Giobia Hard Stories

(Following their debut album “Beyond the Stars”, the four piece Italian band Giöbia are back with their new release, “Hard Stories”, recorded entirely in analog. The 9 tracks album is influenced by the roaring and dizzy sounds of the 60s and also includes a cover version of an Electric Prunes song)Following their debut album “Beyond the Stars”, the four piece Italian band Giöbia are back with their new release, “Hard Stories” (Jestrai/Area Pirata), recorded entirely in analog.

The 9 tracks album is influenced by the roaring and dizzy sounds of the 60s and also includes a cover version of an Electric Prunes song.
The Giöbia ’s music searches for a natural link between the extreme hippy culture and the extreme punk culture. A discordant and hallucinated sound turns the noise of a guitar into a sort of spiritual exercise.
The Giöbia build their unique sound on guitar and farfisa riffs which intertwine intimately with syncopated and obsessive drums and bass lines. All accompanied by symbolic and visionary lyrics

TRACK LISTING:

1) Hard Stories
2) Old Jim
3) Jaws
4) My Soundtrack for Life
5) Electric Light
6) Underground
7) Momentum
8) Are You Lovin’ Me More (But Enjoy It Less)
9) The Cage

Freddie Koratella (Dead Music DJ-set) – Komakino ‘zine 01/11

Unfortunately I missed Giobia’s live show in Rome last October, and that’s when I first heard of this four-piece band from Milan; anyway, it was Chiara Fazi, young artist from Rome, with all the benefits of a good music education, who talked me about them.. just give a look to her nuovissima enciclopedia universale. My curiosity – still helped out by the unbridled use of my favorite social network, currently fresh of a not-so-popular new format (to all those unsatisfied people of the new myspace’s look, just let me tell you, instead of tweeting the world all the day long about your dog peeing everywhere, and posting a pile of pictures and videos no one wants to see, – spend more time checking the bands your so-called friends may suggest you), – I said, my curiosity, and several related circumstances brought me to see them performing live in Milan last wednesday.
Probably it was me, I felt like on holiday, or them, playing home, or just because it was a small club in comparison with all the people who crowded the room.. and outside it was freezing… anyway the air became hot in a few minutes.. I had soon like the feeling that Bazu (vocals, guitars, bouzouki, sitar), Paolo (bass guitar), Saffo (organ, violin, voice), and Betta (drums, percussions) know exactly how to create acid ambients that recall that typical 60’s flower power attitude.
And, actually, I really enjoyed their show. Once over, I went back home, with their record Hard Stories (thank you), coproduced by Jestrai and Area Pirata, and with a first look to the cover art, you have like the feeling of falling into that whirlwind cult of giubiana, – done with the burning of witches, fire, and dark magic, – from which the band is named. Hard times is the opening track, and you get soon an idea of what they can do.. a long instrumental track, high speed, with the organ leading the tempo.. 3 minutes and 10 seconds.. tough, hard like those times when you get that life doesn’t offer you a damn for free.. just pierced by a scream à la Sonics of the golden age. With Old Jim, Giobia speed even faster, riding their bloody car on a desert highway; but only after loading the roof rack with the most distorted pieces of Monks and Gurus.
After a couple of tracks, here comes Jaws.. the beat slows down, and at the same time is dirty and obscure. A rush of sound alteration, straight to your head, like if you had put the former pieces in the nose, then your jaws hang drawing a kind of grin, recognizable at first listen only to those who use certain illicit drugs.. – except yours truly, of course.
My Soundtrack for Life is the first long ballad here.. it says like there is a song for each scene of that movie called Life.. and Giobia’s one is bitter, like the melancholic hope of a better future.. With Electric Light the lights go down.. the instruments look like neon more than electric.. and the hypnotic vocals help us to feel dazed, like the sound deliciously distorted of Miss Saffo’s organ.
By Underground we passed the first half of the disc, and Giobia make one more dive into a psychedelic garage music of excellent writing à la Music Machine, distorted under the watchful eye of Roy Erickson, – that eye inside the magic triangle on the cover of 13th Floor Elevators’ first record, something present in Momentum as well.. and now 3 more minutes and a half guided by the playful and hot vocals of the only female member of this group that deftly alternates between voice, organ and violin.
Are you lovin’ me more (but enjoy it less) is a tribute to the Electric Prunes… excellent choice for a cover, hats off.
The last track is The Cage – and no title could be more appropriate than that.. because it is like if Giobia had thrown you in a distorted cage, and they left you there to rot for about 30 minutes.. and at the end I decided to throw away the key, I want to be kept hostage by this band, they have all the right numbers to get a wider audience.. and it takes so little.. just press play again.