Templebeat
Wargasm

THE REVIEW

Second work by the duo Giorgio Ricci (keyboards, sampler) - Michele Benetello (vocals), following their self-produced vinyl debut "Auto Da Fe".

In this case, the new act from Treviso (a development hub in the North East for electro-beat-ebm sounds) releases this mini CD for the label Contempo (recent destination of Clock DVA, as well as other experimental bands like Black Rose), benefiting from the production of Paolo Favati of the Pankow, historic Florentine band of Italian Electronic Body Music, as well as a link between the "new scene" electro of the North East and the Italian New Wave (absolute center in the Florence of the '80s: bands like Diaframma, Underground Life, Gaznevada, Neon, Rinf, Moda, Litfiba, Detonazione...).

The aesthetic profile that this mini-CD assumes quite clearly recalls a certain "Eraserhead" aesthetic, and the literary imagery of Cyberpunk (the Trilogy by William Gibson "Neuromancer", "Count Zero", "Mona Lisa Overdrive"), as well as the conceptual avant-garde in the musical field of recent decades. While in "Auto Da Fe" the stylistic reference limits were the EBM of Daf and various epigones (Front Line Assembly and projects by Dirk Ivens like Block 57 and Dive) and the European New Wave of Joy Division (cover of "She's Lost Control" in the first mini-LP), now it seems that, besides a tangible artistic and compositional maturation (translating into an enrichment of musical references and more), the explicit reference to Philip Glass's "Einstein On The Beach" in the title of 4 of the 5 tracks here reported in as many remixes, seems somehow to respond to an internal search for greater "refinement" and complexity of the offer. The experiment appears to be fully successful: "Einstein On The Beach", in the "rape mix" version, sounds like a perfectly "intellectualized" electro-beat enriched by a (somewhat irreverent but only apparently so) mix with samples from the classical music of the cited opera, among the other versions (all instrumental tracks) stands out for quality perhaps the last, the "rare mix": rarefied and almost viewed in the reversed angle of an ambient re-reading.

"I Wanna Be An Erotic Cult Hero", on the other hand, is a true electro-song (electronic beat plus the duo's remote past in synth pop territories) with Michele Benetello's voice filtered and distorted in the manner of bands like KLF and Front 242. Permeated with multimedia cultural references (TV, cinema, literature, music) and marked by a self-ironic "anti-diva" attitude, the mini-CD "Wargasm" virtually (for now) projects the hard-beat and electro sounds made in Italy onto the international front, similarly to other epicenters like the Netherlands, Belgium, and generally Northern Europe, with lyrics in English, a talent already transparent now and, returning to the content of the disc in question, (almost) perfectly fitting: truly brilliant.

More information about Glass's work at the page http://www.delteatro.it/hdoc/result_opera.asp?idopera=1882

"End... (for now)"