Ghost Dance

“Ghost Dance” is the title for the second album by The Mantra ATSMM (Above The Spotless Melt Moon) to be released by UK label RareNoiseRecords. The album is the second work of love by the Neapolitan band, again recorded at Monochrome Studios in Eboli, this time in little under a month, under the watchful eye of producer Luigi Nobile.

Having met in their hometown of Naples while at school, the quartet joined forces to create something beautiful. The Mantra ATSMM straddle the ground between prog rock, shoegaze and electronic indie. Their name is a jigsaw puzzle of a melting pot of influences from across several media including music, film and literature. They’re trying to make something new.

The band recently played their debut shows in New York while mixing the album and while they’re constantly playing shows across Italy and Europe, only during their New York residency did they get to perform in front of legendary producer, Bill Laswell, who has previously worked with their label.

The follow-up to their 2010 debut, “Defeated Songs” was also recorded at Monochrome Studios in Eboli, under the watchful eye of producer Luigi Nobile. In Ghost Dance, the Mantra ATSMM reinforce their ties to their native Naples – the unhealthy, beaten down symbol of Italy that is still grand and romantically decadent and generous in dispensing breathtaking vistas.

The connection is immediately apparent during “Heads or Tails”. Written in 5/4, the time signature of folk dance, the Neapolitan Tarantella, it features Vesuvius, the grand old angry volcano itself – the beautiful yet cruel master of its surroundings; the backdrop to the old city always threatens to awaken.

All the characters in this recording (Harlequin, Manao Tupapao, the Wolf, the Melancholic Blue Army) are transfixed ghosts, dancing hypnotically against a timeless backdrop. At times reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, at others sounding like the holy processions of the southern Italian region of Campania, and some evoke languid atmospheres, typical of Gauguin.

The characters tell tales of joy, drama and inadequacy as they paint a sense of emptiness around them in a manner both ironic and theatrical and always deeply moving. It couldn’t come from the heart any more than this.

The Mantra Above The Spotless Melt Moon are:

Adriana Salomone – vocals, guitars
Davide Famularo – bass, keyboards
Mantrizio Oliviero – guitars
Salvio Sibillo – drums