I saw Anna and Vulkan live and got lost in time
Was Anna and Vulkan to open, a few days ago, the Sony Music evening at the Dazio di Levante during the Milan Music Week. He arrives on stage in a quartet, the brother on bass, a keyboard player, a drummer, and her on the guitar. He does it without half-heartedness, he immediately brings his sound world into focus. An essential, clean, straight set: no postures, no surplus, no superfluous dialogues with the audience. In this contemptuous mood, which embraces sound research, there is an almost punk spiritwho eschews easy consensus, but works immediately to build, being an emerging artist, a deep bond with the listener. His are songs that move on a precise balance, between a soft groove and those 80s openings that touch on Alan Sorrenti and the more cosmic Matia Bazarall alternating Neapolitan in Italian. There is also an attitude, not a sound paste, to Joni Mitchellor the idea of taking something folk and popular and taking it somewhere else. On the schedule for duties: “As if they were for us”, “Special period”, “’Nu bitter poison” and the beautiful “Making it easy”. In the latter there are sweet and at the same time rough words: “Look, I’m not making it easy. It’s just that sometimes I don’t feel like myself anymore. I wish I could look at you, but I don’t know how. I still want to dance alone, lose my mind over an extinguished fire. But all I do is think about you”.
Live his mixture it works because it comes from a clear story. Anna comes from Torre Annunziata and brings with her a constant reference: Vesuvius, seen from the window of his house, which became the “Vulkan” of his name. She grew up in an environment full of instruments thanks to her father, a musician and composer, and her first listenings are those that form a sensitivity: Lucio Dalla, Pino Daniele, Petrucciani. A solid, emotional base, which then she contradicted and enriched by choosing the drums, the only instrument that wasn’t present in the house. Here is where that spirit of disruption resurfaces. From that moment everything flows naturally: the first songs at 15, the self-taught attempts with guitar and piano, the Sonder group where he plays and sings, the EP recorded in the entrance of the house. Then the movement, the discovery: Trieste, the Interpreter School, the hunger for languages and linguistics. Vienna, a job as a brand designer, a new project as a drummer, and writing that returns to assert itself, leading her to produce songs on her own by playing everything, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums. In this journey we understand the reason for the atmospheres he brings to the stage today: a continuous “going, returning”, just like the title of his first EP of 2024.
There is a part of his music that looks back to the roots, the Neapolitan melody, a certain singer-songwriter sensibility, and another that lives in the presentwithin different genres that he crosses with curiosity: Italo-disco, reggaeton, indie pop, more intimate tracks. In 2023 he debuted with “Comm’è”, then “Scurò”, then “Andare, returning”, immediately received with attention. The first tour, the version, arrives in 2024 remix “to dance” of the EP, the singles with Fuck Pop and “Farla facile”. All pieces of coherent growth, where each release adds a detail to its identity. “New love past” is his new album, a project conceived as a narrative journey in two acts. Part 1 was released in early November via Pluggers and Columbia Records. At Dazio di Levante this identity, which made me lose myself over time, was clear: a live performance played well, without dispersions, in which past and present hold hands in a simple way. So simple that, at a certain point, while she continued to build that flow between groove and nostalgia, we actually found ourselves a little suspended, without understanding whether we were looking forward or backwards.which is exactly what happens when we sometimes stare at ourselves in the mirror, poised between what we are and what we were. And also what we dream of becoming.
