It reads (loosely translated):
Herself and Lay Llamas: psychedelia of Sicily - by Ignazio Gulotta
Why review these two drives together? But because there are many connections that link Herself , moniker of the Palermo Gioele Valenti , and Lay Llamas group of another Sicilian, Nicola Giunta , but not enough, Valenti , has collaborated with Giunta for the album "Østro" ( 2014 ); moreover, both are dedicated to psychedelia and have found a lot of listening abroad, publishing on prestigious labels such as Fuzz Records and Rocket Recordnigs , finally, on "Thuban" ( 2018) we find the participation of Goatshee of the Swedish Goat and, on the last record that Valenti published with his other moniker Juju, the beautiful "Our Mother Was a Plant" ( 2017 ), we find Capra Informis , another member of the same Goat . Two paths that seem to run parallel and from Sicily have led them to play on the stages of half the world, establishing themselves more and more among the best and most interesting things in the world psychedelic rock scene . But let's get to the records and start with "Rigel Playground" released in October 2018 , on behalfHerself , the pseudonym behind which lies the singer-songwriter soul , more pop, more dreamy than Valenti , instead assigning to the albums in the name Juju the more properly psych , hypnotic and tribal. The beginning of the album is dazzling, Another Christian has a killer melodic line, wonderfully dream pop , the tambourine gives the rhythm giving the song a kindly childish, while the voice refers us to the great Mark Linkous .
No less successful is the first single from the album, The Beast of Love , in which we find Jonathan Donahue deiMercury Rev , to whom Valenti has acted as a shoulder in the recent Italian tour , is a dreamy piece of folk , with melancholy and intimate atmospheres. Crawling opens up to lyrical scenes of the Floydian style , embellished by a remarkable guitar solo. But it is the whole album, totally written and played by the only Valenti , which convinces in full for its international scope, for the ability to create enveloping atmospheres with a shady, autumnal color, so much so that one finds it hard to believe that everything comes from the sunny Sicily but, on the other hand, "Rigel Playground" as well as in Palermowas recorded in rainy Seattle . Equally convincing is the third work by Lay Llamas , "Thuban" , the name that the Arabs gave to the star Alpha Draconis that until the second millennium BC served as the polar star . Nicola Giunta says : “A polar star is something that drives travelers to a safe place. But in the age in which we live now it seems difficult to recognize a polar star. Should we wait for him? How many times? We have to look in another direction? " ....
Read the whole piece here: Magazzini Inesistenti
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