Mouse On The Keys
An Anxious Object

Under a sun that dries up the veins, dries the blood, and withers even the thoughts, I forced myself to resist, to unleash a bit of healthy masochism, and to emerge from the absence of urges and passions. It happens to me rarely, and when it does, I try to revitalize myself immediately. As usual, I avoid going one by one in describing the album and starting by telling you that this album was released in 2009 because otherwise, the review would suck, it would be too adherent to what the work of the Japanese expresses, and it wouldn't even excite me, who actually suffered while listening. Of adherent, at most, I could talk to you about the French thigh-highs that at one point came to mind, which encased two perfect converging lines into a carnivorous female sexual organ, but that would be too much and entirely personal. So, let's see where the middle ground virtue lies.

The desert of stimuli, in any case, literally laid me out on the couch last night only to make me grab the wretched remote, randomly press a button, and lead myself to self-loathing on one side and on Rai3 on the other. Mr. Calabresi, author of the book "Luck doesn't exist," which I recently found abandoned in a hotel and read with great disinterest, hosts a show that I expected to find in Rai 3's schedule, in light of the electoral successes achieved by the center-left in the administrative elections. It is a populist program that tries to ride the wave and sell the brand Italy as a proud, ascending country, proud of its being, civilly, ecologically correct, with sustainable behavior. It almost seems like a civic education 3.0 lesson, yet, the media clique that claims to be gagged dishes out the same treatment as Mr. Silvio, with the same means but changing the content. The Italian makes me more and more disgusted, a perfect echo of the Westerner, the consumerist. For this reason, the only being I appreciated during the broadcast was the Japanese cook (and consumerist) who came to Italy to steal our job. As an Italian chef pointed out, the Japanese are precise and seek taste. That guy, who spoke a lousy Italian, or perhaps a good one since he's been here for six months, well, in six months, he first became a traditional cuisine chef and then a pizzaiolo! And I bet he makes a divine pizza. Of the discourse of Italy beloved by foreigners, I cared even less, but of the discourse of Japanese who care about the raw materials to combine to do great things, in respect of the same, well, there I find myself completely enveloped in an emulsion of stimulus and interest. And here comes the link. Mental, obviously.

These Japs, these almond-eyed ones who always say yes with a smile and genuflect in respect, are truly great. Starting from the EP Sezession, they show right from the title of their first work to be somewhat like those artists who become classic but are fed up with respecting age-old rules and dogmatic traditions. Sezession, as a title, recalls the Viennese Secession of 1897: ignorant in the matter, have a look here. Then comes this anxious object, the musical rhythms resemble those of a soul pierced by many question marks and held up by few fixed points. The greatest that I found is that these people really know how to play well. And more than just canons, they seem to be made of cannons, for how they enjoy turning jazz towards improper shores. But it isn't so. After the one about the private parts and this about the cannons, I should cut off my hands. I don't delete them only to expose myself to public ridicule. Adelante.

The MOTK are three, two play keyboards/piano, the other decides on drums which blows of life to grant or of which death to die. The rhythmic base of the album is always spectacularly dominated by the little man behind the skins who dictates jazz rhythms, post-rock and at times takes the paths of math. After all, his last name is Kawasaki, and he couldn't help but go wild. The soundscapes that are created are truly very interesting, misleading, baffling. The other side of the coin, however, says that the "where the hell have I ended up" effect lasts little: each track, after catching you by surprise, then grabs you by the scruff and submerges your head in the water. In practice, you find yourself immersed in these other people's moods and you have to make them yours out of necessity: forced or not, it's an osmosis to which the listener can only offer his most yielding and pliable, easily anesthetized profile.

As they say, there is nihilism experienced as a human sentiment, and thus the abstraction of the concept takes shape in a human vision, and hence also warmth. There is the discomfort that is not a projection of oneself outward, almost to seek exonerations, but a series of questions that press inside. There is a lot of fog and a lot of vivacity. When you feel bad, you produce great effects inside. You should take note and it seems that the Japanese have done this. Except then putting themselves in the studio, reasoning, rewriting, optimizing, taking musical material from other lands, and reconstructing it in its most original and heartfelt form.

Kawasaki & co respect the music, respect their own instabilities, and send you to make Beelzebub's charcoal having first placed you before the synoptic table of your failures, your ills, and your little neuroses.

An exciting album, suitable for everyone except those who follow the vile masses, today in migration toward Rai Tre's polite and conformist programs.