Blue Willa
Blue Willa

Blue Willa is the debut album by the Italian art rock quartet bearing that same name. The album is produced by Californian musician Carla Bozulich and released in Italy by Trovarobato on the 21st of January, 2013. The affinities between the band and Carla draw a dazing route that keeps drifting halfway through Pixies and Diamanda Galás, Kurt Weill and Iggy Pop. What we have here is a mashup of sweltering Mediterranean melodic heritage and hypnotic American calls, soundscapes that could emerge from reveries by Edgar Allan Poe or Italo Calvino, eerie noises and animals, bells, gypsies and punks. The resulting sounds feel aquatic, ringing and overturned: a sort of underwater rock music from the Thirties. These eleven new songs are driven by Serena Alessandra Altavilla's haunting vocals, which flutter and overlap with Mirko Maddaleno's mournful singing and edgy guitar playing. This dizzy architecture is held together by the robust, although sparse, rhythm scores by bass player Lorenzo Maffucci and drummer Graziano Ridolfo.