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Last night of the Summer Student Festival, at Fistomba Park, Padua.
A perfect setting, lots of good music, and alcohol at very reasonable prices.
After Disco Drive and Little Brown warm up the atmosphere, Velma, a trio from Lausanne previously unknown to me, take the stage. They have several albums and collaborations to their name (7" with Dalek and a remix album with guests like Jan Jelinek, Alog, Terrae Thaemiltz, Köhn).
The beginning is particularly shocking, the three are undoubtedly Characters.
The singer, dressed all in gray, with a sleeveless V-neck sweater, white hair, and small glasses, he truly looks like a pensioner. The drummer, with a decidedly younger look but with a similar sweater (featuring colorful diamonds instead of the sober grayness of his mate) and the guitarist, dressed more casually with strange sunglasses.
He starts, while the others remain still, strumming his guitar to an anonymous tune, singing terribly out of tune "Are you ready?".
"Yes," we reply, not too convinced.
"Do you want something louder?".
"Ok," we continue.
"DO YOU WANT SOMETHING LOUDER?".
"YEAH".
And these three kick off with a fairly standard punk/hc that becomes absurd when the singer/pensioner starts yelling and dancing. (check out these photos to see what I mean: photo 1 and photo 2)
Almost no one in the audience can hold back their laughter, but when they finish, the whole park hangs on their every word.
And they stand there, still, silent. They stare into the void. And do nothing.
The audience gets excited, someone throws something, shouts, but everyone quiets when a slight electronic music begins to rise gently from below. A few glitches, a few pads that relax the atmosphere while the drummer starts, tapping on the bass drum with the stick. The stick bounces and the electronics follow, continue to rise. A voice begins, slow and steady. And the guitar, almost country, begins to make the thing truly irresistible.
The voices multiply. One over the other, they sing different things, but the result is perfect. A hypnotic loop of voices, guitar, drums, and electronics that continues to grow, inexorable and almost imperceptible, but it grows, enchanting everyone.
Ten minutes of hypnosis that pass in an instant, closing seamlessly with a slight guitar arpeggio. From here opens an almost pop piece, which at certain points took on almost hard rock tones, but always very slow. The voice with an always very uniform style, as if reading a shopping list. But it's perfect.
This piece also begins to mutate, closing into a loop of guitar and drums that never stops, like a broken cd, guitar and drums that keep hitting the same way. A continuous 4/4 with slight, very slight, shifting changes of direction.
From pop to minimalism in 5 minutes. And from minimalism it rises again, slowly and imperceptibly toward hard rock, almost metal, until the climax with the sudden stop of the three and waves of applause.
The singer now almost steps out of character, begins to talk to the audience. He makes strange speeches, talks about the sky that overarches us all, all this material in the sky, planets, stars. And as he continues to speak, the speech begins to turn into music, the voice modulates, the guitar begins to follow, and just when things get interesting, the three are forced by the dear municipal police of Padua to stop, as half-past midnight is too late to let three Swiss geniuses play in a Veneto park full of inebriated students.
A perfect setting, lots of good music, and alcohol at very reasonable prices.
After Disco Drive and Little Brown warm up the atmosphere, Velma, a trio from Lausanne previously unknown to me, take the stage. They have several albums and collaborations to their name (7" with Dalek and a remix album with guests like Jan Jelinek, Alog, Terrae Thaemiltz, Köhn).
The beginning is particularly shocking, the three are undoubtedly Characters.
The singer, dressed all in gray, with a sleeveless V-neck sweater, white hair, and small glasses, he truly looks like a pensioner. The drummer, with a decidedly younger look but with a similar sweater (featuring colorful diamonds instead of the sober grayness of his mate) and the guitarist, dressed more casually with strange sunglasses.
He starts, while the others remain still, strumming his guitar to an anonymous tune, singing terribly out of tune "Are you ready?".
"Yes," we reply, not too convinced.
"Do you want something louder?".
"Ok," we continue.
"DO YOU WANT SOMETHING LOUDER?".
"YEAH".
And these three kick off with a fairly standard punk/hc that becomes absurd when the singer/pensioner starts yelling and dancing. (check out these photos to see what I mean: photo 1 and photo 2)
Almost no one in the audience can hold back their laughter, but when they finish, the whole park hangs on their every word.
And they stand there, still, silent. They stare into the void. And do nothing.
The audience gets excited, someone throws something, shouts, but everyone quiets when a slight electronic music begins to rise gently from below. A few glitches, a few pads that relax the atmosphere while the drummer starts, tapping on the bass drum with the stick. The stick bounces and the electronics follow, continue to rise. A voice begins, slow and steady. And the guitar, almost country, begins to make the thing truly irresistible.
The voices multiply. One over the other, they sing different things, but the result is perfect. A hypnotic loop of voices, guitar, drums, and electronics that continues to grow, inexorable and almost imperceptible, but it grows, enchanting everyone.
Ten minutes of hypnosis that pass in an instant, closing seamlessly with a slight guitar arpeggio. From here opens an almost pop piece, which at certain points took on almost hard rock tones, but always very slow. The voice with an always very uniform style, as if reading a shopping list. But it's perfect.
This piece also begins to mutate, closing into a loop of guitar and drums that never stops, like a broken cd, guitar and drums that keep hitting the same way. A continuous 4/4 with slight, very slight, shifting changes of direction.
From pop to minimalism in 5 minutes. And from minimalism it rises again, slowly and imperceptibly toward hard rock, almost metal, until the climax with the sudden stop of the three and waves of applause.
The singer now almost steps out of character, begins to talk to the audience. He makes strange speeches, talks about the sky that overarches us all, all this material in the sky, planets, stars. And as he continues to speak, the speech begins to turn into music, the voice modulates, the guitar begins to follow, and just when things get interesting, the three are forced by the dear municipal police of Padua to stop, as half-past midnight is too late to let three Swiss geniuses play in a Veneto park full of inebriated students.
And all that's left for me is to go home and search for all that the internet has to offer about Velma.
Fortunately, on their website, there's a live recording from a few months ago almost identical to the one cut short last Friday, so I can at least listen to what I missed live.
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