Mardi Gras, six souls strong – Liina Rätsep, Fabrizio Fontanelli, Alessandro Matilli, Carlo Di Tore Tosti, Valerio Giovanardi, Fabrizio Del Marchesato. A sonic stew of pop, rock, soul, seasoned with pinches of Irish countryside and grunge. Their new album, “Sandcastle,” it’s a funny thing. You build it, you know, meticulously. Expecting something sturdy, but then… the tide.
This record feels like exactly that; a gorgeous sandcastle doomed. I mean, not like bad doom, but you know how when you’re a kid you’re so damn proud of this sandy edifice, the towers just-so, the moat…and the waves come, well they come. “Sandcastle” is all about that. About things that look solid, maybe even should be, just crumbling. They sing about the messiness of feelings, all these sticky, insecure spots. Think of a kid, once thought ‘good’, who decides to rewrite his narrative. Reclaim some broken pieces with something…darker.
The whole thing is just a beautiful tangle. A bit like trying to knit with spaghetti. Does that make sense? It doesn’t have to. Sometimes things are just. And “Sandcastle”, somehow, is just that. Not even just ‘music,’ but the feeling when the rain unexpectedly hits just the right spot on your skin when walking through a strange, new place, and the feeling you get after seeing someone wearing an odd piece of clothing, not quite right but wonderful.
It’s the kind of thing that makes you want to drive with the windows down a little too fast in a car that probably doesn’t belong to you. The raw emotional edge, juxtaposed with the kind of melodies that stick in your head all day. You wake up to them, you’re humming them when someone asks how your day is, you keep hearing them all day long until they become a part of you. Is it too much to say this music feels like sunlight, dust, and regret mixed in an old tin cup? Maybe. But it’s true.
It makes you think about what you build, and how it’s gone.
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