giovedì 14 giugno 2012

Psychedelic Cold Furs


It was 1980 or maybe it simply was "our" 1977... anyway, those were the years! Italian new wave scene was growing lazy but fast and definetly interesting to my ears. Frigidaire Tango were one of the first talented band influenced by post punk sounds and they recorded a first demo soon to be sent to the newborn Mariano Barbieri's Young Records. They came from Bassano, a place really far from the urban wave scene of cities like Florence, Milan or Tiurin...They came also from prog& jazz and once finally converted to punk they mixed a bit of Comsat Angels, a bit of Urban Verbs and strong doses of traditional rock, all blended in a very personal convincing way. Not a lot of originality maybe but this is not the point... it was some kinda fist through the glow of italian sleeping rock scene. "The Cock" was their first album, produced in 1981 by George Button, still their masterpiece after more than 30 years. Then there was an interesting 1984 ep titled "Russian Dolls", a very mature work, with their music offering an hypnotic, multi-layered guitar driven sound which came along in the good old tradition of classic uk band but also echoing the us paisley underground scene.... then the band had live gigs in Italy and abroad and shared the stage with important names of the European New Wave and Post Punk scene. Then everything disappeared as always been for our new wave forgotten heroes. But it not ended there, not this time, not for them. After marking Italian rock history, nowadays Frigidaire Tango is still one of the most active band in 80's Italian alternative scene, with a quite interesting new album in the stores ("L'illusione del volo", yes, now they sing in italian...) with more or less the same mixture of sound, the one which made their style a unique 80's cultural dream's specimen. Long live to them!