Finally emerging from the decaying and mephitic mists of a sublime Venice, cathedral of art and degenerate mother of all human alienation, the impromptu and brutalist lo/fi musical project Karbokroma, established in the distant/near 2002, combines Dark Wave and Industrial sounds in the recently released first album, “Sparks”, via French DIY label Idio[t]phone Records,
to outline inorganic fragments of debilitating and hallucinated inner galaxies that tell of dystopia, romantic languors, absolute desperation.
The architects of this theater of the sound absurd: Erik Ursich, Bernardino Costantino (lyrics, vocals, keyboards), and Roberto Galati (bass, guitar, synthesizers),
after long oblivion, have now regained vigour with the intention of representing the cultural and social genocide in progress, the fragmentation of all hope, the end of all moral imperative. The brutalist musicians will move now and forever groping aimlessly in the boundless, arid, ungenerous desert of a world in decline. The perpetual and uncontrolled sound of a scream that cuts through the night and illuminates the inner darkness: all this and more is “KARBOKROMA”.
The enigmatic trio have previewed the LP by dropping a retro Vampire-inspired video, directed by Alberto Lot, for the wintry, sinister, and atmospheric track “Nudi Corridoi” , which along “Nel ricordo di un vecchio rimorso”, recalls the tragic and decadent inflexions of the unforgotten 80s Florentine dark-wave, early Diaframma above all.
Poetic lyrics describe a ghostly visitation wept in mysterious metaphors and haunting hues to evoke clandestine feelings of intimacy, desire, and fear.
Misty, sinister textures weave throbbing and rumbling bassline menace, surreal flowing piercing guitar reverbs, stabbing keyboard obsessions, and eerie icy bright synth twinkles into chilly, unnerving and tenebrous atmospheres, rotating bewitched around the supernatural of dramatic haunted vocals and ghostly daunting echoes, rising powerfully into a hypnotic spell of spooky, cold and nocturnal dread.
Erotic visions, by Alberto Lot, transform the mind’s eye of dark delight with vintage vampiric inspirations. Macabre make-up, Victorian fashion, and engaging acting skills take the viewer back to the spooky sensations of the horror-infused silent film genre, whilst skewed camera angles, keen editing, and magnificent manipulations of lights and shadows enhance universal symbols of death and fantasy into a phantasmagoric dimension of gothic romance bliss.
Karbokroma‘s debut album, “Sparks”, is out now, on ltd. Cassette and Digital, through Idio[t]phone Records.
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