Manituana - Podcast MUSIC: Recent Episodes
Manituana
A rhapsody in two movements inspired by chapters 11 and 21, 2nd part of Manituana ("Mohock Club")
Many years after his punk-rock days, Wu Ming 5 is back writing music. In one of his previous lives he was a bass and guitar player, treading the dirty boards of social centres and rundown clubs. In the following reincarnation, he was a versatile DJ and radio host selecting soul, hip hop, reggae, freakbeat, boogaloo, and jazz. Nowadays he uses a computer.
Streets of Westminster marks the entrance of the London Mohocks, as though accompanied by a nastified Henry Mancini. Slightly faulty-timed string bursts express the Londoners' perceptive shock at the appearance of such urban aliens.
Boardwalk Talk is about Philip Lacroix aka Le Grand Diable walking the streets, open to anything that might happen, a real "promenade du schizo" straight out of The Anti-Oedipus.
A glam-rocker from Italy and a cartoonist from Serbia weave their languages together in a sonigraphic tribute to Manituana
Jet Set Roger was born in London in 1973, but pretty soon moved to Italy because of the weather. He has been treading the boards since he was a lad and has worked with various italian artists including ourselves. His band has been supporting act for italian pop favourites like Bluvertigo and Afterhours, and has appeared on a number of indie compilations, though somehow always missing international acclaim. Known for his glam and punk rock antics, he has recently shown a more crooner-like side of himself, and has just released his long awaited debut album "La vita sociale". The song "El Che chez Roger", a glam rock cover of Carlos Puebla's "Hasta siempre comandante", has recently been added to the soundtrack of the documentary "Che Guevara: The body and the myth", produced by B&B film and due to appear on various TV Channels, including Irish RTE, German ZDF-Artè and Australian SBS.
Aleksandar Zograf (a pseudonym of Sasa Rakezic) is a Serbian cartoonist, the author of such works as Life Under Sanctions, Psychonaut, Dream Watcher and Bulletins from Serbia. Zograf has been active on the international scene since the early '90s when his work started to appear in U.S. comics anthologies such as Weirdo and Zero Zero and when Seattle's Fantagraphics Books published a few of his titles. Works by Zograf have been translated and published in many European magazines, and his solo titles have been issued by publishers L'Association in France, PuntoZero in Italy, Jochen Enterprises in Germany, Under Comics in Spain, etc.
Aleksandar Zograf on Amazon.com
Jet Set Roger composed a song inspired by Manituana and Zograf illustrated it with two colour plates, which you can see in small size or download at high resolution (link on the right column).
Roger Said: "When I read the novel I immediately thought of Adam & the Ants, I was always a big fan of them, but then the song went berserk because of my warlike frenzy, now it sounds like a Motorhead/Ant crossover, and I'm quite happy about it. If possible, I'd like you to write that this is my hearty tribute to Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni: their crazy musical world has always been a great source of inspiration."
Here's the lyrics:
If you can’t beat them
there is just another way
now we’re Mohawk and English
and this is how it’s gonna stay
But politics are treason
and we are unsuitable allies
for officers and gentlemen
with disdain in their eyes
Warraghiyagey
Help us find a way
Warraghiyagey
In times of rebellion
it’s hard to tell a friend from a foe
forget drawing up the armies
this battle will be fought from door to door
I’ll paint my face
and give up all the bon ton
Blood for our pride
is the word of our tom toms
Warraghiyagey
Help us find a way
Warraghiyagey
Manituana
is where I wanna
meet you again now that our land is withered
Manituana
is where I wanna
meet you again there amid the river
Destruction is here
the fire of the Long House will die
all through the country
the Six Nations cry
But it’s not time yet
to bury our hatchet
the last rip will hurt
and you won’t manage to patch it
Warraghiyagey, etc.
From the sky it fell
scattered land
We’re the sons of the warriors
and here we stand.
LINE-UP
Jet Set Roger - Vocals Pietro Zola - Guitar
Franci Omi - Guitar
Andrea Cavalleri - Bass
Simone Gelmini - Drums Francesco Pelliccioli: Additional Drums
Manituana was written by Roger Rossini and recorded by Marco Franzoni at Studio Blue Femme.
In Lugano, Switzerland, just before a presentation of Manituana at "Il Molino" occupied social centre, we met Angelo Nuzzo, who's been playing mandolin, dulcimer and autoharp for almost thirty years in the band Beans, Bacon & Gravy.
BB&G are veteran interpreters and aficionados of North-American "old time music". They play the tunes which European immigrants (people from England, Scotland, Ireland, France etc.) took with them to the colonies during the 18th and 19th century, laying the foundations of a music we usually regard as "quintessentially American" although part of its roots are under European ground.
Those ballads, jigs, and fiddle songs are the ones the white settlers used to play and dance to at the time we chose to depict in Manituana (and the next books of the Atlantic Tryptich).
Massimo "Ice" Ghiacci & Francesco "Fry" Moneti, MCR - May 2007
Massimo "Ice" Ghiacci & Francesco "Fry" Moneti of Modena City Ramblers sent us this instrumental piece dedicated to one of the most debated characters of our novel.
It's a ballad for swallow songs, tape hiss and old instruments found in an attic.
Ice: theme, whistle, mandolin, banjo, glockenspiel, percussions, vocals Fry: guitar & violin
From Subsonica to Petrol, 8 songs for 8 chapters of the novel
Music and narration have been sisters forever. From Australia to Finland, and by way of Greece, myths and legends have been born in song long before becoming stories or written down.
What is new, therefore, if a music label issues a soundtrack from a novel?
In the case of Manituana an ambitious project exists, the idea of narrating stories from the novel with whatever medium possible to explore a narrative universe and make it accessible from diverse orientations: not only the book, but also comics, videos, music, web pages.
[...] It is in this atmosphere that Casasonica enters into play. Max Casacci has resolved to take on the challenge and has proposed to the groups that are to record for the disc that they read the novel, choose a chapter, or also a character, and that they put music to it in their own way. That is how these 8 songs were born, that can be downloaded free on the internet: the first soundtrack, among infinite possibilities, to Manituana.
Whosoever wishes, can listen to them while they read the chapters that inspired them. Anyone can suggest new combinations. Others can play the same game, perhaps with other routes, acoustic guitar and voice, violin and mixing board, remix. Finally, whoever thinks that they should imagine their own sounds for the novel, can listen to these themes with the book closed. One of the principles of transmedia storytelling is that each piece of the mosaic should be autonomous, a jewel that can be contemplated in the palm of the hand, without necessarily placing it within the complete schema.
(from an article on the project presentation, by Torinosette - La Stampa)
Here you can download MANITUANA - A soundtrack, free and without DRM
And by clicking on the top right link, you can listen to the contribution by Petrol, Cherry Valley (chap.36, part IIIa)
The trailer soundtrack
Paul Pieretto was born in Bologna, in July 1977.
Since the autumn of 2003 he has been the bass player for Settlefish, an indie-rock band with whom he has made Plural of the Choir (2005) distributed by Unship Records (IT) and Deep Elm Records (USA); with the band he has played more than 200 concerts in Italy, Europe, Canada and the USA.
Along with Agostino Di Tommaso they make up ElSo, an electronic duo that has musicalized readings and performances in collaboration with Wu Ming 2: The Elements (2003), La Ballata del Corazza (2003), Guerra agli umani (2004).
Since the spring of 2003 he has been the bass player for Senit, a young singer from Bologna.
Other collaborations: Supertele, A Classic Education.
He lives and works in Bologna.
From various reprocessed tracks, including a traditional march for the snare drum from 1790 called Downfall of Paris and interpreted by Federico Oppi, is born Civil War, the theme for the Manituana trailer.
The voice on the trailer is that of vocalist Joe Zanafredi.
Francesco Cusa (alias Frank U.S.A.), drummer and composer, was born in Catania in 1966. He has played alongside some of the greatest jazz and avantgarde musicians all over Europe. His music encompasses radical improvisations, the most heterodox pop, and even tunes of a balladist scope. Among his solo albums, we cite Skrunch (Improvvisatore Involontario, 2005). He’s a member of various groups that get together irregularly around specific projects, like Switters (together with saxophonist Gianni Gebbia and bassist/vocalist Vicenzo Vasi). Switters have collaborated with Wu Ming 1 adding sound to fragments of his “soloist narrative object” New Thing (Einaudi, 2004).
Dazzled by an oral summary of the plot in Manituana, and later assaulted by reminiscences of films like The Searchers and Soldier Blue, Cusa has recorded and given us these three themes, which form a mini-suite, Manituana Drums.