Article by Marzia Picciano
If there is a musical genre that more than others can and indeed must become a battering ram for the (bad, frankly) times to come, it is that of electronic, dance and techno. Don't be fooled by popular jingles, however, by forum-like moments etc. We must be careful when observing the evolution of a genre like few others.
Maybe it's because this year we all remembered to go dancing (after the pandemic break, I say) and the festivals, especially electronic ones, achieved incomparable numbers (think of the exploit of the Kappa FuturFestival this year, 115 thousand presences from 157 countries, and then you come and tell us that festivals don't promote tourism), but Afterlife on September 21st Milan it presented itself as a heartfelt, awaited, desired event, even if only to avoid immediately closing the concert season at the Hippodrome (let us never forget that there is no lack of improbable and very distant parking spaces as well as ten centimeters of dust everywhere on our bodies) and therefore, in our imagination, the summer itself (but we also have to deal with this, we know!), but above all to continue to feel that push, as the Milanese winter begins, while everyone (the others) is tearing their hair out to Madonna from D&G, to find their own niche of social alienation in the earthy parterre of San Siro. Not only that.
We are talking about a festival-event, now successfully launched by Carmine Conte And Matteo Millerithe Italian-American/Italian-Canadian duo who met in Milan in 2008 to understand that in life they had to make others dance, and therefore found their own project (Tale of Us, precisely), in Berlin, and their own label, Afterlife, to have more creative freedom. Today many artists work with them, including those who performed with them on Saturday from the early hours of the afternoon Massano, Mind Against, Olympe. Flying over what is undoubtedly a beautiful story of Italian pride, we get to the point. Tale of Us, as a “group” in the traditional sense of the term, did not stop at the idea of operating as a DJ, it made its own the existential mission of rewriting the concept of making techno music, arriving at an absolutely non-obvious concept which indeed it is shared by anyone who makes art, whether they are artists (and they are) in carrying out their creativity, that is: finding a new channel to communicate a transition. Remaining, in my humble opinion, very faithful to the line: theirs is a very dynamic, tight, engaging techno, but pure techno, therefore also dark, machine gun, sometimes even disturbing. We can say the same for their solo projects, which were shown (we will say it only because it fits well in the context) before them and indeed represented the fulcrum of Afterlife, MRAK And Anyma. The contamination comes from the rest. From the technology they constantly look at. And from all the other arts that can mix with them. Hence Afterlife was born, which as a concept, badly said and I apologize, is that of a mini festival, but without rides and stalls, here there is only a maxi-screen which is an integral part of the performance.
Yes, because Carmine and Matteo's show is a combination of visual art and music (and people dancing, but let's face it, here it is impossible not to be stunned to see what is happening around) which must be experienced with extreme attention in order to have a complete understanding of everything. The DJ Sets are real concerts, if not stories of journeys, interior and visionary, of our heroes, behind the console you can only tell them to a crowd that understands and listens only by dancing. As MRAK (Carmine) can bring his project We Don't Follow complete with a cellist at the side (and Bresh at the end, almost silently) while the big screen lights up and a logo that seems more reminiscent of the windows of Notre Dame and thus seeing those present light up as the sun goes down and Anyma (Matthew) with his “The End of Genesis” can tell the story of the humanandroid, taking us directly into any Final Fantasy tainted with a Blade Runner-style plot.
It must be said that Milleri's is a masterpiece. Ever since I saw the first images of Genesis appearing around I was so disturbed (yes, disturbed) that I was immediately convinced of the need to see it. Afterlife, with its little brilliant man turned upside down as if to represent a humanity (the one led by Tale of Us) ready to see the upside down (or what's underneath, or after – life?), certainly brings an imagery that makes a coexistence between musical and visual performance was necessary, and it was certainly the leitmotif of the evening for everyone. Yet at the time of the Anyma session there was something incredible.
Starting from the beginning of the entire “album” (can we call it that?) with the now iconic opening facing the screen, an androgynous replicant who will guide us into a post-reality made up of encounters, brushes, missed breakthroughs of a fourth wall of pixel, with its coming at us and beating an exhausted retreat, up to the futuristic metropolitan scenarios, trees that replicate, hands that try to meet, figures somewhere between Tolkien and the Neon Genesis Evangelion that always try to come at us, while we dance or they film or we watch enraptured: Anyma/Matteo's experience is on another level. Sometimes you forget to dance, you're so busy watching what's happening there, in those amazing graphics. The only flaw: the horizontal screen, vertically it would have been a completely different story. Actually two: the sound level, too low to really make the spectator enjoy it (after all we are at San Siro, outdoors, and at midnight everyone is at home). However, aware of this, let's imagine how it could be even more incredible.
This must have been thought by me and by all those who remained until the end (as soon as the two DJs reunited San Siro began to empty), cursing all the environmental limitations that would soon chase us away. And with a bit of bitterness. Afterlife is an escape room whose existence we too often forget, or rather, when it appears we remember it. I mean: that collective moment of escape from reality, to enter another, paradoxically linked to ours and separated by an almost non-existent veil of distance. We are here and yet we are not here, we are somewhere else. It's the perfect time to let go, to be and stay without necessarily justifying. We just dance and it's perfect: I have perfect space and time. Far from thinking that it is a way to take time or not take responsibility, it is the most effective way we have to unload the weight of an overly demanding existence. Without even asking for the public's help.
It's a tragedy at least for a fan like me not to feel those bass hits me straight into my sternum while the screen eats up my imagination. More than anything, only receiving chatter from the back (but how did all this desire to talk, at an event like Afterlife, come to you?), yet this didn't stop me from enjoying the show.
There should be more Afterlife, below. And no, not simply to distance yourself. But to actually take this journey into the afterlife.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
