Rella the Woodcutter “The Golden Undertow”
Weird primitive dark folk from Italy
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Rella the Woodcutter is the unlikely alias for someone immersed in the Italian underground; a lair filled with drones, shimmering psychedelia and the unforced fauvism of Beat Happening.
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Thus the songs move unhurriedly like zombie folk congregating at night, percussion is rudimentary, guitar noises are not honeyed, the cacophony of sitar and guitar that scribble over ‘Bonobo’ is hardly likely to appeal to Laurel Canyon aficionados (they’d be the ones missing out).
This is raw music, the kind that early Smog records purveyed, the outsider, music as emotional impressionism with little concession to the audience (not that there isn’t pleasure). ‘Dear Star’ is the closest he gets to homage, then there’s the drum machine clumsiness and psychedelic guitars of ‘Drugtime Family’ spill over from one bar to another with no regard for tidiness (or composition). Make no mistake these songs are heartfelt, you can feel care leaking out of ‘Five’ the normal scruffy guitar has its hair spit combed into place and the vocals have their Sunday suit on.
The value of this approach it that it allows pretty much everything so when ‘Leave Your Home’ ends up being a long flute based instrumental (sounding like the soundtrack to a sword and sorcery epic starring some unknown slab of beefcake) you’re not surprised. This is the kind of blues I can handle.
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