We’ve somehow only just stumbled upon the great music of altre di B, the scintillating alt band out of Bologna, Italy. They’re a quartet with a sound as eclectic as their interests: Andrea is an agronomist (a plant and soil scientist), Giovanni is a social educator, Luca is a journalist, and Giacomo makes award-winning wines. They all enjoy ugly T-shirts, cotoletta alla bolognese, and ping-pong.
Yes, with interests like that, and having made beautiful music together for almost two decades, they have kept themselves busy with friendship and the creation of art. Yet they have fed into the machine that causes us all to consume content! How could they?!
I kid, of course. That’s the whole point of Zapping, their 2024 EP, with five tracks dedicated to every way in which we “zap” throughout our life. We watch TV together and “zap” through channels until we find the show we all want to watch. We snap our fingers and suddenly ten years have “zapped” by without a care. We “zap” through city streets and train stations and down country roads and up into the sky in planes that take us halfway around the world. We “zap” to attention when a friend tells us a joke, a funny story, an alarming detail. We “zap” alive when we’re born, and we “zap” into the grave when we die.
On Zapping, altre di B take us on a journey of “zapping”, from the lead track “Koulermos” about playing a mediocre gig at a dive bar to “Big Boi”, a rapid-fire punk anthem about the voice zapping in and out of our conscious whenever we need to make a decision. “Vez” continues that train of thought with a paean to the days of childhood TV marathons, framing them both as a waste of time and a fond memory. “Merighi” is about making sudden connections, even in times of great anxiety (such as on a “comedy night stage”). And finally, “Hula Hoop” slows things down just a touch, as the band mourns and comments on how everything from youth “zaps” away over time, asking: “Why do beautiful places end up being parking lots?” Indeed: Everything turns to asphalt and dirt eventually, but even if it happens over decades, it still feels like a “zap”.
Although we are a touch late to the game on Zapping, it still sounds fresh and urgent. Anyone with a love for punk-fueled riffs and deep lyrics will want to take a listen to altre di B, and perhaps rifle through their previous discography as well. It’s the work of a band with international reach, having performed at festivals like SXSW in Texas, Sziget Festival in Budapest, LUCFest in Taiwan, and Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. Yet it’s also the work of a band of four friends who started playing music together in high school, and who’ve suddenly “zapped” twenty years into a fantastic music career, as well as into your ears.
Take a listen to “Big Boi” from Zapping below.
Written by Will Sisskind
