- Alessio Natalizia grew up on punk rock, which led to an interest in noise, post-punk, krautrock and eventually electronic music. As Walls with Sam Willis, the duo created light, euphoric sounds for Kompakt, until they started their own label, Ecstatic, and a tougher style emerged. With solo project Not Waving, however, Natalizia's gritty tastes have always had free rein. Industrial, EBM, electro and techno have rubbed up against new wave, dark ambient and moments of rueful machine abstractions. With Animals, his first full-length for Powell's Diagonal label, Natalizia puts the whole gamut on show.
Natalizia is no stranger to digging up the past (check out Mutazione, his Italian new wave compilation for Strut, or some of the anthologies he's curated for Ecstatic). As with Sound Houses, the BBC commission that saw Natalizia and Willis pay tribute to electronic music innovator Daphne Oram and her Radiophonic Workshop, the historical threads running through Animals are carefully recontextualized.
Similar to Oliver Ho's most recent Broken English Club album, Animals breaks down the barriers between club tracks and live rock music to deliver a blistering amalgamation of the two. Tracks like opener "Believe", "Head Body" and "Work Talk" cling to their origins in sweaty basement shows. Others, such as crotchety acid romper "I Know I Know I Know," sound more consciously tailored to today's retro-minded DJs than, say, "Face Attack," which makes a grungy return to '80s-era Belgium.
A whole album of such backwards glances could be trite, but they're only half the story here. In the poppy dirge of "Tomorrow We Will Kill You," the sci-fi oddities of "Gutsy" and the creepy skulking of "Presenza Immobile," Animals casts off into unfamiliar and experimental approaches. It might all sound erratic, but in this case it works. Natalizia leaps and twists through his musical history to make compelling, agile hybrids. His movements evoke the rebellious, non-conformist spirit of punk, redefined on Animals for the modern dance floor.
Tracklist01. Believe
02. Head Body
03. 24
04. Tomorrow We Will Kill You
05. I Know I Know I Know
06. Punch
07. Gutsy
08. Face Attack
09. Presenza Immobile
10. Work Talk
11. They Cannot Be Replaced