The Lathums – How Beautiful Life Can Be

Francesco Giordani per Triste©

Non voglio risultare ripetitivo (o forse sì…) ma quando si parla di “morte del rock” bisogna sempre quantomeno chiarire la natura specifica del fenomeno al quale ci si riferisce. Il fatto che il rock non sia più un genere “pop” (ma forse anche quest’affermazione è suscettibile di legittime obiezioni) non significa che esso sia diventato automaticamente impopolare.

The Lathums hanno acciuffato la vetta della classifica inglese degli album nella prima settimana di pubblicazione del loro How Beautiful Life Can Be (e la vita della band è senza dubbio diventata ancora più bella da quella settimana, c’è da scommetterlo), in barba a competitori certo meglio equipaggiati come Drake, Lil Nas X o Olivia Rodrigo, potendo peraltro contare su una media di quattrocentomila ascoltatori mensili solo su Spotify e oltre dieci milioni di streaming in poco meno di due anni di vita discografica.

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Wet Leg – Wet Dream

Wet Leg (Credit: Hollie Fernando)

The Band:
Wet Leg are a British duo, Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers. They come from the Isle of Wight and are signed to Domino Records. Following almost a decade of friendship (Teasdale and Chambers met at college, and played in various bands and as fledgling solo musicians on their native Isle Of Wight), the pair took a ferris wheel trip at 2019’s End Of The Road festival. It is here where they found the embryonic elements of Wet Leg after seeing IDLES storm the main stage that evening.
Arming themselves with guitars, effervescent imaginations and a shared love of the The Ronettes and Jane Birkin, through to Ty Segall and Bjork, they set about making some recordings of their own. In June (2021), the British duo unveiled their debut single for Domino, Chaise Lonuge. Reception around the track was strong, generating some buzz around their name. The song, which has racked up 3 million streams and a million video views, was produced by Jon McMullen and mixed by Alan Moulder while the music video was directed by the band themselves.

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Matt Maltese – Good Morning It’s Now Tomorrow

Francesco Amoroso per TRISTE©

I wanna walk around you/ Like a child in a museum/ I wanna be beside you/ Like a guide at the colosseum/ I don’t even have to say these words, but I do/ You’re my right shoe/ I’m your left shoe/ We stand together/ You’re my right shoe/ I’m your left shoe/ We stand together
(Matt Maltese – Shoe)

Non sarebbe perfetta la vita, se fosse una canzone pop?
Se tutti i drammi che ci travolgono potessero essere risolti solo con un ritornello, con un arrangiamento elegante, con la nota giusta al momento giusto? Non sarebbe bello che le nostre storie d’amore fossero esaltanti come quelle delle canzoni pop? Non sarebbe un sollievo sapere che ogni volta che ci dovesse capitare di avere il cuore spezzato, basterebbe aspettare i pochi solchi che separano un brano dall’altro per trovare un nuovo amore e tornare a felici? Che la solitudine, invece di essere tetra e cupa, suonasse come una canzone di Matt Maltese?

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(Make Me a) TRISTE© Mixtape Episode 40: Grand Drifter

Grand Drifter

Since 2016 Grand Drifter is Andrea Calvo’s musical project (voice, guitar, harmonica, piano), sometimes as a band, sometimes alone. Italy-based Architect and designer, Andrea’s collaborations as a musician have been many over the years, the most important is as keyboardist and guitarist with Yo Yo Mundi live on tour and in the recording studio. In 2018 came the electroacoustic debut Lost Spring Songs (Sciopero Records – Self distribution), produced by Paolo Enrico Archetti Maestri (Yo Yo Mundi), where a gentle, delicate and introspective songwriting, ranges between emotional coordinates linked to the Beatles’ White Album and electric songs that look up to pop-rock. The record gets extremely favorable reviews (Rumore, Rockerilla, Blow-Up, Classic Rock, Sentireascoltare, Rockit…) as well as many radio feedbacks.
The new album, Only Child is made of 10 songs, recorded between summer 2020 and spring 2021. It will be out on Friday November 26, 2021 produced once again by Paolo Enrico Archetti Maestri (Yo Yo Mundi), recorded, edited, and mixed by Dario Mecca Aleina between Turin and Rivalta Bormida and mastered by Giovanni Versari at La Maestà studio. It will be released on CD by the South African / UK label SUBJANGLE and on vinyl by SCIOPERO RECORDS, distributed by SELF and it is supported by the Turin collective DOTTO. Haunted Life is the first single from the album.

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Karen Peris – A Song Is Way Above The Lawn

Francesco Amoroso per TRISTE©

I like that it’s possible to re-travel some of the wide open expanse of childhood imagination and wonder. The thing is, I don’t really feel that far away from those places even now, and I’m sure that’s a universal thought. The moments I’m telling about in the songs, and the wonder and the curiosity – I still feel so much of it, just as anyone does. I didn’t want to be an adult saying to a child, This is how you feel. It’s more like saying, just as a person talking with another person, Isn’t this how we all feel, and isn’t that a mystery of life, too, that we are all so connected?
(Karen Peris on “a song is way above the lawn”)

Quando si scrive di musica da una prospettiva molto personale e lo si fa per tanti anni, si finisce per ripetersi e per non avere più molto da dire. A quel punto le scelte dovrebbero essere, obbligatoriamente, due: o smettere di scrivere (e sarebbe, probabilmente, la scelta più saggia) oppure provare a scrivere in maniera più oggettiva, a concentrarsi sulla proposta musicale più che sulle sensazioni che essa suscita.

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