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Rating: It is truly a daunting task to talk about this work... created collaboratively by the leader of Karate, Geoff Farina, and his then-girlfriend Jodi V. Buonanno (no, unfortunately, we are not in Italy, but in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.). It's difficult because this piece in my hands (which I hope you might have the chance to find - not very easily) is a collection of works written and composed over a very long period (from 1989 to 1997) with various collaborators/friends and with a very VERY inconsistent trajectory.
Premise. I was fortunate enough to see them in action live (and to get to know them artistically as well) on a cold night of a distant winter in a small wonderful venue, the Perché No? in Verbania ("Cheerful" town on the western shore of Lake Maggiore), which sadly no longer exists today; and I assure you that the rendition of the tracks on this CD has nothing to envy compared to what the duo gifted us on that special night. "Genealogies" is, by the protagonists' own admission, "a thank you to those who contributed to this album, to those who made it possible, and to those who with their love have constituted our genealogies". A splendid act of love. "Haphazard Joy" immediately puts you on alert, with Jodi's metallic voice muddled in a noisy transistor buzz that seems malfunctioning and makes you feel uncomfortable even on your favorite couch... and just as you're contemplating getting up, a sharp break comes and the sweet melodies produced by the two Fender Mustang and Silvertone Coat Of Arms guitars enter your world, accompanying Geoff's soft and reassuring voice through "Shoe In" and "Melt" in a rarefied and delicate atmosphere. An atmosphere that only takes a small step towards discomfort with the return of Jodi's voice in "N29, It's Alright" to form a post-rock triptych (it's unpleasant to classify music by genres, but it's so convenient) of exquisite level. And when everything seems settled in peaceful harbors... BANG!!! along comes a track like "Can You Feel It?", which in Patty Smith's discography wouldn't have any trouble finding a place of prominence. Similarly, the subsequent "The Four Senses" seems to be a forgotten track (for reasons unknown) by Slint during the compilation of "Spiderland". End of millennium tensions and obsessions pervade "SERC", although here Jodi's voice becomes very feminine (maternal) and seems to reassure us that everything is going well, that no tragedy is in sight; which, however, immediately crashes down on us in "Sister, Brother" where the singer's voice transforms from maternal to that of a peeved lover, coldly confronting us against the wall reading our thoughts "I seek the urgency in your mind, to change how we are defined"... driven by a relentless lo-fi blues with obsessive drumming... PAUSE PLEASE (we're only halfway through...!)
We start again with "Trance Hall Storm," just over two and a half minutes of signals captured from deep space (produced by manipulating, with an Ampex 456 ¼" tape recorder, a Farfisa model Kara !!!!!!!!!)... and the tension rises when Jodi's voices (one metallic from one channel and the other chanting) tell you about the experiences of the feminist Teresa Basilio in Puerto Rico, and how these have inspired her, accompanied by a sharp and non-conciliatory guitar in "5,000,000,000". But the tension once again is gently softened by the voice and Mustang of Farina, who paint us a love story against the backdrop of notes sung, just for the two protagonists, by "The Voice" in "Some Sinatra" while, then, Jody's deliberately ungraceful voice brings us back into tension with the surrounding world in "The Mode-E" also thanks to a nervously grated guitar: Its perfect counterbalance is the next "The Vitamin-V" once again softly crafted by Farina, magical in its final buildup. And here we arrive directly at the total disorientation... "We Have Been Schooled By" is an exercise in sonic nervousness on an electronic carpet with Buonanno's voice from the depths of a well hysterically interpreting a piece by Penny Rimbaud of Crass, originally interpreted by Eve Libertine (do I still need to highlight where they were "schooled"...?). "Release Form" seems like a piece by Polly Jean Harvey completely stripped of anger and nerves, resigned to the echoes of interplanetary wars in the background and the final "Back In The Car" is the last jewel Farina gives us, with his unmistakable and incomparable style, composed for Jodi and his grandmother's Ford Tempo. After my words, you might think of a discontinuous album, more than inconsistent, but I assure you that the two souls that coexist in it are perfectly complementary and dependent on each other. Farina sees the world through the eyes of a tender and dreamy boy (man), giving us small minimal stories in the wake of great American writers of the genre (Carver, Anderson, Fante...), while Jodi Verbena Buonanno views things with the typical anxious tension of a girl (woman) and paints strongly colored pictures in the style of modern American poetesses (the already mentioned Patty Smith, Laurie Anderson, Carole King...) or maybe not.
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