Üstmamo'
Live & Plastic - Babydull
Emi Virgin Music Publishing s.r.l.

In the multicoloured cd-booklet Mara, as a poetess, explains in verse the meaning of the subtitle: Live & Plastic. She wrote, I'll try to translate:

Hot Fusions
spring-summer report of musical excerpts
played in front of
watchful/voracious/attentive eyes and ears
music came down by our stage, music sweat together: Prana Therapy

Cold Fusion
alien ears swallow and make a dissection
draw up again, give back
sounds of samplings
come out a space fluid: Remixes

... and this actually is Live & plastic - Babydull.

It's wrong to consider this record only as a Christmas gift Üstmamo' made to their fans (it was printed only one month ago), because in my opinion, it is more than a simple cd for collectors. I was happy to find there and listen to two good remixes, in particular the dubby one of Canto Del Vuoto, and five live performances, among them there is an unpublished recording called FiliDub, that Mara & 'compagni' always used to close their concerts with during last summer.

FiliDub is a new arrangement of Filikudi, an old song they released on their first cd (1991), its lyrics were taken from two ballads written by Stefano Benni (a great italian writer!) and adapted to music by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, frontman of CCCP, now CSI (Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti), he's Üstmamo's artistic father.

A bit of history. They have released 3 studio recordings: Üstmamo' (1991), Üstmamo' (1993), Üst (1996). They moved from their first work full of guitars, and clearly inspired by the social-political punk played until that moment by CCCP, to their last work where they play a strange original mix of dub, trip hop, sometimes jungle, featuring a new and heavy use of samplings. But there's something else; every sound is surrounded and improved by the wonderful voice of Mara Redeghieri who sings, talks, whispers, sighs in a sexy and healing way. During concerts she moves in a strange way, dances sending kisses ... to the audience that seems to be joining a celebration.

Mara is also the lyrics-writer. She uses the songs to express her feelings and emotions, sometimes they're full of sadness which came out together with her memories (Cuore/Amore, more then ever Piano Con l'Affetto from Üst) or due to considerations about life (Canto Del Vuoto ("Empty's Song"): love and other disasters!

However every single word mixes very well with slow rhythms, dub sounds and samplings created by Luca Rossi, who is driving his band to that cool sound of Bristol, played by Portishead, Massive Attack, Leftfield in England, and Almamegretta, Casino Royale and Üstmamo' in Italy, now.

Copyright © 1997 Mario Branciforti