe more ambient. Correct me if I'm wrong, perhaps when you say abstract hip hop, you're referring specifically to the lyrics?

I'm really sorry that CDs like this aren't being commented on and listened to on Debaser. The comments on your review unfortunately don't give the right weight to the excellent proposal you've made. Wake up, this is truly original stuff! I believe this genre is an absolute novelty, the result of an open mind that doesn't want to remain in the narrow confines of "hip hop" but contaminates and creates atmospheres that can be quite dark at times and turns abstract poetry even into that type of music that is generally associated with big cars, chains, and pseudo-social protest. Trust me, it's really a great album.

when in a review at some point it starts with "...but let's see why"...I feel like I'm on the news. "let's go to the segment". There's another thing I would like to say about "the alienation of young people" but my eyelid dropped about halfway through.

I find it a bit difficult to place Bacharach in the "pop" that you define as white and untainted by the blues. In reality, Bacharach has had interpreters in the blues and in black music in general; even the writing of his most famous songs is rooted in a traditional and exquisite base of contaminated American music. He is a composer and an artist who draws heavily from the past of black music, as you yourself later state he loved jazz very much. In any case, I appreciate the "historical" angle you’ve given to the review.

@dragosauro. I like Nirvana's In Utero and I like Coldplay's Viva La Vida. Not to mention Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, the latest Talk Talk, Brian Eno, but overall I also really like all of the first Sergio Caputo, the one from Italiani Mambo and Ho l'Hobby del Sassofono. I love 40s jazz but I don't mind industrial from the David Tibet period, I like Chopin and I find AC/DC to be fantastic. Crises by Mike Oldfield moves me, but so does Nothing Else Matters. I don't know what to say about taking a taste or a single musical period and putting it on a pedestal: it's probably nonsense.

hooray for diktats, hooray for "commercial" records, do you remember commercial dance? but what does "radical chic" mean? I remind you that the last time I heard this word was when Anna Tatangelo referred to Elio like that... I suggest replacing the word "radical" with "ass". It's better to use the expression "ass chic" when you want to label something without meaning.

I just bought the album "The Earth Is Not a Cold Place" yesterday (what a coincidence). It's a gem, starting from the cover, moving on to the truly intense and extremely evocative way it sounds. I will also listen to this latest one. It's a bit reductive to lash out at these bands trying to propose something experimental, especially because to destroy them with a comment, you need to know them and understand what they're offering. To those waving the "90s rock" flag and reminiscing about the good old days of grunge or pulling out Nine Inch Nails: I can understand your nostalgia, but have you noticed that 20 years have passed? And now, a grunge album or yet another photocopy of "Black Old Sun" is really a pain in the ass. There isn't a single cover band that doesn't play that stuff at fairs and in pubs... but in the rest of the world, it's not like that... You can't mosh forever; after a while, even that gets boring. Talking about this band, I like the influences it has and the mix it proposes; for years, I searched for music that aimed primarily at creating atmospheres, and now finally, a lot of English and American music has specialized in this sense: shoegaze + ambient. Better this way... but I know that now someone will pull the early Smashing Pumpkins albums out of the grave...

always very delicate. Excellent review. Of course, producing albums like this for years isn’t easy unless you change a few notes every now and then. Perhaps a bit of the "sense of mystery" fades away. However, there’s a beautiful interplay of acoustic and classical elements, well played. One thing I really can’t stand about certain indie folk that is recognizable in these American bands is the reverb effect on the vocals, which tends to flatten and overshadow singers who aren’t exactly impressive. I’ll give two examples that I liked a lot, even though they’re more indie pop: Jim James of My Morning Jacket, who has made reverb his trademark, but his voice is remarkable in that case, and the other example is Band of Horses, where, thanks to the quality of the singer, there wouldn’t be a need for reverb; nevertheless, they are two fascinating examples. In contrast, in these bands, the voice is just barely sufficient in my opinion and way too reverberated.

I just found out that the artist in question was born in 1987...no way!!

I am really very interested in these acoustic and slightly ambient proposals. The cover is a masterpiece. A wonderful review, very helpful to get to know the artist about whom I knew nothing.