Venerus
Magica Musica

Jazz is jazz, but…

I don't remember who a few years ago predicted that music in the future wouldn't be made by musicians (someone help me remember, please, maybe Brian Eno?).

Rappers, at least the pure ones, to me they are not.

To be honest, I hate rap, and especially rappers, their names and their rhymes which all end in end-rhyme, but…

The electro-instrumental magic of “Cosmic interlude".

The psychedelic guitar doodles with Hendrixian flair in “Canzone per un amico”.

The sax solo at the end of the same song.

“Buyo” starts like one of Moby's tracks in “Play”, then becomes a bit of a rap (oh well..).

The absolute beauty (within a track already splendid on its own) of the B3 solo in “Solo dove vai tu”.

The reverse revolverian guitar solo in “Luci”.

The cosmic flute waltz in “Fuori, fuori, fuori…”.

This album is full of collaborations with rappers, there's no denying it, but…

Venerus is not at all, or at least not just, a rapper (and maybe neither are his associates, nor his producer), it's evident.

If only because he has other sources of inspiration, besides the ones already mentioned, for example, as Colapesce and Di Martino pointed out on Propaganda Live, he uses, when he sings, the “t” in “stasera mi buccio..” by Rocky Roberts.

And it doesn’t seem to me that Rocky Roberts was a rapper..

Just as Enrico Gabrielli of Calibro 35 and Fabio Rondanini of Afterhours who enthusiastically participated in this project are not.

In conclusion, for me a revelation, it's as if I found an album that mixes the hyper creativity, existentialist yearning, and complex sound of a “The Soft Bulletin” or (less so) an “At war with the Mystics” (the soul and mysticism are things that bring this latest Flaming Lips album closer to Venerus's album) with the certain seventies melodies of Verdena’s “Wow” and sequels.

And also a bit of rap, which represents modernity, and when you think about it, it doesn't fit so badly.