Neoprimitives or retromaniaci? | Rolling Stone Italia

The first single? A 21 -minute suite published on audiocassette. The first album, on the other hand, has that same suite on the one hand and three songs on the other, for a total of 45 minutes that fit with a certain carelessness – not to say arrogance – in the Italian market, demanding space and time, imposing durability and heaviness and obtaining an unexpected response from the first publication, a sign that perhaps the wind is changing and this music that refers to the Krautrock and the Protopunk – read: And Velvet Underground – did the classic lap, paradoxically being a breath of fresh air.

To name names and surnames: we are talking about neoprimitive and theirs Orgy mystery. The name, in truth from Shock in My Town In Battiato, in a certain sense it seems almost to refer to the Italian Beat groups, whose influences are evident above all in the very few canta parts that make up their debut album, but also to the concept of “new” which was the basis of the Krautrock world. «We struck us that word: neoprimitives. It was perfect. Instinctive, almost a sign of fate, “says Andrea Gonnellini, bassist, singer and founder of the group. An surprising approach to the children of the gen Z, which in fact are not: “There is this thing that turns for which we are said that we are all Gen Z, but I am 32 years old, Flavio 34, Pietro 39. There are three members who are not present today that are actually under 30, and some of them are probably Gen Z, but I don't know why you turn this thing».

Next to Andrea there are Pietro Rianna, architect of Noise and synthesizers, and Flavio Gonnellini, who in addition to being his brother is also the producer of the album together with Giacomo Fiorenza. The band is then completed with Giacomo O'Neil, Jonathan Richman, Martino Petrella and Emilia Wesolowska. The debut album of the neoprimitives is configured as a sort of emigration on a planet, precisely the silver globe taken from the 1988 Zulawski film, and the contextual birth of new musical forms by those who, in fact, become the neoprimitives of this new civilization.

“The idea of ​​being of the primitives” explains Andrea “reminded us in some way our almost ancestral approach to certain aspects of sound, which in my opinion have something in common with the origins of music also on this planet, beyond the science fiction concept, therefore this idea of ​​communicating with the otherwater through the reproduction of sounds. For this reason, the noise part edited by Pietro often and willingly is added in the end, almost as if he were called to ancestralize the traces to connote them in this sense. Another element that somehow has to do with this idea is the fact that in fact we are born as a jam band, our tracks are born substantially improvising starting from simple bases, usually formed by bass and drums, which is why the traces engraved on disk are only one of the many possible versions, and for this we are convinced that our music really takes shape only live “.

An idea of ​​primitivism that is filtered by a strong passion for the avant -garde, which Andrea recalls the mind constantly. “We really like the idea of ​​the happling in the avant -garde sense of the term: the idea that the work of art can coincide with an event that occurs only once, for this reason we give so much importance to improvisation, and for this we feel free to exchange the tools depending on what we are spontaneous to do when we are performing. It is strange, because we would think that we have known each other for a lifetime, instead the band was born from my attempt to put together people that I initially knew only separately: apart from Flavio, who is my brother, they are all people who crossed in different contexts and who, before them, before the neoprimitives, did not know each other. When we went to the rehearsal room for the first time, I don't joke, a kind of magic happened, we were all so aligned that it really seemed to be part of something that has always existed ».

The result of these experiences is a sound that has its roots in a past that is so rotated, but which is not the “usual” past made of high -sounding names: removed the Velvet undergrounds, the references continuously recalled by the boys are all “lateral” and very specific enough. In fact, the Neu!, But also the Can are important projects but which even during their culmination of activities and popularity still required a certain research effort. The imprinting of the father of Andrea and Flavio was fundamental.

«We had a record shop, we grew up listening to the records that our father liked, who knew many and very beautiful. To say, I discovered them at 5 years old, something like that. This influence, but also the charm of the record shop, the possibility of having access to so much rare music I think it has influenced both me and on my brother. At a certain point I approached extreme metal, to understand soon that it was not so much metal to take an interest, as the extreme. And so I started moving on experimental records in various ways, until I fall in love with the Krautrock. But I still like to discover everything that somehow is based on experimental ideas. However, this experience of the record shop was also fundamental from another point of view: even if now the record shop is no longer there, I continue to sell and collect discs, and that's how I met Pietro ». Which confirms: “We were at this very unlucky fair, and we saw that we had very similar records and that perhaps for this reason no one was cagging, we sniffed and from there we stayed in contact”.

In any case, this mentality is also reflected in the care for the physical object. «We published the single in the box, because it lasted 21 minutes and it was the perfect format. Vinyl, on the other hand, has a suite on one side and three songs on the other, to maintain both sound and aesthetic logic », explains Flavio. The design, edited by Emilia, plays a fundamental role in defining the band's identity. “We wanted our music to be also a tactile, visual experience,” adds Pietro. Many elements, therefore, in the right place at the right time, who convinced 42 Records, a record reality that has made the history of Italian independent music of the last twenty years, to focus on them, despite the apparent incompatibility with the rules of the record market. «Look, in itself to make his debut with a trace of 21 minutes was not born as a controversy towards commercial music, but it was the most similar thing to our nature. Then I do not hide that, over time, a little polemic vein is incorporated. Reflecting us with the passage of time I personally also caught a kind of political aspect linked to this choice: we have come for a decade in which everything took place in Europe in the sign of a certain hedonism and in the belief that we lived in the perpetual well -being and instead we found ourselves dealing with one of the most frightening periods, in which there are wars and dead from all sides and in which the uncertainties are far And therefore, in light of this, it seems inevitable to impose a certain heaviness through music, because music is and must also be heaviness. In the last year my interest and my political commitment have increased a lot, and I do not exclude that in the next works of the neoprimitives this inner activism can be explicitly explicitly explicit ». And in any case, adds Flavio, “we had all we all tired of the song form, of its predictability, and we preferred to indulge this predilection of listeners of ours, applying it to our music”.

Photo: Giorgia Bronzini

The beating heart of the project, as the neoprimitive ones point out on several occasions, is the size of the concert, in depth in the Trenta Ants Residency in Rome. “We play without breaks, trying to create a continuous flow,” says Andrea. «We also project videos, to make everything more immersive looking for a balance between sound and performance. The initial idea of ​​Residency is inspired by the underground residences of the 60s, such as the UFO club in London. We think this is an underestimated element of the culture and avant -garde of that era. Today, it is rare that a rock or psychedelic group organizes a residency, but we wanted to recover this concept, adapting it to our way of making music. The goal was also to establish ourselves first in our city, rather than immediately trying to expand us elsewhere. We were advised to work in this direction, and it seemed to us a sensible strategy: we have played together for about two years, but with this training for just over a year, so we needed a consolidation period ».

And again: «During the Residency we presented several sets with always new videos and made three different fanzines. We also played an ambient music set and a new suite that we will publish in the future. We wanted to measure ourselves with our limits and our possibilities, without burning the stages. Another interesting aspect is that we experience a lot with the tools, exchanging them and adding new ones. When we started, our goal was not to make a record, but find a place to perform. It was essential for us to play and transmit a message. The disc arrived as a means of amplifying this experience ».