Franco Battiato would probably have found Lucy Bedroque interesting. Or perhaps unbearable. We'll never know. But imagining the two of them in the same room, standing in front of a synthesizer, says something about the state of music today.
With Franco Battiato. Il lungo viaggio, the biopic directed by Renato De Maria, attention turns once again to an artist who made experimentation a form of intellectual and spiritual inquiry. In the days of Fetus and Pollution, Battiato was challenging the conventions of Italian songwriting. Half a century later, a new generation continues to pushagainst musical boundaries, with one fundamental difference: they no longer need to search for their influences elsewhere. Everything is already within reach.
Today, anyone can sample, accelerate or distort a track. Technology has democratized the tools, though not necessarily the talent. What makes the difference is the ability to transform shared references into something that sounds like no one else. And this is precisely where some of the most compelling work in today's underground istaking shape.
Dagood YL, a remarkably young artist from Rome, has found an unlikely meeting point between Italian trap and Mexican corridos tumbados. In Camicia and Zanotti, Latin American imagery and urban codes intertwine with disarming ease. His intuition wasn't discovering Mexican music, but recognizing that it could work just as naturally outside its original context, acquiring an entirely different identity. Musical geography hasn't vanished. It has simply lost the authority to decide who gets to play what.
Lucy Bedroque, meanwhile, seems intent on discovering just how far a sound can be deformed before it becomes unrecognizable. In UNMUSIQUE and c, distorted basslines, electronic fragments and almost childlike melodies coexist in a space suspended between video games, raves and digital memory. In ERASE YOUR SOCIAL, the atmosphere grows more sparse, revealing the sensitivity that runs beneath even his most aggressive productions. Lucy doesn't use distortion to escape emotion, but to give it a different texture. Glitch is no longer a technological accident. It has become an accent.
fakemink has built something equally personal, though with an entirely different attitude. His music moves somewhere between the bravado of rap and the melancholy of a night spent online for far too long. In Terri and d., electronic productions, manipulated vocals and deliberately eccentric melodies accompany an aesthetic caught between exaggerated self-assurance and vulnerability. In Tell Me What You're Missing, layered harmonies reveal something more intimate beneath the surface of the persona. This tension is precisely what makes him compelling: fakemink doesn't have to choose between constructing a myth and exposing its cracks. He manages to do both, often within the same track.
Biancamaria Modini
Editor
I'm Biancamaria Modini, an Italian writer exploring fashion, music, art and contemporary culture as reflections of the society we live in. I'm particularly interested in subcultures, collective obsessions and the subtle ways aesthetics shape our identities, desires and perceptions.
I write to understand why certain things become relevant, why others are overlooked and what seemingly insignificant details can reveal about the present. My curiosity often leads me towards unconventional perspectives, cultural contradictions and the blurred line between individual expression and collective behaviour.
I believe the most interesting stories aren't always found where everyone is looking. Sometimes, they're hiding in the things we don't think twice about.
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