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2005
"KJW2137 (I've Risen Through The Ranks)"
2006
"The White Trade Rhapsody"
"Forceps"
2009
"Spongiform"
"No Use To Get Angry With Red Co-Ops If Your Cousin Killed Himself By Beating A Dishwasher With His Head"
2010
"To Infinity And That's It!"
Click on the titles
for details.
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Lev and Davide Carrozza present
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I began working on "The White Trade Rhapsody" when the controversy about Danger Mouse and his recommended "Grey Album" was born. "The Grey Album" was made putting Jay-Z's vocals from his "Black Album" upon instrumental tracks made of samples taken from the eponymous album by the Beatles, the 1968 "White Album". Everything told about it captured my attention and influenced my working on "Rhapsody", so did my discovery of artists like John Oswald, The Evolution Control Committee, Negativland, The KLF and others who created out-and-out masterpieces "stealing" from other artists, to say nothing about that kind of avantgarde we call "old school hip-hop": I think that De La Soul, Public Enemy and Grandmaster Flash were not un-creative or outlaws, but they wrote a "satire about composition", they were aware of their limits and they were going on a debate started with John Cage, who answered to the limitedness of armonic combinations with silence ("4'33""). Others may answer not with a revision, but with a re-elaboration of the past, celebrating it or criticising it. This is the way it goes since the birth of popular tradition, that is nothing else than a continuous "self-sampling", an endless re-elaboration: the Beatles re-elaborate Chuck Berry, who re-elaborates Robert Johnson, who re-elaborates someone he heard on the road, and I don't think that copyright as we know it has controlled this "data stream"...
Like Glenn Gould pondering about recording techniques and ways to enjoy the music (what a paltry comparison for him!), I began pondering about how copyright (and you can see it as you like: as SIAE, as ASCAP, as RIAA, as a record major, as a pair of shoes...) could influence, sometimes negatively, our way to compose, therefore freedom of expression. I myself am not in good terms with words (sorry for the pun), so when I feel unable to finish a speech, I feel obliged to "steal" words from others, in order to coherently and consistently externate my thought. I use my music not as a mean to express how I feel: I would never succeed in it, on the other hand it's a surpassed subject, a "banality" rich performers and uneducated impresarios are still stomping to the point of seeing blood. My music is a product of my head, not of my heart. I don't mean I'm using a strategy, or a canon: I have something to say and I don't know other ways to say it; and what I have to say is exactly what you're listening to, because I haven't found a better alphabet to express myself.
The interviews about copyright are not to be seen as an inquiry about that subject (also because I alone am not able to say much): these interviews made me discover vocal counterpoint. It's not a novelty, we can find it in radio documentaries Glenn Gould made in the Fifties and Marta [Gabrieli, author's note] made me listen to. I used specific vocal fragments in some bars just because I thought it sounded good, not to put in evidence a particular concept; Frank Zappa said the Ultimate Rule ought to be: "If it sounds good to you, it's bitchen; and if it sounds bad to you, it's shitty".
I also wanted to venture into a work that was not only conceptual (I frankly hope all my works are seen as conceptual, I am almost unable to think in song or piece terms), but also choral. I wanted the "chorus of concepts" to make the listeners think and ordinary people to take part in the enterprise. I wanted this chorality, or anyway the structure of this work, to show the logical link between the songs included in the first demo by Lev [reviewed below, author's note]. I think songs like "Bombe su Kabul" and "WWW" are more linked to each other than we think.
This is just an interpretation of mine about the whole. Yes, it is by me and by Lev, but of course just a part of it comes from me, so I could also be wrong, in spite of me trying to rationally deal with the subject. It's not just for this work, but also for what I've done and what I'll do: it's part of the process, I want to say particular things, people may understand other things... On the other hand, I'd be happy to know that the "Rhapsody" is multi-directional and interpreted in many ways, being the opposite of this, if we have it, very sad and unrewarding to me, and offensive to listeners' intelligence and creativity.
Now, why is it titled "The White Trade Rhapsody"?
It initially sounded nonsense to me when I chose it, but it seemed to represent everything with immediacy, and it didn't matter how words were positioned, what sound they could produce, etc. A posteriori, I think it's a good summary about art industry: hearing is on the right, sight is on the left, and guess what is on the center...
(Davide Carrozza, September 10th, 2006)
LEV
(Self-produced, 2003)
This band's career begins when our heros are attending secondary school for the last year at "Elio Vittorini" Institute in Naples, Italy. The band's name was "The Lazy Sods" and they covered Ramones, Sex Pistols and Clash. No wonder, 'cause "Lazy Sods" was a quote from Sex Pistols' "Seventeen". The main characters in this story, the guitarist Mauro Sommella, the bassist Salvatore Prinzi and the drummer Claudio Mirone, three classmates, together with singer Gigi Picazio, one year younger than them, recorded their demo. Tht title of it, "At Least Not The Last, Here For You The Lazy Sods", should refer to the very recommended "Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols". The demo was minimally packed (some photos on the booklet, printed on the outside, and the titles on the back) and the audio quality wasn't the best, but who cared? The band's intentions seemed not to be the same of now. There were 70's punk covers, some intrumentals composed by the band, Dream Theater's "Regression" re-arranged for two guitars, with Claudio at the guitar, and a cover of "Giro giro tondo", the children's song HAL 9000 sang in the Italian version of Kubrick's "2001". The demo was recorded on a MiniDisc and then spread on CD, given to friends, sold to others (it's told it arrived also in Basilicata).
Then, school-leaving exams, debauche for some time, and they formed a new band, without Picazio: Lev. They took the name from Lev Trockij, the famous Portoguese tennis player who had time to patent the first ox-sperm-based tempera (yeah, I know, but we're under a regime: we're going to frighten no-one!). Now Sommella's singing, playing guitar, composing, writing lyrics (he had a lot of time to spend), and the rest of the group plays its part. Prinzi has tecnically improved and Mirone, that plays guitar, composes and sings in Zappa-inspired band Gecko's Tear, is a comedian behind the drum set, but not because of the way he plays. Accompaning the three, playing djembé, is Simone Picardi, a former classmate of theirs.
Their music, as said in a throwaway advertising their concert in a famous pub in Naples, is "between the worst of Franco Battiato and the best of Clash". I think there's no better way to describe their compositions, with lyrics seeming mad channel surfing on TV sets showing only cheap sensationalism and oil-smelling coffins. This is indie rock fed up of bourgeoises and wars made "by choice and not from necessity", as said by Steven Spielberg, the famous hacker who entered in Gianni De Michelis's gay website (yeah, nobody knows, maybe it's honorable of him), and is now available to everyone in two songs, "Bombe su Kabul" and "WWW (What a Wonderful World)", in a demo packaged together with a map of Kabul. A strong-toned demo, Sonic-Youth-ian noisy attitude not missing, djembé sometimes is out of place (maybe because is barely hearable). The almost cartesian sound structure of the recording strongly conrasts with exploding live shows, almost totally djembé-less. No wonder it's the way it is. This behaviour suits their political coscience. Waiting is over. We have enough of Forza Italia's posters, of the nation managed like an enterprise. Political opposition is tired of being accused to eat children. We must scream, telling the authorities to stop with these bollocks. Maybe, belching at their faces.
(Davide Carrozza, April 24th, 2004)
On the same wavelength [of KJW2137] is The White Trade Rhapsody, promoted by Davide Carrozza and Lev, a band from Naples. Now the concrete excerpts - speeches stolen from FM and interviews on the background - are convingingly supported by the musical contribution from a band accepting to be vivisected, cut off, crossed by electromagnetism and transponders, but they don't renounce to impress a clear musical turning to the work. A turning with strongly critical lyrics, an un-orthodox musical approach - C.S.I. (?) -, noise bouncings and post-punk hints, exiles forced to be supporting actors in the river of words holding the texture of the disc. Results are good, and the two different expression realities are in a exciting forced cohabitation. (6.8/10)
(Fabrizio Zampighi, Sentireascoltare.com, "We Are Demo", march 2007, translated by Davide Carrozza)
Italians who sing in Italian. And this made collecting pieces of information about the band problematic to me (now you know I can't speak Italian very good). It's a collaboration between two bands. Lev is a somewhat committed rock group, and Davide Carrozza is said an avant-gardiste.
Anyway, the product of this collaboration is interesting. This mix of rock interspersed with modernism (noises, radio programmes, etc.) is quite pleasant. Not for everyone, but it's worth listening to it.
(Romain B., Musique: Passion, pas Industrie, February 21st, 2008, translated by Davide Carrozza)