Nico Nightingale, aka Neud Photo, is no stranger to collaborations. The New Yorker’s latest sees him teaming up with Cristiano F. Grimaldi to form INTRZN, a partnership meshing a free style approach to melodies with cold rhythms. Their “Zone” quartet is a twilight of fluctuating moods. Percussion is bare, allowing bright bars to shine and darker moments to fester. Music which in one breath is elated and uplifting and, the next, dejected and downtrodden.
Bionda e Lupo are like little you’ll have heard before, a boy/girl band like no other. Synth wave is fed a line of modern alienation, delusory disco to a disdainful drum beat, house emptied and ridiculed. Rhythms are stark, melodies are as mechanical as the lyrics. “Zug Der Vogel” is sparse, vocals intertwine in an empty embrace whilst bars sparkle. “Twoi Glasza” is more playful. Bright words shimmer against sweeping strings. The past is parodied across the EP but nowhere more so than in “Die Kinder Aus Dem Park.” A former classic dug out before being peppered by machine gun percussion. The stilted rhyme of “Eckstein” closes, a ballad of bittersweet images and lost hopes. |