Giuliodorme
Venere

There are records that go beyond their value. There are records that evoke winter afternoons, that have the scent of a cappuccino, that after just one note take you back in time to the afternoons spent studying Public Law and the Articles of the Constitution (at times like these, everyone should do a bit of that). There are records that even in twenty years you'll remember when you listened to them for the first time and when you bought them; there are records you know everything about... And there are records that know everything about you... "Venere" is one of Those Records.

Year 1998: a student fresh from high school graduation with a somewhat prophetic 37 is about to cross the thresholds of the University.... Political Science at the Cesare Alfieri Faculty of Florence (I wanted to do Dams in Bologna but that's another story.....). That year, that student, who would later be me, met some students from out of town who had just moved from Abruzzo, specifically Pescara and Mosciano S. Angelo (TE); of these two, one is particularly passionate about music and thus introduces him to a band, his fellow townsmen Giuliodorme, and their debut album, "Venere".  From the title you'd expect a tribute to ethereal beauty, atmospheric like Bat For Lashes... But there's nothing of that....

The record, on a minimalist and sufficiently distorted sound system, is a continuous cry of pain, a bloody wound that cannot be staunched, a cruel session of self-analysis, where there is much anger but also much – a great deal of – poetry. A record where absence, abandonment and loss reign; of love ("Certe notti ti sento sempre di più un rumore che assomiglia al vento ma che sembri tu che mi vieni a cercare che mi vieni a scordare ..Non sei tu.."), of reason ("Mi hai reso vecchio senza più forze la vista a nulla le gambe storte prima o poi tu mi farai impazzire"), of clarity ("Le colombe starlight” companions of a synthetic car journey); if betrayal is seen from the perspective of the betrayer "é colpa sua, la sua dolcezza, più forte del rimorso, molto più della mia volontà", the fear is that a love becomes habitual ("mi sento inutile che potrei essere per te un'abitudine come un rimpianto"); we then witness in an almost cinematic way the slow end of a story ("ma non eri tu che dicevi sai non ci sarà nessuno più nessuno te lo giuro...no parole che si dicono promesse che si fanno io muoio ancora e tu che stai facendo tu te ne stai fregando..no questo è morire"), but it is in "Nulla", a painful reckoning with our ego, that perhaps the emotional peak of the record is reached (the entire text is posted at the end). The only track that opens a path to optimism is the very much Beatlesque "Goodbye", which tells of a sincere and clear love between Nick and Maggie ("Maggie prima o poi tu vieni via con me e il resto è una bugia e il resto è colpa mia non torneremo mai").

This, in broad terms, is "Venere"; this is the record that throughout the university years kept me constant company, with which I shared my joys and sorrows, with which I shared many of the most significant moments of my life, as you do with a direct and sincere friend. I don't know if for Italian music it's a five-star record (the Giuliodorme were anyway in the circle of Silvestri and Gazzè who are not exactly newcomers), I just know that for me it's one of those records that if I were to be shipwrecked on a deserted island I would want with me. It might be the passage of time, it might be nostalgia, it might be memories.... Perhaps yes... But above all, there is a music and lyrics written with heart and sung with passion that, with every listen, continue to leave me with something new, to show me a detail I hadn't yet noticed.

NULLA

Vorrei poter sparire
non esser nato mai
spaziare come un'anima vagare
guardare il mondo stando attento
a non caderci su
ma sono un buono a nulla
questa è la verità
un cuore che si scolla
una natura morta
che nessuno appenderà
Nulla..
davanti e dietro me
il più profondo niente che c'è
Nulla
Guarda la mia faccia
cosa ci vedi su
un vuoto desolato senza braccia
il tempo che non cambia
ma che complica di più
Nulla...
davanti e dietro me
il più profondo niente che c'è
il vero inferno sai è non perdonarsi
Mai
vent'anni oppure cento
che differenza fa
si può morire e spegnersi vivendo
il vero inferno sai
è non perdonarsi
Mai