Mike Patton - Mondo Cane - 2010 - "...I don't need a landowner to harvest coffee."

Never one to get comfortable or to repeat himself, Mike Patton's latest effort comes to us in the form of 1960's Italian pop tunes, backed by a full orchestra, and sung almost completely in Italian.

If you are unfamiliar with Mike Patton, he gained fame as the frontman of Faith No More, and then went on to front a plethora of other projects (I briefly discussed this in a previous post), the multitude of which has defined Patton's artistic style ever since. He also lived in Italy for a few years, where he learned to speak Italian fluently. In what feels a bit like an homage to the country, the culture, the genre, or maybe all of the above, Patton assembled an all-Italian orchestra (65 members...no small feat), a Neopolitan conductor, and played three live shows to Italian audiences. The resulting live recordings were mixed and massaged in the studio, and ultimately released as Mondo Cane (that's pronounced Mondo Car-nay...go ahead and give it a whirl).

I know nothing in Italian. Undaunted, I plunged into this album with no external resources to guide me through -- I truly wanted to get irretrievably lost in translation. As it turns out, getting lost was quite easy, so I resigned myself to enjoy an album in a way I rarely do -- by emotional feel alone. I came out of the first few spins not overwhelmingly impressed, but pleased with the results. These are pop tunes, so everything felt inviting and catchy (especially the awesomely visceral 'Urlo Negro'). There's even one song ('Deep Down') that features some English singing (just those two words, but they do get repeated quite a bit). My prevailing thought after a few spins was that most, if not all of the songs dealt with love or chicks or something like that. I mean, these are Italian tunes after all.

Once I felt like I got the gist of things, I sought out translations to all of the tunes to see if I would enjoy the album any differently. 'As it turns out, 'mondo cane' translates to 'a dog's world,' and as Mike Patton recently stated in an interview about the album, 'If I really had to boil it down, [Monde Cane]’s about love and loss, heartbreak, and the triumph of suffering.' Sure enough, all but one of these songs (once again, the violently infectious 'Urlo Negro') deal with falling in love, hooking up, or breaking up. Reflecting back on my Italian-only listens, I also came to appreciate Patton's ability to sing with so much emotion in a foreign language. Even though I had no clue what he was so croony about the first few times around, as I suspected above, most of these songs deal in matters of the heart. But don't get me wrong -- these are not schmoopy saccharine love ballads. Yet Patton definitely infuses all of the songs with passion, so much that an English translation is not all that necessary to get an appreciable drift of what's going on. 

The end sum of Mondo Cane for me though, was that there were no hidden meanings to decipher in the lyrics. Learning the words in English ended up adding some flavor to the album, but was unnecessary for my listening experience. These are snappy little songs put together on an album that does not take itself seriously, but does manage to demonstrate some of the breadth and vigor that Mike Patton's voice possesses. There may even be a song or two here that would work perfectly on a Valentine's Day mix tape/CD/playlist. As for Mike Patton's future as an Italian balladier? Maybe so, but probably not. 

Orchestral Italian cover band? Been there, done that...on to the next project.

Primal Scream – Screamadelica – 1991 – “…my light shines on.”

Two albums into their career, Glasgow’s Primal Scream gave us the critically lauded Screamadelica. In the context of 1991, I can appreciate how to get from that album to Achtung Baby or Blue Lines. Even after, I can see how we arrived at Definitely Maybe or the quirkier moments of Hello Nasty.

Screamadelica demonstrates a sonic endeavor that reveals itself in multiple dimensions. Genrewise, the listener has an overfunded offering of dance, dub, and even gospel to absorb. Moreover, the band seems to know this, judging by the possibly self-referential sample of Reverend Jesse Jackson proclaiming halfway through the album, “Today on this program you will hear gospel, and rhythm and blues, and jazz.  All those are just labels.  We know that music is music.” Despite this prismatic audio onslaught, Screamadelica’s character emerges, ever so shyly. In fact, it took several spins before the album got around to making a proper and polite introduction.

Once it did, and it occurred only upon listening to Side A’s closing track, ‘Come Together,’ Screamadelica actually came together for me, and I suddenly became aware of the album’s thematic vitality:  motifs of light (“Gettin’ out of the darkness…”), life (“Plant the path you want to roam…”), love (“I believe in you…”), inner strength and external unity (“Together we got power, apart we got power…”). Oh yeah, and drugs – but in that good, “I’m having too much fun to quit now,” kind of way.

Not to lose itself in the narcotic whimsy of Side A, Side B presents a chronological decline from the listener’s apex (and be sure to check out the track listing): Get loaded, get damaged, come down, reflect one last time on the good memories of being higher than the sun, and ultimately surrender this life while your soul carries on eternal, shining like the stars. As the spirit of the record powers down to its accordion-pulsed epilogue, it bids farewell to itself and the listener, separating itself from the decline and perhaps to be reborn anew someday.

In the end, I can understand why Screamadelica has received its praise over the years.    Nonetheless, I will resist the urge to debate the album or its strength because I don’t want to influence the debates that people should be having.  I merely want to encourage the listen that provokes the potential for such exchange or enlightenment.  Simply put, Screamadelica captures for me the rise and fall of a lifetime presented in a moment during the waning months of 1991, and it’s worth a listen…or two.