It comes from the Venice lagoon If there was light it would be beautiful, a record that in theory deals with one of the most cannibalized themes of the Italian twentieth century: the kidnapping and death of Aldo Moro. The review would end here if Samuele Gottardello, aka Blak Saagan, hadn’t worked so well on the atmosphere.
Even if the title of the album, released by Maple Death Records, comes from the last letter of Aldo Moro to his wife and each of the thirteen tracks is linked to those days of confinement and end, Gottardello intercepts all the invisible substratum of an experience historical, of a precise moment in time. It is as if these songs, recorded over the course of two years and built on a seductive scaffolding of synthesizers, Moogs, drum machines and Farfisa organs, were rays of an unexpected and sinister light, ready to make visible particles that were in that moment and they have survived the time, all the splinters of politics, fear and sentiment that poisoned the air.
In a certain sense it suggests a work by the artist Luca Vitone made for the Italian pavilion at the Venice Biennale years ago: an olfactory installation entitled For eternity in which, based on three aromatic notes, Vitone reconstructed the smell of Eternit and asbestos that killed Italian workers in factories. Despite its physicality and its strong component If there was light it would be beautiful it is a gratifying listening, especially for the hazard of having shown us those dust particles which, without the right sensors, had so far been condemned to invisibility.
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