Thirty years after its release, “Il vile” by Marlene Kuntz returns with a celebratory reissue and a tour that will perform it in its entirety live. Released on April 26, 1996, the album marked a fracture in the Italian rock of the Nineties: abrasive guitars, dynamics suspended between fury and rarefaction, lyrics capable of transforming restlessness and fragility into a shared language.
The new edition, available from 6 March on colored vinyl in a limited edition, will be offered in an illustrated version with graphics by Alessandro Baronciani: a 16-page A4 comic booklet, with a table for each song, enriched by three collector's postcards.
Cristiano Godano recalled the instinctive nature of the project: “When we played those pieces – he explained – we only had tremors of an aesthetic nature. We wanted the record to sound at its best, that's all”. Listened to it again today, the impact remains strong: “I heard it in the car by turning up the volume – explained Godano – and I took it very well, as young people say. It was exhilarating: a confident, radiant sound, but above all cohesive and compact. There was a very precise idea and hearing it so clearly today still gave me a kind of excitement”. At the time, he admits, “We had no chance of understanding the potential we were unleashing. We could only hope they liked it.” As for the link with grunge, he specifies: “It's the closest work to that idea that we could have – Godano said – but it wasn't the only reference. We had clear models, but above all we wanted to find our own sound and not appear provincial”.
The emotional tension retains its strength intact: “The anger it expresses is existential – commented Godano – and not directly social. Today, however, it almost finds a justification. You have to be out of this world not to realize that this is a difficult moment”. Even writing has changed over time: “My writing has transformed in an impalpable way – said Godano – but I don't deny the past, I just try not to repeat myself. Those sentences were perfectly consistent with who I was then. The fire remains but it transforms. The impetuosity is mitigated with awareness, not for convenience but for spontaneous evolution”. And he reiterates: “For me, lyrics have always had equal importance with music. I have always given my all in writing.”
The “Marlene Kuntz plays Il Vile” tour, with eleven dates between March and April, will bring those songs back to the stage in their entirety. Even on a physical level it will be a test: “I always ask myself: how can I explode like thirty years ago – commented Godano – but I know that on the first date it will happen. I will have to scream a lot, which today is not exactly my comfort zone, but it will be fun to scream again. It will be exciting”. Here is the tour calendar.
- 5 March – The Cage – Livorno
- 7 March – Mamamia – Senigallia
- March 12 – New Age – Treviso
- March 19 – Estragon – Bologna
- March 20 – Orion – Rome
- March 25 – Hall – Padua
- March 26 – Alcatraz – Milan
- 27 March – Viper – Florence (C/O Cdp Grassina)
- 8 April – Hiroshima Mon Amour – Turin (new date)
- 9 April – Hiroshima Mon Amour – Turin (sold out)
- 16 April – House of Music – Naples
- 18 April – Demodé – Bari
When it was released on April 26, 1996, “Il Vile” represented a clear fracture in the Italian musical panorama. A record marked by abrasive guitars, extreme dynamics, oblique melodies and lyrics capable of combining rawness and poetic tension. Not a simple collection of songs, but a compact organism, crossed by continuous contrasts: sonic violence and sudden lyrical openings, emotional full and empty spaces, fury and suspension.
Listened to again today, three decades later, “Il Vile” does not appear as a relic of the past, but as a work that has kept its expressive power intact. Its anxieties, its cracks, its urgency continue to speak to the present, demonstrating how certain records do not limit themselves to marking an era, but are able to resist time, renewing their meaning with each new listen.
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
