Bellini - Snowing Sun
(Monitor)
Those short hairs on the back of your head are standing straight out. With no warning a surge in heat from your headphones causes them to catch fire, singeing them and spreading up, covering your whole head, leaving you burned, bald, and raw. What the hell has happened? You were just sitting there listening to music. How could that simple act cause a heat so tremendous that your scalp is left scarred and disfigured?
Then you look at the liner notes of Bellini's debut album Snowing Sun. You see the pounding rhythmic force that fanned those flames. You see the name of Damon Che. Only his name is not surrounded by the usual suspects. There are no names here that imply mathematic precision and technical focus. Instead, Che's name is flanked by members of Uzeda; Che's force and precision are not compounded by more force and precision but instead balanced by the powers of the rain, the sand, and the waves.
Agostino Tilotta's guitar portrays all these elements, at times showering down in perfect arrhythmia, at times building and building like the ascent of a hill, and at times driving and pummeling, pulling you back to shore. Of course, this is merely to serve as foundation for Mother Earth, Giovanna Cacciola, as she sings as if she is avoiding an argument, passionately describing all the reasons why she is right and you should just shut the fuck up. Her voice does not just convey words and sound but full body movement, like a bitter blues song captured on the first take.
The album's title comes from its best track, "We Crossed the Ocean to See the Snowing Sun," where Cacciola finds herself metaphorically in the body of a captured whale, finally let loose to return to its Nordic home. There are two worlds, the one of safety and containment and the one of danger in frigid endlass days. The collision of these worlds is expressed more through the music than Cacciola's voice, echoing and emphasizing her desperation to return to the safety of a relationship with a break in the piercing guitar assault, but then changing tone, resolving the conflict by directly transitioning into the deepest, angriest bass rumblings.
The culmination of Snowing Sun is the intentionally orgasmic "The Best Song On a Starship." It sways back and forth, the temperature rising both in sound and lyric. The space gets more and more cluttered, building in frenzy before the final release.
So what happens when the best part of Don Caballero is added to the best parts of Uzeda? Obvious answer. Expect not just to be floored, but to be trampled.
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