zaireeka

The influence of Tom Waits on this album is primarily in the themes and lyrics, although certain ballads may also recall, in their musical structure, some elements of Bone Machine (see Sick Of Goodbye vs I Don't Wanna Grow Up). An interesting tidbit: it seems that Tom and Mark have developed a friendship, as both are fanatic enthusiasts and collectors of vintage keyboards (after all, their latest albums are full of them). What can I say? Blessed are they!

It's a Wonderful Life is definitely a great album (I was lucky enough to see them, or rather see him, live at the Horus in Rome). Aside from the following flaws: 1) The excessive production (which is handled by the wizard Dave Fridman), which is at the heart of the charm of the sound reconstruction (the old gramophone sound in Babies on the Sun is beautiful), causes everything to lose a bit of spontaneity compared to the previous albums. 2) The participation of Tom Waits (of whom I am an avid fan) is really (and I am being generous) disappointing. 3) There’s a part where the album slows down a bit too much (around the 4th/5th track).

In my opinion, there are quite a few people on DeBaser who really know how to wield a pen. The first part of the review reminds me a lot in style of the book by V. Capossela. I appreciate this approach to letting the imagination run wild in describing even the simplest and most mundane things.

It's nice that De-Baser, besides being a site for exchanging music reviews, can become a platform for exchanging general culture, in this case historical (considering what is shown on the Big Brother television, and I'm not referring to the reality show). I didn't know about the Paternò matter. However, I can tell you that it seems it was at his court that Italian as a language first began to take shape, with the dream of making Italy a single nation 800 years before it actually happened (as long as it lasts), and one of the experiments he liked to conduct involved isolating children in rooms at Castel Del Monte (no one could speak to or communicate with them) to investigate the possible existence of an ancestral language inherent in humans (the children clearly did not fare well, especially from a psychological standpoint...).

Thank you so much vainly, truly

As for how to listen to it, like all things in life, if you really want something, you can get it (the only problem is the price, but unfortunately as a fan, I had to make sacrifices). I don’t have four stereo systems at home, especially not in the same room. I managed as follows: a) CD1 on the main stereo system b) CD2 on my portable radio c) CD3 on a walkman with speakers taken from my PC d) CD4 on a radio borrowed from a friend. To conclude, I like to think that the reason record companies put out so much garbage meant only for selling is precisely to afford to publish stuff like Zaireeka, which only those who truly want to find something out of the ordinary rush to buy.

To understand the FL, one must grasp that everything they do stems from the fusion of death and madness/carefree (but also curious) childhood. If this is not understood, there is a risk of judging them and their followers simply as stoners, if not worse (in truth, Steven Drozd has indeed indulged in a bit of LSD, but Coyne, strange as it may seem, never has).
That said, some more about Zaireeka:
According to Coyne in the booklet, Zaireeka (whose project originated from the Parking Lot Experiments, a sort of crazy drive-in where, under Coyne's direction, each occupant of a car played, preferably in sync, a cassette with music arranged in a specific way, sounds, and frequencies) is born from the union of the words Zaire and Eureka, to emphasize the fusion of chaos and creative moments. By his own admission, even the FL didn’t really know what they wanted to achieve at the beginning of the project; they had only established what the father (chaos) and mother (creativity) of the newborn should be…
The unique aspect of Zaireeka is that each performance of each individual track is practically unique, as it is virtually impossible to reproduce the whole thing in the same way twice in a row (also based on the quality of the 4 CD players used and their ability to maintain synchronization). Thus, the listener becomes a truly active part rather than a passive one in the experience. In a certain sense, it is the listener who "plays" Zaireeka.

Go listen to Moth in the Incubator from Transmission From the Satellite Hearth, a track that I believe encapsulates their entire approach to music. A melody and a mournful vocal at the beginning, an interlude of detachment, and finally an explosion into a circus-psychedelic frenzy at the end. When I listen to it, I imagine someone who has just discovered death (perhaps a child who still thought he was immortal) or someone who has been touched by the "Black Lady" (and Coyne, it seems, has indeed been touched by the "Black Lady," considering he was once nearly taken out by someone as crazy as he was, but with a gun in hand, while earning a living working in a restaurant in Oklahoma). And who reacts by getting drunk on life and madness.

So let’s put it this way. I think I’m one of the fans (unfortunately not many, since apparently there isn’t even an Italian website dedicated to them, while the huge "Blue" probably has one...) of a rather crazy and uninhibited band whose best description might be: clowns obsessed with death led by a completely out-of-his-mind adult-child. This often results in them releasing stuff that to most might seem bizarre, dissonant (the people I try to get to listen to FL usually, fortunately not always, are horrified by Coyne's voice after two seconds of listening, but you know, people are more allergic to peculiar and "out of tune" things than to grasses, given how homogenized we’ve all become) and completely devoid of meaning.

I’ll try to clarify in installments a few more things about Zaireeka (I have a pretty long comment and I have the impression that it won’t be possible to send it all at once).