RUINS "Occasional visits" - Time to dance differently ...

... more from Piccadilly Records (uk)

Stroom's valentine special for 2019 sees the label excavate some lovely wave from Venice, Italy (1981-1984).
Though the city may be best known for gondolas, the biennale and romantic getaways, it seems those canals spawned some vital contributions to Italy's vibrant underground pop scene in the 80s, not least the DIY sounds of Ruins.
The collaborative project of Alessandro Pizzin and Piergiuseppe Ciranna, Ruins took inspiration from British post punk, US electro, the robots from Düsseldorf and the sleek new wave topping the international charts at the time.
Opener "Elegant Shout" fuses crunchy electronics and grooving bass and guitar to create a bedroom pop beauty which could easily have made it onto MFM's "Uneven Paths" comp.
"Alone" is a punchier affair, more obviously directed at the leftfield dancefloors with insistent synths and the kind of garbled chorus you get from no-wave.
Cut a rug in your baggiest trousers with the early-Spandeau stylings of "You're Like A Cigarette", then go wild with the drunk in the jazz club weirdo post-punk of "Skeleton In Love".
The flipside keeps the hits coming, be it the slow and sleazy "Fit Of Nerves", tropical pop bangers "Boys & Girls" and "Everybody Knows Me" or the whacked out white funk of "It's Not Too Grand".
Long live Stroom and their endless knowledge of alternative wave greats.

Patrick says: Skinny ties, skew-wiff sounds and the weirdest, white funk around - sounds good to me. Sitting at the groovier end of the post punk/synth pop spectrum, "Occasional Visits" is a wavey masterpiece from Italy's 80s underground. 
Time to dance differently...

RUINS "New record" (2018) by Mothball Record

Hailing from Venice, Ruins were pioneering artists of the Italian new wave scene in the late 70's: it was an explosion of new and exciting art, music and film.

Taken from the original master tapes and selected by Ruins themselves!

RUINS "Occasional visits" short review @ junorecords

"Recent years have seen sporadic releases from Ruins, a long-serving combo who can rightly claim to be Italian new wave's most celebrated act. Stroom has decided against asking the band for new material; instead, they've rifled through Ruins' archives and put together this fine compilation of rare and unheard material recorded between 1981 and '84. There's much to admire, from the breezy pop shuffle of "Alone" and Cure-influenced, bass-propelled oddness of "Skeleton In Love", to the sparkling synth-pop brilliance of high-tempo number "Boys & Girls" and the punk-funk/dub disco-influenced throb of killer closing cut "It's Not Too Grand".

OCCASIONAL VISITS (2019) by STROOM

Alessandro: “No one can tell for sure that a sound of love actually exists, but love and any other emotion can be reverberated by some musical colors always capable to make emotions resounding here and there during a song, ten songs, a thousand ones...”

The second to last decade of the 20th century was flourishing in its full glory with uncompromising decisions and emergence of new genres to experiment with. Several years before the boom of the 80s is when Alessandro Pizzin got involved with the creation of RUINS and was later joined by Piergiuseppe Ciranna in the fluctuating group constitution. After several alterations in the group it didn’t take long until their duo came together in an attempt to make the first wave twist towards experimenting with electronic sounds. In the frame of the birthtime of many new branches of musical subdivision, the artists fused their intentions and virtuosity to base the centerpiece of their prospective electro sound.

Piergiuseppe: “A characteristic of our music has always been that of moving transversely: from intense emotions to whimsical visions”

In a musical conversation between Piergiuseppe and Alessandro, the productions resulted in a relentless manifestation of a variety of contrasting musical colors. Springing from beneath sinister notes and arpeggiating chords to groundless joy and quirky noises. All of it encompassing the perpetual movement and shift of feelings and positions. Obscurity reflecting the anecdotal nature of life.

Alessandro: “I think that we both were keen on listening to all kinds of music, therefore our sound was the result of all these different listenings and concepts blended with new technology products and equipments we were used to experiment with”

The ranging melodic palette within the compositions, is riddled with external influences manifested in the web of atmospheric scales. Mirroring a plethora of emotions, even though produced quite the while ago, this collection of compositions will undeniably have something to resonate with and object to. Conflicting love, uninhibited anger, driving passion, young maximalism, childlike cynicism. The joy of human existence is inescapably accompanied by utter suffering, taking turns between each other.

Piergiuseppe: “Artistic works, and even songs, should be by definition ineffable, giving suggestions that everyone must then frame and interpret even according to their own experience…”

The path into the light seems dark, the road forward seems to go back. The greatest love seems indifferent, the greatest wisdom seems childish. Each is up to their own interpretation of the songs assembled in this Valentine’s Day speciality. The contradictions perfectly balancing each other out will not leave anyone indifferent. After all, there would be no love without hate.  

credits

releases February 14, 2019

All songs produced and arranged
by Piergiuseppe Ciranna & Alessandro Pizzin

Artwork by Nana Esi
Mastered by Mathieu Savenay
Selection by Ziggy Devriendt

Recorded and mixed at Anna Rich Studios, Venice

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