Julie's Haircut
After Dark, My Sweet

LA RECENSIONE

The man who writes on chocolate wrappers has declared that every sudden change in a woman's hairstyle signifies a transformation that goes beyond a renewed 'look'. A change conceived and matured over time.
I, although it might have nothing to do with it, add that the secret is female.

While the notes of "After Dark, My Sweet" float lightly through the smoke and bounce off the walls of my room, I think of Julie. Of who she was, who she is now, and I convince myself that something incredible must have happened to her, something I'll probably never know about.
It's as if she unearthed a chest of treasures buried underground, maybe ten steps from a tree.
Upon opening it, a beam of light filled with sensations and memories must have engulfed her, awakening bizarre synapses dormant from time, in a kind of hypnosis.

As I wonder what that box might contain, I fantasize: perhaps a postcard sent from the distant planet of the Shoescarves, with greetings from the spiritual Guru Peter 'Sonic Boom' Kember (Spacemen 3, Spectrum) and the promise to meet again "when we are both high" (Sister Pneumonia); a signed copy of Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler that, I am sure dear Julie, you can now recite by heart (Gemini Pt.1 & Pt.2, Death Machine), and an old VHS of "Cries and Whispers," directed by Ingmar Bergman, which you could watch continuously for days, reciting every line. A film that narrates, among other things, the complex relationship between two sisters (actresses Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin), here transposed into music with equally consanguine songs—related by a pulsing bassline, but 'characteristically' different: murky and entangled in a sticky wah-wah à la Dead Meadow the first (Liv Ullman); bright and vain, like the Gilmour-esque guitar dancing above, the second (Ingrid Thulin).
Then other purple-hued sound gems, accompanied by the grace of your movements and the absence of gravity.

This radio-guided journey into the unconscious of sweet and enigmatic Julie is, to put it simply, her masterpiece.
Psychedelia and rock. Sugary melodies, like mescaline gummies and few words. Because this time it's not her who has to explain, but it's me who will tread, step by step, into her new world, where a pair of raven-like eyes, full as if overflowing with bottles of ink, color black everything around her.
While she holds in her hands a magic box and her treasure, illuminated and illuminating, too precious to be buried once again under a meter of earth.

I've observed you well, Julie, and let me tell you, you look wonderful with your hair styled that way.