•
Rating: 1.Prologue:
"And we mellifluous assistants of the transfusion of our marrow see the stars of our exhilarating dreams melt as well."
(Antonin Artaud, Poems of Cruelty 1913-1935)
World War I has just ended, leaving behind cities shattered by the power of warfare and striking images of death and despair. The desire to leave this grim period behind is a primary and urgent necessity, so life resumes its natural course and rummages through entertainment options to soothe and calm the severely tested spirits. The magical machine of art begins to live again, invading cinemas and theaters with budding comedians and new artistic movements. The desire for redemption mainly reverberates in theater, long caged by schematic, repetitive, and ancient structures that have flattened acting. It is in this context that Antonin Artaud conceives a new idea of theater, avant-garde and metaphysical, the dawn in which movement (understood as the physical motion of a body), from silent, complementary stage component, redeems and claims a vital functionality in art, akin to oral language, a chorus of visual and auditory expressions that blend under "The Theater of Cruelty."
2.Paris - Cagliari. Twelve hundred kilometers between history, inspiration, and visions, passing through industrial suburbs.
The theatrical and literary avant-garde of Antonin Artaud deeply influenced and inspired a multitude of artists in the 1980s. Einstürzende Neubauten, Cabaret Voltaire, Bauhaus (who named a track after him), Throbbing Gristle, and many others merge, forge, and refine their knowledge and cultural background also in Artaud's texts and works. The Italians T.A.C., acronym for Computerized Axial Tomography, experience the same fascination, channeling their extraordinary creative ability into industrial soundscapes, a scene they share with the aforementioned bands. The industrial tightly wraps its coils in the urban circuit, a cynical and metallic sound liberated from any emotional impulse, a sonic representation and natural expression of an alienated and disoriented society, atrophied in exercising the most primordial and vital instincts. The body of T.A.C.'s discographic compositions is varied and complex, transcending conventional compositional schemes and networks. "The Theater of Cruelty," the fourth work of the band led by Simon Balestrazzi, a historic figure of the Italian underground, is a product of exquisite abstraction, where calm atmospheres and bursts of sound compose a remarkable and well-executed score. The backbone of the work unfolds across the eleven tracks contained between the superb opening martial "Sole E Acciaio" and the concluding spoken word "Sin Is…," passing through the art rock of "Auto-Da-Fé," "Su Un Terreno Obliquo," and "Anti," the dark interlude "La Stella Nella Colonna," the neo-folk territories of "Kether" and "Kyrie," full synth rides ("Metall Des Himmels"), teutonic DDR-style ballads ("La Voce Del Sangue") and the compulsive, hypnotic spiral of "Ode Ad A. A." The T.A.C. remained inactive for the following six years, until the 1993 release of "A Circle Of Limbs," a dark ambient work decisively oriented towards new and fertile dark and meditative lands, always and in any case devoted to a quality of product and a dedication to musical research that is unparalleled.
3.Epilogue
The stage of life is the best representation of "The Theater of Cruelty," so real that it becomes impossible to reinterpret it with the awareness of fiction. The play of parts takes the stage at every act, every moment, every day. I take on the role of the demanding listener, and someone might forgive me if, despite the considerable number of artists bustling around talent shows and questionable music festivals, I continue to prefer those who thirty years ago or a bit more gave music a new, original identity, echoes of industrial suburbs, of concrete and steel, of dystopian suburbs, of disused theaters witnesses of epochs and splendors hard to die.
Tracklist
Loading comments slowly
