Review: Orange Car Crash - Simple Music

Those who have been reading this blog for a while know by now of my deep, abiding love for the underground music coming out of Italy at the moment - whether it's material that falls under the 'Italian Occult Psychedelia' banner or some of the beautiful/harsh electronic experimental stuff. Well, here's another to add to my evergrowing list of "Cool Italian Artists". Orange Car Crash is the solo project of Andrea Davì, drummer for Lay Llamas and Mamuthones and and co-founder of the musical collective The Beautiful Bunker - as musical pedigrees go, you don't get much better than that. 'Simple Music' has been released via Was Ist Das...a label that has floated on the periphery of my music consciousness in the past but one that obviously deserves greater scrutiny and awareness. The album is one of those glorious affairs that defies categorisation, taking an array of styles and approaches and melding them together to make something rather special.

The opening track, 'Opposition', starts with some simple piano chords and for the first little while you would be excused in thinking you were listening to some minimalist jazz, but then the harmonised female 'aaaahs' arrive and things turn very 'Giallo'...it becomes a foreboding soundtrack for a seventies Italian horror...a more than promising start to an album. 'All The 72 Things You Are' is bedded in tribal percussion and ethnic instrumentation...but blink and you miss you, it is but a brief sojourn into primitive rhythms. 'Loop Loop Balendro' takes it cue from the ethnic influences of the previous track...the guitar has a very afrobeat feel about it and the whole track has a joyous 'world' vibe. 'I'm Dogged' sees things veer more towards the Dada inflected electronica of Cabaret Voltaire...a fuzzy electronic rhythm and ominous sub-industrial effects. 'Mind The Gap' has a noirish, again very soundtrack inspired, atmosphere. There are flashes of the same psuedosurf guitar that were heard in Heroin In Tahiti's mighty 'Sun and Violence' album....it is all very chilled but there is a hint of menace running throughout - the harmonised vocal refrains have an innocent, benign quality but also carry a malevolent subtext...much the same as the somewhat cliched use of nursery rhymes in horror films. 'The New March' is another with an indigenous ethnic feel...a simple percussive melody that conjures visions of far away, exotic places. 'Just Before The Earthquake' (a title that seems spookily prescient) is a glorious melange of pretty much all that has occurred thus far; some tribal rhythms overlaid with some jazzy percussion. Up to this point the majority of tracks have been quite brief in length, around the 1.30/2 minute mark, but the last handful all break the 5 minute barrier and allow Davi to work around a theme a bit more: title track 'Simple Things' has a jazz influenced rhythm but the over-riding vibe is that of 'lounge'..the "Simple things make man simple' vocal refrain has a distinct cocktail lounge vibe that works well with the jazzy, ethno-tinged music. 'The Hill's Theme' starts with some gently picked folky guitar but things evolve to incorporate more ethnic percussion and electric guitar and the atmosphere changes from bucolic to almost funky...yet again the feel is very much seventies soundtrack. It's one of those tracks that gives something different on each listen....probably my favourite track. The album is closed with 'Serena' and it's overtly jazz influences. The simple melody is overlaid with the discordant sound of a jazz band all seemingly playing from different score sheets. Everything goes quiet, as in silent, for what seems like an eternity before a jazz drum solo plays out the album.

What really struck me about 'Simple Things' is its effortless cool. Where some artists strive and manipulate to sound cool and edgy, Davi just 'does'. The ingenious juxtaposition of seemingly disparate influences appears to come naturally to Davi; it's not contrived in any way, it is just the sound of a man with boundless imagination playing what comes naturally. It is those ingenious juxtapositions, however, that make 'Simple Things' such a fine album...tracks which mix and meld jazz with afrobeat and seventies scores, or experimental electronica with Dadaistic overtones. I know I sound like a cracked record, but Italian left-field music at the moment is a rich and expansive playground at the moment....and long may that last. 'Simple Things' is available as a download and a very limited tape (only 30!) from the Was Ist Das Bandcamp page here.