Make-Up
In Mass Mind

LA RECENSIONE

Dangerous genetic crossbreed between a fierce suburban punk and a hysterical glam-rock queen, Ian Svenonius is universally recognized as the most extreme and incorruptible frontman of the Washington D.C. hardcore scene, a mad human machine where the most radical elements of rock & roll history collide without resolution: hymns to armed insurrection; ferocious melee assaults; brilliant and subversive lyrics; provocative attitudes, both on stage and in life.
Raucous and raw singer of (sub)urban discomfort, Ian has been compared to the most explosive elements of the most dynamic minstrels of sex, drugs, and rock & roll iconography. In him, the physicality of Iggy Pop, the eccentric talent of Mark E. Smith, the audacity of Johnny Rotten, the ingenious obliquity of Frank Zappa, the irregular charisma of Jello Biafra converge from time to time. In short, an explosive mixture. That indeed exploded, but alas never to its full enormous potential: first as a member of the “Nation of Ulysses,” then, once dissolved, with his “Make-Up,” of which there are, to date, 4 albums and a myriad of underground productions, e.p., l.p., collections, live shows, and whatever else sold underhand or openly during concerts, and strictly independent.

The problem with Svenonius is not that he eagerly drew from the most subversive musical imagery, but rather that he attempted an even more extreme divergence from it, surpassing any possible imagination, and turning it all into music.

From the Make-Up discography comes now what many try to identify as the pinnacle of the entire work: “In Mass Mind,” a disjointed and disarticulated coagulation of rhythm and blues (“Joy of Sound”), garage rock (“Time Machine”), funk (“Live in the Rhythm Hive”), gospel, and punk (together, in the same song, in “Do You Like Gospel Music,” and tell me if you've ever heard such a sonic monster).
12 songs of imaginative beauty, where Ian’s voice soars now caressing (a few times) now attacking (most of the time) the listener, as if it were a boxing match between him and the world, and maybe deep down it is a bit like that.

“In Mass Mind” will become, in its unconscious greatness, the manifesto of a new genre, gospel-punk; a magnificent fate that touches only a few and rare protagonists of the history we like best, that of great music. In the live that will follow, then, alongside the songs from the album, it will have place that “Free Arthur Lee,” heartfelt plea for the release of the brilliant frontman of Love, a song to this day unsurpassed monument of the genre, fierce, disarticulated, and incoherent in its being, at the same time, lyrical and poignant, political and – inevitably – always ahead.