Narr! is an Italian duo formed by Vince Mustone (which has been a member of Limbo and partecipated to the composition of three of their albums: "My Whip Your Flesh", "Our Mary of Cancer" and "Vox Insana") and John Cordoni (which has been lead guitarist with Necromass since 1994). The project started back in 1999 and soon after the demo "Gaia" saw the light. Then the band concentrated their efforts with the live activity which had its highlight with the Italian tour as Sigue Sigue Sputnik's support. At the end of 2001 the band started to work to their first album SOULS ARE FLYING NOW, album that I'm holding in my hands right now. Musically the twelve tracks take their inspiration from the old Limbo albums but mixing that sort of feelings with e.b.m. tunes and goth anthems (see the Sisters Of Mercy cover "Lucretia My Reflection"), creating in this way a sort of hybrid between the old Italian electro goth of the early '90s and the nowaday sound of bands like Hocico, In Strict Confidence, etc. Half of the tracks have got Italian lyrics but they are reduced to few distorted, whispered and repeated lines which gave only an idea of the imaginary created by the music. Lyrics don't seem to be a matter of interest for the band as inside the booklet there are only few extracts and the rest of them are impossible to understand by listening to the tracks as they are buried within tons of effects and distortion. Anyway... At a first listening most of the tracks seems to work pretty well and I think that Narr! will be welcomed also by the foreign e.b.m./electro audience.

A couple of months ago I received from John Sepulveda (do you remember the interview we did years ago about his main project, Matrix, before they released their Out Of Line CDs?) a three tracks demo he composed along with his friend Steve Ferraro. This time John takes care of synths and stuff, while Steve sings and write the tracks. I'm sorry this demo has been buried under the pile of stuff I've got to review, because the sound of In A Sense (this is their name) is already mature and ready to jump on some label's wagon. "Passion In Your Eyes", "Beautiful Girl" and "Will You Be There Sometimes" are definitively three potential radio hits. This is finest electro synthpop and the band's personality is well shown and recalls also '80s big names of the electro scene (there's no need to name them, ins't it?) without cloning them. I wish I could receive this sort of stuff at least once a month, just to feel again that urge that pushed me into the adventure called CHAIN D.L.K.

Onirot is an Italian project coming from my hometown, Torino (the name is only Torino spelled backwards) and their first CD is titled AVGVSTA TAVRINORUM (the latin name of our town when it was a Roman outpost). Each of the eight long tracks paint an ideal trip through the occult places of the city which is famous, along with Paris and others, to be part of an ideal triangle of magical currents. "Walking Through Villa Genero", "Trompe D'oeil", "Piazza Statuto (Passage To Hell)", "Church Of San Filippo Neri And The Alchemic Gold", "Torino And The Devil", "The Gran Madre And Direction Toward The Grail", "Corso Francia The Way Towards The Peak" and "Crocetta, Liberty: a style..." are the tracks title and as I told, they have got references to famous places as the Gran Madre church: about this church is told that the finger of the statue that's in front of it, points to where the Grail is buried. Musically the project could be filed as dark ambient with clare references to bands like Lustmord or early Megaptera. As bonus, you can find a video track, "Mental Bukkake". A video made of various visual cut ups (I recognised the beginning of Von Trier's "The Kingdom" and "Suspiria") which show human brutality and depravation in all their aspects.

The Taroist is a project of Allan Armstrong, a guy who decided to share his passion about the major and minor arcana of the mysterious deck of cards well known as tarots. The five tracks are titled "Fire", "Water", "Air", "Earth"and "Tree Of Life" but since this isn't exactly a musical CD we can't talk about songs. At this point you could ask:"so, what's the deal?". Well, Allan recorded the tracks describing the characteristic of the various cards / characters dividing them following their relevance with the four elements. Talking about music, Allan used various Gaelic traditional folk songs as musical accompaniment to his speech and the result is very calm and gentle and helps the audience concentration to get in touch with the inspiring and mystic world of the tarots.

First released back in 1987 POUTI is the first album of Silicon Soul, a duo formed by K.L. Schafer and Olgalyn Jolly. They had a success in 1981 within the dance clubs with their first single "Who Need Sleep Tonight" (also included into this compilation with two versions: normal and extended) but the success became huge when the labl Disko B re-released it in 1991 making of it an European dance chart topper. The new version of POUTI includes nine tracks: "The Fig", "In Soho", "Who Needs Sleep Tonight", "Pardon Moi", "Woman´s Work", "Every Idiot knows", "California song", "Beat Box Brain" and "Who needs sleep tonight extended version". Musically Silicon Soul, on tracks like "Who Needs Sleep Tonight" or "Pardon Moi", rember me bands like Pink Industry and Kas Product (a French duo that in 1983 released a really good album titled "Kas Product"; their second and final one) but the approach is different as Schafer and Jolly music have got pop, soul and r'n'b influences (see how Olgayn uses her voice). The cold electronic textures composed by K.L. are like little nice robotic soundtracks but Olgayn vocals make them turn into something warm and particular. Following my tastes I must admit that I prefer Pink Industry but in any case Silicon Soul has been a pleasant discovery...