EX-P

Ancora Saigon

fratto9 under the sky rec (fratto 002)

Alessandro Allera – electric bass | Andrea Chiuni – electric bass, clarinet | Diego Rosso – drums, percussions | Alessandro Cartolari – saxophone

listen to EX-P | La Spiaggia Dei Conigli Muti

Entity formed by musicians strongly professing their psychedelic faith

sons of post-modern breaking-up, incapable of choosing between jazz noise and Italian tunes of Japanese manga, ill at ease in paying our respects both to Pink Floyd and to the most tremendous metal. After ten years, conflagration leaves room to the need of building up a more constant and meditative way, creating EX-P.

Improvisation and an estranged kind of sound are still the main features, searched inside the huge territories of rock. We’re aware of being a little late, we often look to a musical world and way of making music that’s run beside the times. The two electric basses can explore deeply the heaviness and versatility of the only true contemporary musical instrument, so technologic on the surface and neo-tribal at the core. Drums can distract from rhythms, sometimes becoming an acoustic colour and environmental noise generator.

Ex-P are an Italian trio

formed by Andrea Chiuni (bass, effects, clarino), Alessandro Allera (bass) and Diego Rosso (drums and percussions), and this is their debut album, clothed in an eye-catching red cover (by the way, the food is dried tomatoes, not meat as I initially thought). It’s not really easy to define their style, as using words like “prog”, “electric jazz” or “post-rock” would be equally partial. Ex-P’s instrumental pieces frequently reminded me of the bottomless cauldron of Italian ’70’s movie soundtracks, where you could find often daring mixes of pop/folk melody and contemporary experimentation. Here, influences range from country to ’70’s rock, from psychedelia to klezmer, and the sound manages to be both naive and extremely modern and focused. The only comparison I can come up with is with other similar (and underrated) Italian projects like Anatrofobia, Caboto and Comfort, which are talented “beautiful losers” for the arid music market.– Eugenio Maggi 

CD version (incl. shipment cost world-wide)