Video Of The Day GLORIA BEFANA
Gloria Befana, the Toulouse, France-based synth-post-punk one-girl band led by Laura Zanti (of the post-punk trio Fotomatic), invokes her Italian blood with a dark, industrial-tinged cover version of the iconic 1968 Italian classic “La Bambola”, written by Franco Migliacci, Bruno Zambrini and Ruggero Cini, originally performed by the still active, Venice-born charismatic Pop queen Patti Pravo, the second excerpt from the upcoming debut “Poisoned Apples” EP, due out on July 8th, paired with a DIY video created by her graphic and visual alter ego Gloria Paalmer.
Lyrically groundbreaking for the time, “La Bambola” went through several reinterpretations, of which, beyond the more recent mainstream one from Madonna, the most effective was the almost simultaneous French version by Dalida.
The French artist concocts a sinister, brooding conjuration instigated by droning cavernous bass lines that ominously throb and rumble over heavily stumbling, thudding ritual percussions, sprawling like scathing murky shadows, topped by the anxious trembling swirls of desolate icy synths, riling emotional, pain-filled female vocals toward anger and weary melancholia, in response to being strategically spun around and then cast aside by a loved one.
In the Official Music Video, Gloria Befana uses, under her Paalmer alter ego, her personal picture collection to speak to us in music and symbols. Blood-red ‘ink’ and suggestive ‘strobe’ lighting turn an array of serpent, lunar, and flower imagery into a negative light transformation. It would seem, from the flow of information, that an ancient witchcraft formula contorts the natural female essence into an inverted Satanic woman, where pride, envy, and selfishness are invoked as a means of imprisonment and control, syncing seamlessly with the lyrical content of the soundtrack.
Gloria Befana‘s 4-track debut EP “Poisoned Apples,” will be released, ltd. Cassette & Digital, on July 8, 2026.
Keep up with Gloria Befana:
photo by @pozzo_live
