Italia 90: 'Living Human Treasure'
If I had a pound for every time the press release for an up-and-coming punk band billed them as “going against the grain” - as if there were any grain to go against anymore - I could pay off Nadeem Zahawi’s tax bill. It’s the sort of tired analogy many punk bands, who do more interesting things than simply “go against the grain”, are unfairly labelled with, and risk making their music seem uninteresting.
Punk wasn’t around for long before being transformed into a marketplace for a new breed of disenfranchised consumer, and the appropriation of punk has been derided, critiqued, and parodied almost as often as up-and-coming punk bands are labelled as “going against the grain”. The second Mark E. Smith walked on stage wearing a leather box jacket, as opposed to a crop top and swastika armband, was the day “the grain” died. Many punk bands don’t recognise this: they play their music under the illusion they are distinct from the other bands playing the same genre. Such illusions often risk making the band seem a little silly, like punk parodists. Italia 90 are no such band.
The thing I like about Italia 90, and their new album, ‘Living Human Treasure’, is that they are under no pretence about their purpose as a band. Rather than operating under the illusion of inventiveness, they seem resolved to do exactly what has been done before. Even the band members’ names – Les Miserables, Unusual Prices, J Dangerous and Bobby Portrait – seem the exemplar parodied punk, some character who might feature in The Mighty Boosh. As for the songs, they wear it on their sleeves that “instead of striving for something new, we want instead to focus in on sounds from history and find interesting ways to juxtapose old references. There's a newness to it through that recycling.”
I can’t tell you, as a reviewer, how refreshing this is. I often listen to punk albums that are billed as being inventive or pioneering; instead, they sit sadly trying to shrug off the blossoming belief that whatever experiment the band might be attempting has failed. There’s nothing worse than listening to that kind of music: where you understand the intention and fail to see that intention realised. Italia 90 protect against that threat completely. They are like Perseus holding the shining shield up to the face of Medusa, and turning her to stone.
Given the band’s utter conformity to convention, there are places where a first-time listener might mistake the band’s post-modern aspirations for traditional punk. Most of the tracks on the album are generically punk, ‘Cut’, ‘Competition’, and ‘Tales From Beyond’ springing to mind, but the intention behind them makes the tracks far more listenable. You can return to and find something new on each listen, tracing Miserables’ commentary on other punk outfits, or discover a new instrument – tubular bells or mellotrons – which distinguish the band from those they criticise.
Exemplifying this are Les Miserables’ lyrics. He says of other punk bands operating right now: “If you actually boil down what they're saying, it's basically like, ‘Don't be an arsehole, don't be a racist, don't be from the home counties!’ That's not a political opinion.” His lyrics aim to drill down further into what it is to be punk. Importantly, they indicate that to be punk is to be thoughtful, to consider everything thoroughly, more intensely than anyone – including other punks.
I enjoyed this album. The band’s philosophy, their resistance to do anything new – at least, not intentionally – makes it the sort of post-modernist experiment fit for a second-year music student’s theory coursework. But at the core of the album are atmospheric songs which lend themselves to live performance, and have grown organically over a period of years in which the band have been able to develop a unified outlook and style.
