Jason Molina & Bachi Da Pietra
Live @ Interzona, Verona 05.04.08

THE REVIEW

It's four in the morning, and my confused state due to alcohol and fatigue might not be the best for describing what we witnessed... but this is what the convent provides.

Let’s start with the cold hard facts. Almost six hundred kilometers for about an hour and ten minutes of show. A Fender amplifier from which the notes of Molina's Jaguar emerged, which for a good half-hour of the concert threw a fit, crackling incessantly, much to the apparent displeasure of Jason and the (poorly) concealed annoyance of the attendees.

With these premises, the evening's report might seem largely insufficient... but (there’s always a but) upon exiting the Interzona the taste in my mind is one of the good ones... the kind left in your mouth by a good barrel-aged wine or an excellently aged rum. It was not the amplifier causing the issues, but rather one of the pedals connected in a cascade, which, once isolated, allowed it to perform its duty excellently.

The music...? Well, honestly, a hybrid mix of the syncopations of Bachi Da Pietra in excellent form and an unusual sonic noise put forth by the sprite from Lake Erie, who alternated his vocal melodies with the dragged-out litanies of Giambeppe Succi, with the drums (snare, floor tom, and ride...!!!) brushed and struck by Bruno Dorella as the connecting thread... all without a moment's pause, as if the "songs" were meant to merge into a single, splendid chiaroscuro of about 70 minutes; a perfect fusion of components seemingly irreconcilable with one another, much like Coca Cola and Pampero 11 anos appear irreconcilable when taken individually. "It seemed like krautrock" Fabio tells me, barely looking at me as the trio waves goodbye to the audience while leaving the stage amidst a warm and heartfelt applause, which had matured without release throughout the show. "True" I think or perhaps I say, it really seemed like one of those crazy mixes that were born in Bavaria or between Bremen and Hamburg in the early seventies, that central European taste for hybrid experimentation but with a soft and sinuous Latin soul and a strong and melancholic Anglo-Saxon spirit giving the show an even more whirlwind interpretation.

It's half past four, and maybe it's time to go to sleep, with the right awareness that in another moment and/or psycho-physical state I wouldn’t know how to better express all this, closing with a thank you to Jason Molina and Bachi Da Pietra for gifting me this emotion.