Ex-Otago: ten years of “Marassi”
There are places that are not just places. They are roots and memories, stories and feelings, anger and love, frustrations and melancholy. When these places enter the records, those records stop being “just” records. They become testimonies: stories of a historical and social moment, of a way of being in the world. “Marassi” by Ex-Otago is all this. A generational album, extraordinarily specific, taking its name from a neighborhood of Genoa, and incredibly capable of embracing everyone. A record that turns ten years old in 2026but which today sounds more alive and relevant than ever.
AND the work that changed the life of the Genoese band and definitively consecrated its path, making it one of the founders of Italian indie, ferrying it into the mainstream also thanks to the sartorial and colorful productions of Matteo Cantaluppi. It’s a “no-skip” album, all the songs work: from “I Giovani d’oggi” to “When I’m with you”, from “Cinghiali incazzati” to “La nostra pelle”. “In ten years everything has changed, but nothing has changed. Today’s young people are still not worth a damn, people work for nothing, shoot and kill each other, deceive and devastate not very far from us. And at the same time, still we want to stay afloat under the sky of Camogli, we want to let ourselves be caressed and invaded by a noise or music – says the training – and above all, ‘it takes a lot of courage to have courage’: the courage to stop and return to where we started, with gratitude towards who and what made us who we are. To recover the essence and the essential. Cwith the certainty that true things, living things, never go out”.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, Ex-Otago bring “Marassi” back live to small clubs, the places where it all began. A return to the origins that takes starting from Genoa, on January 13th at Crazy Bull, and then continuing on January 14th in Turin (Cap 10100), on the 15th in Milan (Arci Bellezza), on the 16th in Bologna (Covo Club), on the 21st in Pistoia (H2NO), on the 22nd in Rome (Alcazar), on the 23rd in Salerno (DSSZ Club) and on the 24th in Conversano (BA), at the Casa delle Arti. An all sold out tour that brings the album back to the places where it was born and raised, concert after concert, until it becomes the symbol of that historical moment in which Italian indie stopped being a niche to reach the big stages, the charts and big numbers. “If it is true that arenas, stadiums and large events are important, it is equally true that small clubs are perhaps even more so. Because a club is not just a space: it is an idea of music, of sound, even of society – says the group – this concept tour is also a way to reiterate how grateful Italian music must be to these places, which have hosted thousands of artists and, often, changed history”.
And that’s where the Ex-Otagos they want to pass their story once again. “Despite ten intense years, hundreds of concerts, experiences, breaks, changes and growth, today as then we continue to carry forward a precise idea of music: independent, authentic, human – conclude the Otaghi – a music that comes from real life and takes shape on stage thanks to that fragile and unrepeatable magic that is playing it, singing it, making mistakes live”. After the mini winter tour, the Genoese will return home, to the city that gave them everything and where it all started. On 16 July 2026, the Arena del Mare of the City of the Lantern will become the beating heart of a large party dedicated to “Marassi”: a collective celebration, a journey down memory lane.
