Messer Chups
Crazy Price

The Messer Chups are some crazy folks from Saint Petersburg who might make some people wonder if it wasn't really better when the Iron Curtain was still up, as those nostalgic Bolsheviks claim—we could at least keep these guys in line. Now look at all the havoc with all this freedom. We now have to hear and see young Russian guys freely drawing handfuls from the very western culture they used to despise, specifically from the source of every joy and trouble, namely the American musical and especially cinematic one.

The Messer Chups create a mashup, a stew, of so many things, especially vintage subculture. What does that mean? It means they turn back the clock by several decades and cut/sew thanks to sampling, synths, and instruments in a continuous and swirling blend of sound references.

The static base, the anchor upon which they develop almost everything, is that of Surf. The drums and many guitar riffs clearly refer to beautiful 1950s California, more to the legendary Dick Dale than the Beach Boys. However, starting from these solid foundations, they build something completely different, borrowing from pop culture and, as mentioned, a lot of B-movie cinema, from old Universal-inspired horror films (especially iconographically) to all that 60s and 70s sound cinema which also a certain Tarantino has drawn from musically and visually. Western snapshots, improbable chases in Blaxploitation style, erotica à la Russ Meyer, Wuxiapian, and lastly—but not least—our "polizziotteschi" and Cannibal Movies.

In this landscape where cinema reigns supreme, excursions into jazz and circus music should not be forgotten (more akin to early Mr. Bungle than Kusturica's gypsy music as you might think). I won’t list the songs that alternate between authentically brilliant episodes and others more "forced".

It's a game that in the long run might tire those not willing to engage every 30 seconds, but as long as it lasts, it’s a really fun game. Fresh, ironic, entertaining, perfect for your weird evenings with friends. Sipping a Martini while an old movie with Pam Grier or "The Diaphanoids Come from Mars" plays on TV. Those with a penchant for genre cinema might appreciate even more the irony of these children of Stalin... for everyone else, there’s only the usual distant hope: "ha dà venì baffone!"