1964-1985 Affinità-divergenze tra il compagno Togliatti e noi. Del conseguimento della maggiore età
1964-1985 Affinità-divergenze fra il compagno Togliatti e noi – Del conseguimento della maggiore età, often abbreviated with the title of Affinità e divergenze, is the first album of the italian musical band CCCP – Fedeli alla linea pubblicato in 1986 from the record label Attack Punk Records.
The title refers to an editorial of December 31, 1962 in the Quotidiano del popolo, the official organ of the Communist Party of China. (Wikipedia)
When the first album, Affinity – divergenze fra il compagno Togliatti e noi: of Coming of Age (Attack Punk, 1985), was finally published, it immediately stands out as one of the masterpieces of European rock. The band’s various inspirational sources (American punk, Italian singer-songwriters, European industrial music, British dark) are sublimated into an utterly personal style in which spartan electronic drums, indolent bass and croaking guitar provide the ideal accompaniment for Ferretti’s visionary illuminations. His abulic singing, constantly overtone, is the real star of the record. In particular, Ferretti proves to be the first Italian singer able to adapt his language to the rhythmic and harmonic demands of rock music.
Hardcore rants become rarer and in any case are marred by elements that twist their physical impetus toward a surreal dimension. The sarcastic tone is otherwise predominant and manifests itself especially in the dreamy martial-rhythm xylophone of Curami, or in the idiotic refrains of Mi ami?, a real jingle from an erotic avant-garde show. The bumpy rhythm of Fedeli alla linea and the folk interlude of Valium Tavor Serenase (both ripped apart by brutal distortion) are two admirable examples of how it is possible to spread to other cultures the idoma of punk without distorting its subversive impetus. Pierced, Dying, and Boredom, all pervaded by a thriller mood, bring to the forefront a bottomless depression that ultimately represents the album’s overarching theme. The danceable Io sto bene, is the group’s hit, strong with one of the iconic refrains of the 1980s: “I don’t study, I don’t work, I don’t watch TV, I don’t go to the movies, I don’t play sports.” Together with the modernist tango of Allarme it represents the ideal introduction to Emilia Paranoica, the long track that closes the work.
A scream rips through the sky, an unintelligible blathering voice, a mechanical rhythm and a pulsing bass begin to linger insistently as Ferretti declaims, in a tone between the Jim Morrison of The End and the John Lyndon of Second Edition, “the” epic poem of the Italian province. On stage goes a people of bored drifters wandering like hopeless zombies in the night, stuffing themselves with psychotropic drugs, while echoes of equally senseless wars are heard in the distance. Zamboni’s guitars flail across the stereophonic landscape and the pace quickens, as if in convulsion. But it’s just a moment. The accompaniment returns to indolent repetition until the finale in which Ferretti sentences his own generation’s diagnosis: “I’m waiting for an increasingly indefinable emotion.” Elevating psychic paralysis to an epic dimension, zeroing in on the distances that separate the province from the classic symbolism of the metropolis (the highway, nightclubs, drugs…), Emilia paranoica stands as CCCP’s masterpiece and one of the absolute pinnacles of Italian rock music. (Piero Scaruffi)
For further discussion, see the following link.
TRACKS
CCCP – 2:24
Cure Me – 4:26
Do you love me? (Remixed) – 2:44
Pierced – 2:53
Valium Tavor Serenase – 1:17
Dying – 3:22
Boredom – 3:47
I am well – 3:08
Alarm – 5:08
Paranoid Emilia (Remixed) – 7:48
band members
Giovanni Lindo Ferretti – vocal
Massimo Zamboni – guitar
Umberto Negri – bass
Annarella Giudici – well-deserving soubrette, vocal
Danilo Fatur – people’s artist, vocal
