FADER PREMIERE
I've always known '70s Italian film music to be something that deep record collector nerds go crazy for, but I don't think I've ever heard any contemporary artist recreate the feel of it as eerily as Tredici Bacci, a Boston-based 14-piece led by Guerilla Toss bassist Simon Hanes. The orchestration alone is enough to make this track from their debut cassette tape, The Thirteen Kisses Cassetta, feel strangely and quixotically at odds with anything coming out of the underground scene right now—strings, orchestral percussion, flute, vibrato-rich opera vocals—but it's the hyper-ornate, notated composition style that really sends me a chill, compounded with each all-too-sincere, virtuosic trumpet solo. Like the spaghetti western and Italian giallo film soundtracks from which it draws inspiration, though, it treads a productive fine line between sleezy wallpaper music and the sort of grand cinematic hooks that sometimes make you shed a tear in spite of yourself. The Thirteen Kisses Cassetta is out on April 22nd via NNA Tapes.
Stream: Tredici Bacci, "Carina Botto"