{"id":15964,"date":"2022-08-30T13:54:44","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digipur.it\/?p=15964"},"modified":"2022-08-30T13:54:44","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T11:54:44","slug":"fiesta-is-the-debut-album-by-leatherette-to-be-released-on-october-14th-2022-via-bronson-recordings-listen-to-the-new-single-so-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digipur.it\/en\/fiesta-is-the-debut-album-by-leatherette-to-be-released-on-october-14th-2022-via-bronson-recordings-listen-to-the-new-single-so-long\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fiesta” is the debut album by Leatherette, to be released on October 14th, 2022 via Bronson Recordings; listen to the new single “So Long”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leatherette<\/strong> are, by their own description, \u201cfive shy guys who sometimes get off the stage and punch people,<\/em>\u201d a quintet whose car-crash of jagged noise<\/strong>, twisted love and dark, anguished melody has delivered a remarkable \u2013 and eminently combustible \u2013 debut album. To be released on October 14th, 2022 on CD<\/strong>, vinyl and digital by Bronson Recordings<\/strong>, Fiesta<\/strong><\/em> offers release for any who might need it. You can file them near fiery post-punk<\/strong> kindreds like Shame and Squid, or unhinged 90s noisers like Unwound or Hoover, or squalling No Wavers like James Chance, but the truth is there are few bands like Leatherette that walk this Earth.<\/p>\n

Based in Bologna but hailing from other cities all over Italy, they formed first as a trio \u2013 singer\/guitarist Michele, bassist Marco and drummer Francesco \u2013 before expanding their membership in 2019 and welcoming aboard guitarist Andrea and Jacopo, whose saxophone takes their molten caterwauling in unexpected and wonderful new directions (check Dead Well<\/em>, where his poetic horn fuses with screaming Sonic Youth guitar and Michele\u2019s pushed-way-past-the-comfort-zone howl to create something unsettlingly wonderful).\u00a0\u201cWe were more soulful, more jazzy back then,<\/em>\u201d says Michele. \u201cWe wanted to be more rough, to be less shit. And we wanted a saxophonist to be less jazzy.<\/em>\u201d \u201cLuckily, I\u2019m not good at playing jazz,<\/em>\u201d adds Jacopo. \u201cI was more No Wave. My saxophone was broken when I met them, I carried it around on a rope. I hadn\u2019t played for three years \u2013 I\u2019d decided I fucking hated saxophone. I\u2019d try and play guitar and scream in emo bands. Luckily, I met them, and started playing saxophone again.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

That saxophone<\/strong> is the element that catches your ear first, beaten and beautiful on Cut<\/em>, but soon it becomes clear that Leatherette are more than the sum of their electrifying parts, that their chaotic jigsaw of unlikely pieces adds up to something unique and vital. \u201cWe\u2019re very experimental as musicians,<\/em>\u201d says Andrea. \u201cOften in bands people feel limited, but we are very free. We are strong, because we are five: five heads, five pairs of shoulders, five sets of muscles.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0The same-old, same-old has never been on the agenda. Their motivation is to express themselves. \u201cIt can be hard, like anything you\u2019re involved with emotionally,<\/em>\u201d the group say. \u201cWe feel we have to break from any usual routine and express ourselves in a meaningful way that feels natural. None of us could live without making music.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0\u201cI had to find people I could play music with,<\/em>\u201d adds Michele. \u201cI thought I was going crazy.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

All hailing from different cities, they met online and bonded in Bologna, a big university city that\u2019s full of bands, and also full of people who want to see bands. But the competition is heavy, and also Bologna is still small. And Leatherette\u2019s ambitions are big, too big to be contained within a small city.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not one of those bands who have been friends for a lifetime,<\/em>\u201d says Jacopo.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s strange, because we\u2019re very different people,<\/em>\u201d adds Michele. \u201cBut we got to love each other.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0They bonded over music, although each member brings with them their own fingerprint-unique tangle of influences, like the early work of Idles, midwestern emo groups like American Football, lots of rap and electronic music, garage-rock, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, art-rock like King Crimson and Berlin-era Bowie, John Coltrane and James Chance, Frank Ocean.<\/p>\n

Fiesta<\/strong><\/em> is their first album, though not their first release. They recorded and released via WWNBB an EP, Mixed Waste<\/em>, during lockdown, the process of which the group describe as \u201clike communal therapy<\/em>\u201d. The songs on Fiesta<\/em> predate those on Mixed Waste<\/em>; the album was planned before COVID, and while they\u2019ve written further songs since then, the group wanted to release this first batch of songs as a piece. Their vintage hasn\u2019t deadened their attack; indeed, the time spent getting inside the songs live, rewriting and rearranging them before the long-delayed recording session, has brought more complexity, more passion. \u201cRearranging and finally recording these songs was amazing,<\/em>\u201d they say. \u201cWe had time to put them together in a more coherent way. And recording them properly was amazing for us \u2013 like, \u2018Oh my god! So we can actually sound good?<\/em>\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lean and limber from regular gigging, Leatherette played their debut album \u201calmost like a live album<\/em>\u201d, they say. The result is a sucker-punch of an LP: the sound of bruises, the sound of uncertainty, of anxiety, punctuated and punctured by explosions of cathartic violence<\/strong>, a voice pushed beyond any comfort zone and into the blood-red blossom of impassioned and empathetic saxophone.\u00a0\u201cPeople say, \u2018I\u2019ve got demons inside me, I make music to exorcise them\u2019,<\/em>\u201d the group add. \u201cThat seems like a stupid, teenager-ish thing to say. But our music is the most sincere thing we could do. In music we don\u2019t have to hide ourselves. Something might be cringe for me to say out loud, but through music we feel allowed to express it. We feel like we can make it meaningful.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

The album title is \u201ca reference to the bull-fights in Pamplona. It\u2019s a strange ritual. And we\u2019re against bull-fights, but they\u2019re fascinating in an iconographic way. And also metaphorically, violence flows on both sides, but in a feastful way. It\u2019s similar to a concert, really \u2013 you\u2019re expressing violent things, in a physical way. And people react to that, which is wonderful, which is fantastic.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n