Altrock festival (2008)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Location: Sesto San Giovanni (Milan), Italy
Concert date: November 14, 2008
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: 30 €

The Altrock festival is organized by the Italian label Altrock Productions, which specializes in more experimental progressive music. This was the third edition. The first two were both one-day affairs, but this year, for the first time, we got two whole days of Italian and international experimental music.

•1. Day 1

Chance: Risiko

The night kicked off with a bunch of young guys going by the name Chance: Risiko. They’re a young, talented Italian post-rock band. The fact that organizer Marcello invited a post-rock act at all shows he wants some musical variety at the festival. For what they do, Chance: Risiko are seriously capable. Sadly, at times they pull from post-rock exactly the elements I find most annoying. Mainly the obvious vocals, which sound a lot like Thom Yorke from Radiohead. His whining never really did it for me, and it looks even sillier when someone imitates his style. The Italians are apparently at their best when copying, and these days that seems to go for every genre. Luckily the vocals weren’t pushed too far up front, since the guys lean on a rich instrumental skill set that they weren’t shy about showing off. The hypnotic, repetitive parts often reminded me of Sigur Ros. The vibraphone worked especially well among the instruments, perking up the typical guitar revelry.

Setlist:

1.The Dead End

2. Sleep-talking

3. Beating a Dead Horse

4. Aus Tokio

5. Radiations

6. What’s Wrong?

7. Oompa Loompa

French TV

Next up were the legendary American avant-gardists French TV. The lineup has seen quite a few changes lately, so the only constant now is bassist Mike Sary, with longtime collaborator Chris Smith (guitar, viola) at his side. We also saw two new faces who joined Sary and Smith on this shorter European tour: keyboardist Paolo Botta (Yugen) and drummer Michael Hazera (Sotos). French TV delivered a ferocious set, showing off that dynamic take on American rock in opposition that bands like 5uu’s and Thinking Plague are also known for. You can hear the influence of Henry Cow, Samla Mammas Manna and a few others. Live, the band sounds even more aggressive than on record. The bass lines are raw and punchy, the guitar keeps spitting out dissonant notes (in the style of Robert Fripp in the John Wetton and Bill Bruford era), the keyboardist adds a bit more than you can hear on the studio releases, and Michael Hazera is considered one of the best contemporary avant-jazz drummers around. In this lineup French TV are a great mix of the experience of Mike Sary and Chris Smith and the youth and drive of the two newcomers. Markus Stauss (Spaltklang) added a nice surprise by playing sax on That Thing on the Wall. This set was without a doubt one of the best of the festival.

Setlist:

1.Ska Face

2. Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

3. Look at the Bears

4. My Little Cicada

5. That Thing on the Wall

6. When the Ruff Tuff Creampuffs Take Over

D. F. A.

Italian jazz-rockers DFA have been the talk of the town lately. People especially rave about their latest studio album 4th. I didn’t know the band before the show, but I was expecting quite a lot. Sadly, the Italians didn’t live up to my expectations. Technically the band is polished down to the last detail, but everything feels too sterile and rehearsed. Jazz-rock by the book. It was played at a really high level, but the band looked so static on stage. It seemed like they weren’t enjoying the show at all, just constantly concentrating on what they were doing. To me, that’s not what jazz-rock is about. That style of playing suited the band that followed much better, but jazz-rock has to flow, it has to be free. Here it felt like the band planned everything, when jams are exactly one of the things that make this kind of music interesting. Given how some people sing the band’s praises, I was pretty disappointed. Yet another newer Italian band with an obvious lack of ideas of its own.

Setlist:

1.Vietato Generalizzare

2. Baltasaurus

3. Flying Trip

4. The Mirror

5. Mosoq Runa

Rational Diet

For me, these Belarusians were among the most eagerly awaited acts of the festival. Most of the other people there were also wondering whether they’d manage to conjure up the magic you hear on the albums. Rational Diet aren’t quite as hard-hitting as some of the bands that played earlier, but with their refined compositions and arrangements they’re incredibly interesting. The lineup alone is amazing: violin, cello, keyboards, bassoon, saxophone, guitar, vocals, bass and drums. You could draw parallels with Univers Zero, which are obvious in the compositions too. In the music you can hear the influence of Univers Zero and Stravinsky, plus quite a few parts where they mix in influences from their homeland (especially in the vocals). You could feel a huge amount of creativity throughout the whole show, and quite a few people in the crowd would have crowned this band of Eastern Europeans the best act of the festival. They didn’t exactly burn the place down, but they created that proper dread-soaked atmosphere that fans of rock in opposition often associate with bands like Univers Zero and Art Zoyd. The demonic bassoon especially stood out, giving me goosebumps through the whole show (or maybe that was just from sitting on my own leg).

Setlist:

1. Intro
2. Dear Contrabandist
3. Condemned
4. Ariel’s Last Dream
5. Birobidjan
6. Pukhov
7. Closed Case
8. Mourners
9. Horse Army
10. On Tuesdays
11. Birobidja

•2. Day 2

Spaltklang

The evening before, the refined gentleman Markus Stauss came by our room for a glass of wine and told us a bit about his project Spaltklang, but this kind of thing is best judged for yourself, since musicians can’t rate their own music objectively (they’re either too critical or not critical enough). I had no real expectations going in, but the refined and legendary Swiss gentleman and his Basel lineup surprised me enormously. The music is played from sheet music, yet everything sounds so fluid and free. Here and there each player dropped the notes and gave in to their solo tendencies. Unlike DFA, this was excellent jazz-rock with avant-garde influences. It was a real pleasure to listen to the polished, incredibly complex bass lines and drumming, combined with the constant build-up of violin and sax, where both the melodies and the solos shone.

Setlist:

1.Inmitten

2. Spueren

3. Old & New

4. Berg & Tal

5. Ideen

6. Another Dance Tune

7. Open Directions

Hostsonaten

Hostsonaten definitely delivered the biggest surprise of the festival, though not with their set but with their mere presence, which was a real head-scratcher. They’re typical Italian revivalists (a side project of the better-known Finisterre) trying to catch the magic Genesis lost somewhere around March 12, 1977, between noon and 1 p.m. If I said Hostsonaten were garbage, I’d be lying. They play beautifully, the music is lovely, but once the mellotrons, 12-string guitars and bass pedals kick in, all you can do is hold your head in your hands. We’ve heard all those tricks before from Genesis and countless bands imitating them. Hostsonaten do it well and with finesse, but you still wonder whether booking them made any sense. The set struck me as solid, but the crowd wasn’t exactly warm to them. The guys clearly noticed too, and right after the show they bolted pretty quick so nobody would go after them. They were apparently so rattled and shocked that when I approached them after the show and started chatting, they literally pushed their CD into my hands for a review. On one hand, I get why the crowd didn’t connect with this kind of music, since one part of the set was pure plagiarism of the Genesis song Cinema Show (Hackett’s guitar section while Banks solos).

Setlist:

1. Entering The Halls of Winter
2. Red Sky
3. White Earth
4. Snowstorm
5. Over The Plain
6. The Crystal Light
7. Outside
8. Ruins
9. Through Winter’s Air
10. Rainsuite:
i. Prelude
ii. New year’s theme
iii. Winter’s End
iv. Celebration / To the open fields…

Accordo dei Contrari

Well, after the lukewarm reception (undeserved, if you ask me) of the symphonic rockers Hostsonaten, another treat followed, this time surprisingly in Italian dress (though not Armani). Accordo dei Contrari were the first Italian act at the festival with “balls”. They showed something of their own. Their music is very intense, mixing dark avant-garde with fast jazz-rock/fusion. At times they remind me of Guapo, though the bass lines aren’t as pulsating and punchy. The songs are highly structured and polished, but you can still feel a raw power in there. The drummer and guitarist are masters of their instruments, while the bassist and keyboardist are more refined but no less impressive. This was definitely one of the festival’s highlights. These guys have a clear vision, and if they keep walking this path, plenty of excellent albums and shows are waiting for them.

Setlist:

1.Meghiste Kinesis

2. Lester

3. Gondwana

4. Anexelenkton

+ four more new songs without titles

Picchio dal Pozzo

I’m sure a lot of people in the crowd came to the festival mainly for the legendary Italian prog rockers Picchio dal Pozzo. In the seventies they created the Italian take on the Canterbury style, which was mostly represented by the English (Caravan, Soft Machine, Egg, Hatfield and the North,…). Later they steered into more avant-garde waters, but that first album is still the one and only true Picchio dal Pozzo album for many. Even though they later put out three albums that can all stand up to the self-titled debut, the remaining members decided to play the first album in full. Since only Aldo de Scalzi and Paolo Griguolo are left from the original lineup, members of Yugen jumped in to help. And so there were a whole eight musicians on stage. This set was the talk of the festival. People said the combination of music and visual effects (or rather projections) would be impressive. And they weren’t far off. The show was the real deal. You can hear in the music that the seventies in Italy were a completely different world from today. Even though Picchio played the Canterbury style, they made it totally their own. It’s a very original and still very Italian, romantic version of the subgenre. They showed their political engagement and social criticism through the motifs on the projections, which kept calling out consumerism and political corruption. Picchio dal Pozzo’s show was different from everything else at the festival. It was such calm, spacey music that it swims around in your brain and carries you off to other spheres. The Italians have always been among the best at crafting really interesting gentle, mellow passages. Aldo de Scalzi, who this time grabbed a bass guitar instead of keyboards, and Paolo Griguolo (guitar) showed they know how to entertain a crowd and proved that skill isn’t everything in music. Yugen are far more drilled and technically capable, but all eyes were on the two legends, who made for a more fun and more interesting show.

Setlist:

1.Merta
2. Cocomelastico
3. Seppia
4. Bofonchia
5. Napier (7:23)
6. La Floricultura Di Tschincinnata
7. La Bolla
8. Off

9. Il Presidente

10. Uccellin Del Bosco

Nothing much left to say. The festival was a success musically, though financially it was surely a heavy loss. Whatever the case, good music was played, good people met, and all we can do is hope the festival happens again.