Music lovers know that we live in the age of abundance. Every year, tons of very good records keep pouring out of the internet, and while many people resort to algorithms to navigate this sea, for many others there is always a constant feeling that you are missing something. Truth is, too much abundance is cognitively demanding, and our cognitive resources are still scarce. Personally, I find comfort in exchanging music suggestions with friends. I like to trust others’ judgment, and I like to search for the good into something that someone else said it’s good. Empathy is a good way to make up for uncertainty. That’s why I like amateur end-of-year lists: they are like a bunch of recommendations from a friend who likes music.
Of course, there are also professional lists that aim at naming the objectively best records of the year, but they all have the same records in them, and usually it’s all stuff that I already know. To keep the metaphor going, that’s like that friend who thinks that talking about music is all about reputation-building through signaling musical knowledge or sophistication. I can’t empathize with those people.
This list here is neither about the “objectively best albums of 2017”, nor about “my favorite albums of 2017”. These are just some albums that I liked a lot and I feel like recommending to my music friends. The order in which they appear is rigorously alphabetic. Also, they are all Italian bands, and they all came out on independent record labels. You won’t find these albums on most other lists that you’ll read these days.
Bennett - Bennett
When this album came out back in June, I kept on playing it on repeat for a few days. This is a great summer record, one that you want to play super loud in your car while driving with an open window. It’s both heavy and sludgy like an elephant, and catchy as hell. 90% of the job is done by the guitars. They manage to create a huge wall of sound that gives the record its majestic impact, and they also deliver most of the hooks. The vocals are angry, but in a motivating way. And there is a melodic thread going through every song that makes their sound very personal and recognizable. It reminded me of the video “Fat kid gets revenge” that went viral a few years ago: it’s slow, it’s powerful, and it feels so good.
Label: To lose la track
Genre: Fat kid gets revenge ‘core
Deaf Lingo - Bug
Fact: Deaf Lingo are friends, so I’m partial. Another fact: if this record was made by a random American band, it would make a lot more “best punk records of 2017” lists than this. Sure, you can argue that a lot of Italian bands sound too similar to American bands, and they should develop their own sound. But then again, unless you think that Italian punk rock should have the mandolin and the mouth harp (which would be pretty cool anyway), there’s nothing forcedly American in this album, just a lot of good ideas. The songs are spontaneously catchy, the production is refreshingly dirty, and the use of effects is tasteful. The result is so effective that it will get stuck in your head for days.
Label: Fatty Liver Records
Genre: Power pop played in a garage
Destroy All Gondolas - Laguna di Satana
I like to think of Destroy All Gondolas as a group of men who got sick of hearing the Pulp Fiction theme in every rock bar in Venice, and one day said “You know what? Let’s make a band that sounds exactly like this, but thrash metal!” The result is a mix between surf and rock’n’roll, played twice the speed with heavy distortion. And yes, it is as awesome as it sounds. Not much more to say, just a super funny record. If someone in Quentin Tarantino’s gang would ever decide to make a new Grindhouse movie, Destroy All Gondolas should make the soundtrack.
Label: Macina Dischi, Sonatine Produzioni, Shyrec, Deathcrush Distro, Crampi Rec
Genre: Surf in hipster’s blood
Heroin in Tahiti - Remoria
Talking about how Italian bands should sound to be recognized as authentic by non-Italians, this is an interesting take on it. For context: before being gang raped by Silvio Berlusconi and Ronald Reagan alike, Italian cinema produced a lot of epic low-budget horrors and thrillers that compensated for the lack of good visual effects with super creepy atmospheres, often borrowed from Italian folklore. Fast forward to 2012, and a few bands are making music inspired by those atmospheres, a sort of hauntological movement called “Italian occult psychedelia”. Heroin in Tahiti are like the archetype of this genre. This album is a collection of instrumental tracks built around an interesting concept, an alternate legend of the founding of Rome where Remus wins the fight with his brother Romolus, and becomes the founder of the city (which is then named Remoria). The music is dark and mysterious. There is a lot of tension building up due to a wise use of drones and percussions, which occasionally drops into Mediterranean-flavored melodies and 1970s-proggy synths. This kind of music is supposed to create landscapes for your mind to wander, and this album brings you to places that you don’t get to visit too often.
Label: Soave
Genre: Italian occult psychedelia
Julie’s Haircut - Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin
Otherwise, if you want a more traditional trip, without all the esoteric South-Italian stuff, this album is the way to go. This is a side of psychedelic music that adheres more to the stylistic features of 70s space-rock and krautrock. The result is still quite estranging, with sax parts that some times stray into free jazz, and whispered vocals that add mystery to the atmosphere. However, this album feels much more relaxing and chill than most of the “occult” counterparts in the genre. There is a thread of tension in most songs, but it grows so smoothly that sometimes you are 10 minutes into the track and you don’t even realize. Recommended for night driving.
Label: Rocket Recordings
Genre: Less Italian, less occult, more psychedelia
Lleroy - Dissipatio HC
Albums that are named after a music genre tend to have the ambition to either define the boundaries of the genre itself, or to push them a bit further. This album’s name cites both a music genre (hardcore punk) and a cult Italian novel of the 70s called “Dissipatio H. G.”, dissipatio humani generis, where a man who wants to commit suicide changes his mind only to find out that every other person in the world suddenly disappeared. And the music is exactly what the name suggests: an attempt to push the borders of hardcore into territories where desolation and nihilism coexist with the more traditional aggression. However, the result is neither overly intellectualized, nor inaccessible. The real strength of this album is that it is in equal parts sludgy, twisted and catchy, and in most songs it manages to be all of these at the same time. This is one of the most interesting and inspiring takes on hardcore punk that I’ve heard in recent years. Quite ironically so, given the premise.
Label: BloodySoundFucktory, Sonatine Produzioni, Sangue Dischi, SantaValvola, Vollmer Industries, Fuzzy Cluster, Taxy Driver, UA!, Coypu Records
Genre: Sludge with heroin instead of weed
Progenie Terrestre Pura - oltreLuna
I’m not a huge black metal fan, but in the last 5-10 years a few bands started mixing it with post-rock, ambient, psychedelia and whatnot, and this made me totally fall for it. Progenie Terrestre Pura offer a space-themed perspective on this genre, and the result is the perfect soundtrack for an amazing space opera that hasn’t been made yet, but that unveils in your imagination every time you listen to this album. They even add an “ethnic” touch to it by putting random percussions and Mediterranean melodies here and there, and they manage to get away with it without sounding forced at all. The most strictly metal part is also great. The problem with black metal is that, if you are not used to it, it can be super boring. However, this album is filled with captivating guitar riffs and melodic openings that complement nicely the fast drumming and the harsh vocals. Recommended if you secretely wish that the soundtrack of The Expanse was made by Deafheaven.
Label: Avantgarde Music
Genre: Space epic black metal
Valerian Swing - Nights
Valerian Swing make music that is difficult to classify, and to a certain extent even to grasp, but that leaves me completely mesmerized. In philosophy, the “sublime” is defined as the property of some things, like nature, that instils in the viewer a sense of total absorption and awe. It is different from “beauty”, in that whereas something beauty is harmless for you, sublime things have the potential to annihilate your self, to reduce you to nothing. Well, I think that Valerian Swing have something sublime in their music, especially when they play it live. This record is a good proxy for it though. It’s like post rock with a lot of electronics, some math guitar riffs, random free jazz parts where the music seems to lose consistency and almost coordination, and super anthemic openings. Overall this mix works very well. Songs are very captivating, and electronics is used in a way that I’ve never heard from other bands in the genre. I don’t know what else to say, just that this album leaves me every time in total contemplation.
Label: To lose la track
Genre: Sublime post rock