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LP
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HOL 147LP
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La Festa delle Rane (literally "the frog's party") are one of the most singular outputs from the vibrant Italian underground community. Innocent, at times flawed, full of candor and tenderness and just enough spice to make things take a grandiose detour into the eerie and unsettling. Il lago รจ il cielo del bosco e tutte le rane cantano in coro, originally released on tape for Ruego in 2022 and now remastered for vinyl by Matt Bordin, was conceived by main songwriter Lucia Sole between 2020 and 2022. Her knack for off-kilter church melodies and yelping renditions of what apparently could be categorized as "feel-good" tunes often wanders into obscurity sparked by flashes of lo-fi Spectorian pomp, campfire folk and Smile era Wilson-isms. Recorded between Bologna, Napoli, Brussels, Benevento, and Colleverde di Leonessa, La Festa delle Rane's sun-tinged psychedelia comes with an incredible bag of tricks: dream flashes of absurdity, pillowy melodies and kaleidoscopic lollipops that are bound to melt and stick as soon as you get close. Joined by a collective of musicians that include Gianlorenzo Nardi (Lac Observation, Il Gran Diavolato, Rawarr), Simone del Deo, and Francesco Esposito, Lucia Sole 's songs are laced with mystique and a raw organic sound that depends, for this chapter, on a rotating trunk of instruments (glockenspiel, flute, organ, clarinet, musical saw, melodica) where subtlety and spontaneity are often combined resulting in a bizarre and oddly functional marriage. You often get the impression that just the wind and the swaying of trees would be enough soundscape for them to create timeless melodies and woven patterns. The lyrics not only paint a bucolic setting or a nostalgic elegy but they wedge simple nuggets into the psyche, seeds of a forgotten world that still ring true in any outsider cosmos. Tempos flutter and pitch comes and goes carrying a melancholy pin-pointed across the recordings, a bewildering atmosphere permeating the 14-track collection. Medieval folklore for the dawn of AM Radio or simply a zonked out semi-pagan collective that treads the fine line between the surreal and the pastoral. Innocence and mischief flow into a beautiful collection of celestial free-form children's folk hymns.
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