Davvero il meglio della musica italiana contemporanea!
Jon Morris | Binghamton, NY USA | 08/20/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This group is truly the best of contemporary Italian pop music, and one can only hope that their discs will begin to circulate here in the States too. This, their latest release, is an outstanding collection of some of their best songs from four albums. For those of you familiar with the band, I'll list the tracks below.
The collection also includes a DVD of their videos, but here in the US it will only work if you have an all-range DVD player. If you do, the DVD is a treat. Most of the videos I had not seen, and they are stylish, witty, and fun. Also, while there is a certain melancholy in their music, the videos show a lighter side. The video for "Numeri in mia vita" [numbers in my life] calls to mind Duran Duran's video for "View to a Kill," while the claustrophobic "Il primo giorno del mondo" [the first day of the world] reminded me of an earlier video by The Cure for "Close to Me."
I make these analogies because I am assuming that most readers of this review will probably not be familiar with the band, and so this is also an attempt to give you a feel for what to expect, but please consider the comparisons to other musicians more as an indicator of the music that I listen to, rather than what DELTA V necessarily sound like. As the Amazon link goes, if you like ... you may like....
So, what to expect as far as music: The insert for the collection says that Carlo Bertotti and Flavio Ferri, the songwriters and musicians, were influenced by the new wave from England, but also by science fiction and spy stories, and you can certainly discern this influence in the music. This is also true for musicians such as Barry Adamson, for example, whose noirish pieces are clearly a tribute to the spy genre. Yet to leave it at that is to negate the nostalgia and melancholy that pervades so many of the songs, from "Un'estate fa" [last summer] to "Il senso falsato di un mondo migliore" [the spurious notion of a better world]. And while songs like "Il mondo visto dallo spazio" [the world viewed from space] might call to mind the window of a spaceship, the onlooker is closer to Albert Camus than to God: "la vita vista dallo spazio perde ogni ragione / è il pianto di un bambino solo senza protezione" [seen from space, life loses all meaning / it's the crying of a baby alone without protection]. The song is a moving look at this theater of the absurd we live in, and my translation doesn't really do justice to the original set to music.
I find their lyrics moving and compelling, and this is true no matter who the vocalist is. They have worked with three female singers: Francesca Touré', Luana Lu Heredia, and most recently Gi Kalweit. Carlo Bertotti also sings, making this particular collection especially rich in terms of variety and range. Musically, my non-expert ears hear the influence of trip-hop, chillout music, Bond film scores, electronica, and even a bit of reggae.
They also do a couple of covers: "Se telefonando" [if calling...] and "Prendila così" [take it like this]. The first song is used by my former Italian Professor to teach the subjunctive tense, and Italian teachers might be pleased to have a modern version of the song to use in class. Similarly, lyrics are clearly pronunced throughout, but especially on the tracks sung by the American-born Gi Kalweit.
This is an outstanding cd, and the videos are great. I bought this cd in July, and have been listening to it non-stop since then. My only regret is that their music is so difficult to find. (Infatti, ragazzi, come posso procurarmi una copia di PSYCHOBEAT? Aiuto...). While you are waiting, like me, for the next Radiohead album to be released, you might want to check these guys out, and really experience the best of modern Italian music.
CD Tracks:
se telefonando
un colpo in un istante
un'estate fa
sul filo
il primo giorno del mondo
numeri in mia vita
il mondo visto dallo spazio
facile
marta ha fatto un sogno
prendila così
i treni e le nuvole
la costruzione di un errore
via da qui
al.c
il senso falsato di un mondo migliore
summer ending
numeri in mia vita (radio remix)
la costruzione di un errore (moonbase remix)
"
