Kirlian Camera – Radio Signals For The Dying (Album – Dependent Records)
Genre/Influences: Dark-Pop, Wave-Pop, Experimental.
Format: Digital, 2CD, Vinyl.
Background/Info: Angelo Bergamini set up Kirlian Camera more than forty years ago now. He remains the core member and has been assisted now for a while by singer Elena Alice Fossi. The line-up for this work has been completed by Mia W. Wallace, Alessandro Comerio, Thalìa Bellazecca and Terri Harrison. Notice by the way there also is a ‘deluxe’ edit available featuring a third disc.
Content: There’s the elegant, sensual voice of Elena Alice Fossi and the music by Angelo Bergamini. The work sounds diversified, hard to catch but always connected to an Experimental/Dark-Pop style. There are songs to listen to and simply dream away and others to dance to; songs filled with elegance and refined with acoustic instruments and others leading us towards Experimental fields. There’s a song featuring sampling parts of Julian Assange, another one as a collaboration with Solitary Experiments and there’re cover versions of Depeche Mode and The Sound.
+ + + : I have often had the feeling of repeating myself when evoking Kirlian Camera but more than ever before I believe there’s no other formation like this Italian band. This is music without compromises which makes it authentic and timeless; Bergamini and his friends don’t follow trends and established genres but simply are a genre on their own. The album is diversified and never repeating itself. I prefer the danceable side of the work but more than anything else I think that without Elena Alice Fossi it would be another band and another album.
– – – : All stuff isn’t always easy to catch; sometimes complex and then Experimental and/or Cinematic.
Conclusion: Songs to cherish and dream away or simply to dance.
Best songs: “Götter, Geht Weg!”, “Stella Ominis”, “The Great Unknown”, “C.R.U.D.”
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.kirliancamera.com / www.facebook.com/kirliancamera.official
Label: www.dependent.de / www.facebook.com/dependent.records Read the news on ‘Radio Signals For The Dying’.
About Kirlian Camera
Kirlian Camera was founded in Parma, Italy, in 1979/1980 by Angelo Bergamini, a pioneering act of the Italian synth-pop scene. The band’s debut vinyl followed at Christmas 1981, and Kirlian Camera became the first Italian group signed to Virgin Records. Singer Elena Alice Fossi has been Bergamini’s core collaborator for years, with the current line-up completed by Mia W. Wallace, Alessandro Comerio, Thalìa Bellazecca and Terri Harrison.
“Radio Signals for the Dying,” reviewed here, was released on Dependent Records on 23 February 2024 as a double CD, with a limited-edition 48-page artbook version including a bonus CD and a gatefold 2LP on transparent red vinyl. The album includes Julian Assange speech excerpts, a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Wrong,” a cover of The Sound’s “Winter,” and the band’s version of “The Great Unknown,” previously released by Solitary Experiments with vocals by Fossi. It followed the 2023 vinyl reissue of the EP “Communicate.”
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