Anni zero, tempo di revival. Guardarsi alle spalle per far rivivere un'epoca. Operazione improbabile, anti-storica, patetica. Anche perchè si capisce che è un falso, si sente che è posticcio. C'è l'effetto vintage, oggi abusato, che fa comprendere che "il passato è una terra straniera". Però è anche bello sapere che oggi, finita la Storia, c'è chi se ne frega e ripropone pari pari la musica di una volta. Se poi questo recupero si basa anche su una vena compositiva sopra la media e un gusto, una grazia, una classe negli arrangiamenti come non capita tutti i giorni, allora possiamo anche abbandonarci col nostro bel sorriso ebete al puro piacere degli Of Montreal.

La "corporazione" di riferimento è la Elephant 6, etichetta dedita ad una ripresa, ora calligrafica ora distorta, dell'eredità psichedelica dei sixties. Tutti si sono buttati in questa "operazione nostalgia", meno i migliori del plotone, quei Neutral Milk Hotel che ci hanno abbandonato sul più bello, dopo 2 favolosi dischi di "fuzz-folk" che hanno spazzato via, come uragani emozionali, lo scorso millennio. I NMH facevano tutto fuorchè revival, presentandosi così come gli eretici della Elephant 6. Altri compagni di viaggio dei "nostri", come gli Apples In Stereo, scrivevano anthem poco indie e tanto pop, saccheggiando i 60's per seppellirli però sotto strati di vocoder, effettacci e timbri forzati. Non che non abbiano lasciato il segno gli AIS con il loro zucchero filato, perchè qualsiasi pop-star darebbe via tutti gli organi per comporre "Radiation" o "Play Tough", ma l'eleganza degli Of Montreal, quella non ce l'ha nessun'altro, fra i "manieristi" della nostra era.

E così “Satanic Panic in the Attic”, uscito nel 2004, sesta fatica della band di Athens, è un’irresistibile mosaico rococò della musica che si ascoltava 30 o 40 anni prima. L'intento passatista è scoperto, sin dall'inizio: la consapevolezza dell'operazione, con la conseguente ironia di fondo, non pregiudica tuttavia la pura bellezza di forme musicali armoniose come una scultura di Canova. C'è un sentore di Gong, storica formazione franco-canterburyana, nella geometria spavalda di "Disconnect the dots", un invito alla spensieratezza ("It's so beautiful..."), laddove il malizioso motivo di "Rapture Rapes the Muses" pare uscito da una radiolina lasciata ardere al sole di una spiaggia. Lo stesso lido in cui scorazzano, incauti ed effervescenti di adolescenza, i surfisti di "Chrissy Kiss the Corpse"...

Dotti conoscitori non solo del lessico acid/psych/garage dei 60's, gli Of Montreal incastonano nel mosaico citazionista anche il decennio successivo, quello del glam, dell'art, del prog: "Lysergic Bliss" apre il sipario con arpeggi stregoneschi alla Amon Dull, degenera presto in una cantilena retrò, per spiazzare con una coda dove, uno dopo l'altro, vengono catalogati inestimabili reperti archeo-musicali, dalle voci operatiche dei Queen, all'organetto insonne di Manzarek, al flauto nebuloso dei Traffic. Il fatto che gli Of Montreal siano americani non impedisce loro di omaggiare i maestri d’Albione: “Will You Come and Fetch Me” ripropone in apertura la foresta di suoni lisergici tanto cara a Syd Barrett, passando il testimone a “My British Tour Diary”, spudorata caricatura delle imprese dandy di kinks-iana memoria, toccata-e-fuga (con macchina del tempo low-cost) nella Swinging London: un pomeriggio di premeditata euforia, con tanto di citazione per Gary Glitter, (in)dimenticata icona glam.

La slide afosa di "Erroneous Escape into Erik Eckles" fa pensare per un attimo ai Monochrome Set, e la vacanza si tinge di malinconia ("I'm not upset, just confused, when it's over..."). Ilairità marpiona, anacronistica joy de vivre, testarda ed irresponsabile ignoranza di quanto siano bui i nostri tempi: è il sentimento che fa capolino in "Your Magic Is Working", il capolavoro dell'album. Ne fa il paio, in una variante più quieta ma ugualmente sdolcinata, "Climb the Ladder", omaggio neanche troppo velato al pop autoriale di Todd Rundgren. "City Bird", sussurro acustico in punta di piedi, fa storia a sè. Nel finale, il disco si fa un po' lezioso, insistendo nei barocchismi e nei fraseggi leziosi, come un squadra che, in vantaggio 4-0, si concede la “melina”.

Per questa rece ringrazio Korrea, che tempo fa in chat mi fece rivalutare la Elephant 6, questa congrega di impudenti viaggiatori nel tempo, certosini conservatori di un’irripetibile eredità musicale, utopici cantori in falsetto dell'altra America, ritrattisti sorridenti dei mille volti della psichedelia pop.

Elenco tracce testi e video

01   Disconnect the Dots (04:25)

Come disconnect the dots with me poppet! Come disconnect the dots
Come disconnect the dots with me poppet! Come disconnect the dots


It's so beautiful
Our lunacy
It's so beautiful

02   Lysergic Bliss (04:04)

Wearing an olive drab
but feeling somehow inside opalescent
Wonder how I'm managing to smile oh
when I can't even pay my rent
Maybe it's because I've finally found
my little tulip my Norge dear
Funny how in spite of all my woes
life can appear rosy and clear
rosy and clear

And I'm dizzy from her kiss
so vertiginous lost in lysergic bliss

Love the way you wear your curly hair
sanguine and spiraling tied in a bun
Love the way it falls about your face
mercurially gilded by the sun
If we were a pair of jigsaw puzzle pieces
we would connect so perfectly
Creating a still photo of a scene
from the Phantom of Liberty

03   Will You Come and Fetch Me (01:59)

04   My British Tour Diary (02:19)

On our trip to England I noticed something obscene
People still actually give a shit about the Queen
Though London girls aren't snobs at all
and Brighton's lovely in the Fall
Left alone to drive ourselves on the opposite side
Man it was a miracle that nobody died
Hanging out with Steven Drew, Theo,
Paul and Sorrel too
Eating at Welcome Breaks daily
We danced in Leeds with Brit Pop Haley

Performing with the Apples
and then crashing at the Wrights
Bitching because Steven booked us
on such early flights
Always in a foggy haze
because we hadn't slept for days
Every single one of our London cabbies played
The most truly repellent techno music ever made
But they'll drop you without hesitation if you try changing the station

Up to our necks in crisps and litter
in the van we dubbed the Gary Glitter

05   Rapture Rapes the Muses (03:03)

06   Eros' Entropic Tundra (03:12)

07   City Bird (02:20)

08   Erroneous Escape Into Erik Eckles (02:48)

The octopus in your purse
is cursing like an evil sailor
But remember the knife is worse
for the editors of movie trailers

And if you want me to
I'll help it's all the same to me
just tell me if you want me to

If you keep killing God in your eye
people will think you're really callous
But no matter how hard you try
you'll never be as weird as Uncle Alice

I'm not upset just confused and it's so tough
I can't relate to this world I'm not bored enough
Watch out the music will complete the change in you

To sing this song in braille
you need to be haunted by glass freckles
And if your color treatment fails
well you can always talk to Erik Eckles

09   Chrissy Kiss the Corpse (02:40)

10   Your Magic Is Working (03:42)

Baby your magic is working
I lose control of myself when ever you are near me
I feel myself changing
From a guy too cynical for love
into a blushing romantic
Oh honey I'd swim across the Atlantic
just to be near to you I'm hopping like a kangaroo

Baby your magic is working
all of my friends think I'm mad
'cause I talk of nothing but you girl
How you've really changed me
for a guy thought too cynical for love
You've proven everyone wrong
anywhere with you girl is where I belong
Everything is beautiful and you are the reason

Lately I've been so happy
just holding you and gazing into your eyes
like in a movie
You are a star…I mean a starlet,
listen the night we met I fell in love with you
Who'd have guessed who'd have guessed
I'm in love I'm in LOVE!!!

How you've really changed me
from a guy thought too cynical for love
Suddenly I feel as light as a butterfly
and wanting to give love another try
Everything is beautiful and you are the reason

Baby your magic is working
my mirror's reflection is you
looking coquet and smirking
now your magic is working

11   Climb the Ladder (03:26)

When I'm caught in a net and I haven't a clue
All I've got to do is climb the ladder to you
Climb the Ladder

When there are ghosts in my coat

and everything is askew
All I've got to do is climb the ladder to you
Climb the ladder to you

All of these faces are crowding around me
with mouths open wide to devour
But they have no impact no I do not cower
knowing I'm safe in your tower

When my pencil tips broken and my brain is too
All I've got to do is climb the ladder to you
Climb the ladder

When I feel like an oar in a sunken canoe
All I've got to do is climb the ladder to you
Climb the ladder to you

All of these faces are crowding around me
like grey paint caked on a flower
But they have no impact no value no power
knowing I'm safe in your tower

12   How Lester Lost His Wife (02:31)

13   Spike the Senses (03:11)

Every second of every minute of the day
I let my fancy play
And when the feeling strikes me
I deliquesce in the sky without waving goodbye
While contemplating (ooohhhooohhhooohhh)
a fractured pale cathedral wall
death can't touch me at all
Let its rapacious fingers with venomous stingers try
I'd like to see them try

Try to find a way to spike the senses
till everything goes white (x3)
Try to find a way to spike the senses

I had a vision of vinyl spiders in a cage
now I avoid the stage
'Cause though it was a trifle
I still can't stifle the fear
that they might just reappear

Try to find a way to spike the senses
till everything goes white (x3)
Try to find a way to spike the senses

Climbing climbing climbing never falling
If it was up to me I'd freak the clouds
let them fall and drip to the sea
I think the chemicals have done
some evil thing to me

14   Vegan in Furs (03:53)

I used to think it black while at my country seat
Now I'm peaking in so many ways
the gloom is in retreat
Yes the dark epoch is over I've found my efeblum
Then passed Ernst's mausoleum defended by a rook
Who shot a look so virulent it pierced me like a hook
The palaver of Solipsists exploding in my skull

Yeah and we both despise all of the academic swine
Who made the author of "Discus Ulysses" benign

So what if Wednesday finds us
wearing rabies parachutes
Foaming like the melodies of sea foam fairy flutes
The atmosphere is viscous we're sticking to the brine

When the lanterns fill with finches
so begins the brawl
Their brains are like porcupines
and mine's a paper ball
I know they don't understand they don't get us at all
Their moss mangles polyanthus
and mine's a paper ball

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