Rockfour
Another Beginning

On average, three or four times a year, I make my appearance in a well-known Milanese store of second-hand records and CDs, a now rare location that, besides relaxing me, puts an instinct to work not unlike my sexual approach: the manager knows these habits and kindly provides me with a ladder and a packet of wet wipes, a condition suitable to overturn the store inside out, in relatively short times and with animalistic fury. Vinyl dust up to my elbows.

Not disdaining the CD format, in this case, the whole ceremonial is reduced to a manual rustling in maximum comfort, halfway between the classic office station and an expert blowjob from head on the pillow, possibly with eyes closed while touch and taste do their duty. And thus, occasionally removing a little cellophane panty to unveil its interior, these covers invite to an intercourse with references immediately decoded by my brain, led to the cashier, and tucked into their respective cases in the backroom, forming a little pile that I often take away for ridiculous prices.

It’s impossible, therefore, not to consider an Israeli quartet equipped with irresistible vintage gear: Moog, Hammond, and Mellotron, in addition to photo shots where the classic silhouette of a Rickenbacker Bass stands out and a more blurred 12-string of the same brand. How much tickling on the first listen, how many laughs pulled fishing my weak points, how much sniffing with attention when listening again, with highlights already prepared and astonishment turned into certainty. By the third round, I could only abandon myself to that sublime melting pot multifaceted to rival the Venetian Mardi Gras, with all the display of trappings in the arcane game of seduction.

The record would deserve a track-by-track which I spare you, instead bending towards entirely different observations due to the total absence of info in Italian about the band, even online.

Active since the early '90s in their Tel Aviv and initially focused only on the local market, they record a handful of albums in Hebrew before the turn at the end of the millennium, with a sound extremely evolved towards a Power Pop with distinctly backward references, which only needed the transition of the singing to English to gain international appeal. Between 2000 and 2001, two studio albums came out in quick succession, Supermarket and One Fantastic Day, whose limited distribution didn’t deny them the possibility of a mini American tour, proving to be an unexpected success to the point of returning home with a contract and related worldwide distribution.

And so Another Beginning narrates itself from the title, being nothing but a condensation of Supermarket and One Fantastic Day, with two unreleased tracks inserted for the occasion: a very precious help to immerse in a Retro dimension arrives both from the added keyboardist Noam Rapaport and from the vintage instrument collector Zohar Cohen, very happy to lend them his Mellotron 400 and even a recent purchase, a rare all-black MK II specimen, which belonged to Richard Wright and used only in the studio to create masterpieces like Set The Controls.... and Sisyphus, unused for years before the restoration and subsequent journey towards the new Middle Eastern home.

The first sound, as soon as play is pressed, is precisely that dissonance of Mellotron String introducing Government, with its vocal refrain in full Rubber Soul tradition, not sparing muffled mikes, Rickenbacker jangles, and studio effects sprinkled on top, where not only the imagination unfolds a kaleidoscopic Proto Prog-Psych reference, but also the authentic specters of Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, The Gods, Zombies, Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, Art, Eyes Of Blue and generally all that strictly vintage 1967/68/69 English Psychedelic Pop emerge.

Retro yes, but so to speak: the band possesses an amazing songwriting gift that annihilates the contemporary BritPop movement like glass marbles against speckled plastic soldiers, reaching out a hand to only a couple of Made in USA examples, Jellyfish, and Lilys, guilty only of emerging amid the Grunge delusion about twenty years ago. Even the best Byrds, those pre-Gram Parsons, peek in the extraordinary Oranges, with its refrain so contagious with its call-and-response screams. Where more atmosphere is sought, masterpieces are assured, thanks to vocal harmonies that put Oasis and the late Beady Eye, but also Coldplay, in black despair: President Of Me and Wild Animals are classic examples of Too Good For The Masses, while Superman is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of the start of the millennium, as far as I'm concerned, vocal harmonies, arrangement, everything perfect, and that mellotron always slipping in at the right moment... I'm sure the poor Rick Wright could only applaud... his old monster ended up in excellent hands!

Enthusiasm rarely sparked for me in the last dozen years of new listens, but I’m glad to be the first idiot to cover this marvel in Italy. In the meantime, the band is alive and kicking and constantly evolving, on YouTube, despite the few views, there’s also She's Full Of Fears, a true Prog Masterpiece, a sign of an omnipotence that no longer surprises me. Even in Israel, they are musically better off than us.