Swedish Mobilia - Knife, Fork and Spoon [Leo Records]

Swedish Mobilia:
Andrea Bolzoni - guitar + live electronics
Dario Miranda - bass + live electronics
Daniele Frati - drums + percussions





Leo Records 2012

It's a funny world where to get to know what's going on with Italian jazz scene one need to follow a british label but so it seems to me recently. I've had a distinct pleasure of writing about

Apart from my personal interest in Italy (I'm an almost pd in italian philology) what caught my interest about the cd is the band's name and cd's title. Swedish Mobilia? Knife, fork and spoon? Just for this kind of "and now for something completely different" you've got to get some credit. But there's much more to give the credit for.

As for the music its dense, dark and gloomy. Amalgam of slightly distorted guitar with lots of feedback echo, melodic impressionistic percussion work and fuzzy bass lines, minimalistic electronics, loops, sounds suspended in the air, all colliding together without ever crashing harshly against each other. While you will hear some jazz echoes in phrasing of the guitar solos and especially in the richness of the drum's dynamic palette this music owes much more to King Crimson (especially their sound in the 90's) than any jazz icon. It's intelligent and immaginative post-rock, hipnotic, atmosperic, gripping the attitude and conscience. Slghtly surreal, as if the melodies and sound were suspended in the air at first (like in "Suddenly Something Clicker" or spare "Pop-up Toaster") then heavier and more intense although, with more evident bass riffs ("Bubbling Pavements" with some broken beats and sharp and sudden exchanges beetwen guitar, dense drumming and electronic distorion, "Moka" that after short abstract eruptions starts with strong rock groove, with heavy kick on the drums as we're in for short equilibristic guitar solo). The title tracks develops from spare minimalistic repetitions into heavy and fuzzy jam with bass line digging the hole in the pavement, at which point they stop suddenly.

There are no cheap guitar pyrotechnics here nor any rock-out marathons, the pieces are coincise and players are focused not to show off their technical abilites but to co-create music that is intriguing and immaginative. In which they succeed easily. Gripping music, hypnotic, surreal, some of the most intelligent post-rock, post-jazz playing I've heard recently. Highly recommended.

some tracks are available on this playlist.

SWEDISH MOBILIA Knife, Fork and Spoon (Leo Records 2012) from SWEDISH MOBILIA on Vimeo.