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Colloquio

Si Muove E Ride

Written by: PP on 14/03/2009 21:55:13

Colloquio are a part of a three-disc Italian darkwave promo package that was sent to us by Eibon Records a little while ago. Last.FM users have tagged the band as darkwave, experimental, dark ambient, which are all fairly accurate descriptions of the bands music. The songs are all sung in Italian, and given that there isn't any fancy vocal harmonies let alone instrumental intricacies involved with the music, a question begs to be asked: who, other than an Italian darkwave fan (can anyone seriously consider themselves a fan of this excuse of a genre?), would ever listen to "Si Muove E Ride"? But lets take it apart to find out exactly why it's getting a terrible rating.

The intro track "Ora" is a good place to start because it describes perfectly my biggest problem with Colloquio and the entire genre. It consists only of strange skipping noises followed by space-age ambiance. You call that a song? It's so pointless I can't even begin to reason with these guys. Another example of pointless can be found in "Nel Domani", which has about 25 seconds of someone walking up a staircase before a distorted voice says something and the song actually begins. What purpose that intro actually serves, I don't think the band even knows themselves. "Profondo" is your typical darkwave bullshit: subtle, piano-led atmospheres are complemented by a soothing, whispering voice that comes across as humming more than actual singing. On "Ogni Giorno" you can at least feel an Italian cultural vibe to the song helped by some actual singing this time around. Wow. But again, minimalistic instrumentation seems to drag on and on and on and on into more than five minutes, as if it was demanding to be turned off in the process. That there's an eight minute track of essentially the same thing (the title track) makes it no better, and I actually find it outrageous that someone expects me to waste eight minutes of my life listening to something as pointless as that.

But, to save this album from a complete trashing, lets mention a few redeeming factors. "Respira" has a little bit of a pop injected into it, and here I feel like the band are actually succeeding in creating somewhat of an atmosphere and a track, which, if not worth checking out, is at least one that didn't make me feel as if I just lost five and a half minutes of my life that I can never recover. Furthermore, "Tra Questre Mura" has a fairly interesting instrumental crash in the end, where loads of feedback, beeping noise and distortion is finally used to create something that raises eyebrows. It's a commonly used technique in experimental music, but it serves little purpose in a track that's effectively typical darkwave all the way leading up to that point. And you already know what I think about that. And so it's time for me to conclude my review, and the only thing left to say is out of the three darkwave releases that were sent to us, only one now remains before I can move on with my life.

Download: N/A
For the fans of: Neronoia
Listen: Last.FM

Release date 02.09.2008
Eibon Records