Offlaga Disco Pax
Socialismo Tascabile (Prove Tecniche Di Trasmissione)

OFFLAGADISCOPAX - POCKET SOCIALISM
or "small stories of synthetic irony"

In Italy, the cliché is all too entrenched that avant-garde, alternative, and non-alternative movements from abroad (often too frequently from the USA) arrive here late or in a "pathetic" version, which copies, hints, and awkwardly Italianizes the specific traits of foreign artists. Talking about well-known or less famous songwriters, it might make us smile to recognize in Renato Zero the Italian David Bowie, in De Gregori our own Bob Dylan, in Faust'o the Ultravox, and turning towards a more television-oriented panorama (if I say mediocre, I might be accused of snobbery), we find in Iva Zanicchi the Tina Turner of the Po Valley*, in the Finley the Green Day of Hitlist Italia, Gazosa were the Hanson made in Caterina Caselli, and again in Ligabue some trace the "poor man's" Bruce Springsteen.
Unfortunately, I know less about the indie scene of the peninsula, but surely there are examples. However, I want to believe that this process is more fluid and is situated in a context of references or inspirations more than awkward imitation. Hence, from the Emilia underground, emerges this OfflagaDiscoPax, three guys who in 2005 present, mainly through the propaganda of the blogosphere (another phenomenon that deserves an accurate analysis as a new form of widespread and democratic marketing), their debut album "Pocket Socialism". The essentially original feature of their music lies in combining electro, new wave music, sometimes kraut, with lyrics that are not sung but rather recited. In this characteristic, unfortunately, also lies the limitation of their music, which in the long term might seem monotonous and rather rigid. However, this flaw is compensated for by the quality of the lyrics, which, although they can be contextualized in the Italian left of the '70s, totally distance themselves from the blind and fanatical militancy of Modena City Ramblers, Punkreas, and similar, swinging between poetic irony ("Cinnamon", "Tatranky"), school memories set in imaginative and never rhetorical '80s ("Kappler", "Robespierre"), and criticism - perhaps self-criticism? - towards the typical snobbery of the arty alternative blogger ("Tono Metallico Standard"). In my opinion, the recitative style of the voice leaves no doubt about the ironic drive of certain texts or the nostalgia akin to Proustian epiphany of others ("Khmer Rossa"), just as the beats and keyboard quality leave no doubt about the foreign reference points, mainly Kraftwerk (some anti-melodic cues remind me of "Showroom Dummies"), or Italian ones (CCCP for instance), to which the synthetic textures of guitar and bass lend an entirely original breath.

The listening of these "technical tests of transmission" is first of all advisable in small doses, paying attention to the lyrics, to the stories, more than to the melodic cues, and finally, it is suitable for those who, like me, are prejudiced against certain independent groups around which a certain internet and left-leaning hype revolves.

from "Tono Metallico Standard"

"I hear a beautiful song and I ask him who is singing. With his usual face, he responds with his standard metallic tone and resign notes: -it's Mark Lanegan-, then a flash of life rekindles from his lofty and disconnected thoughts and he tells me resolutely: -I don't think you know him: he was the singer of the Screaming Trees-.
Now I understand: my ordinary appearance conveys deplorable tastes to him. But I know who Mark Lanegan is, arrogant shopkeeper unworthy of the stuff you sell here, alternative of my balls that when I listened to the Dead Kennedys, you weren't even jerking off. I'm leaving, I'm leaving, and I hate him"

*for some of these exceptional comparisons, thanks to Francesco B.