komakino: post-punk noise dreampop shoegaze indie & DIY fanzine

Finally I watched this documentary, I'm Now: The Story of Mudhoney (by Adam Pease, Ryan Short), telling their very beginnings, with high school band Mr. Epp (1978), and later, Green River (1984), featuring vocalist Mark Arm, guitarist Bruce Fairweather, drummer Alex Vincent and bassist Jeff Ament, a band which ended days after they opened up in L.A. for Jane's Addiction and Junkyard, and the story was that, while Ament loved them, Mark and Bruce commented to him they sounded totally lame.. that opened a big chasm among them and signed the end for the band, whose LP debut was due in a month on SubPop. Not bad, from that split Mother Love Bone and Mudhoney were later born.
So, the documentary tells the story a group of friends, fuckng talented friends making the sound of what changed a generation of kids and makes a difference still today. About when the amazing Steve Turner, working in a japanese restaurant, and a chief handed him a super fuzz pedal.. yeah, that's how it happened.. and it's also about Matt Lukin, initially bass player in Melvins, been kicked out because he did (and yet do) not have a pussy (:-P) .. Guy Maddison is a critical care nurse!! Of course it talks about Nirvana, addictions, the Courtney Love thing, grunge, Sonic Youth, mainstream vs indie record label. Okay, enough spoilering. That educational.
A frank story of humble people, living their normal life, without any ambition to become a banal rock icon. With love to the lucky ones.

Wow, latest record by True Sleeper is soooo, soooo good. Truly ecstatic. From the first till the last track.
Marco Barzetti, Rome, Italy, is at his top notch in song writing here. And he cherished this little baby with playing (almost) every instrument, mixing and mastering, - what a magistral piece of work. His previous release, Life Happened, 2019, was not this mature and elegantly calculated. Chapeau.
Every single detail counts here. With Loving You in Parallel Dimensions he finally embraced full experimentation with synths, drum loops and continuous vocals interplay, and his guitar is able to fuse with all that, riding the groovy vibe he wisely feeds.
Opening track Dream Travellers  flows in a full mellow crescendo of melancholia, fully inspired by an in trance state, like, you must listen to this track with headphones, laying on your bed, and you'll see that. Sleep rider is no less. So does How You Feel. Like a matching point between Depeche Mode, Bjork, The Cure, and Tame Impala knotty groove going dreampop. How You Feel is gigantic, Barzetti here has the confidence of speaking through poignant poetry, nurtured with a swell into the imaginary of a perfect beat and bassline marriage, growing and growing into a living memory. And its liason with final piece If Our Dreams Were Connected is gorgeous. With no rush, he plays with magnificent fireworks.
The Surface and Seven Lives is porn for guitar bass lovers. A sip of 70s psychedelia, and Barzetti puts on a multi carpet of vocals slow dancing into a natural swimming pool of unknown depth. (Reality Check) is an ambient monster, piano driven. 
Entities is the pop single here, with the catchy refrain which may do his fortune.
This is a special record, so I bought it. Hopefully to have this on vinyl someday soon.

Dendrophilia literally means "love of trees". Now, let's make it rough. Cedolin is sexually aroused by trees*, maybe with some it's still platonic, but, there are a tree-mendous few which led him to write there six pieces of Music, fed through kranky acoustic guitar, banjo, synth and field recordings: a pagan ode to the woods of the cover. Instrumental music. Improv. Hypnotic and ecstatic. A friend of mine, living in Taichung told me natives are used to slow collect positive energy from trees in the park over there. Propelled slowly by Taiji.
So, a cognitive and pensive tracklist framed by chirps and gentle waterfalls.. you know, I live in Rome, bloody noise pollution.. and as Slowdive sung, 'The world is full of noise yeah I hear it all the time'.. What if those noises were trees' voices instead.. Press play and discover it.

*No idea about that, just kidding.