FRANKLIN DELANO

Like a smoking gun in front of me

CD, File13 / madcap

Once again Franklin Delano have recorded a deeply rewarding record. These ten songs grow and change with every listen, offer multitudes of possibilities all the while staying true to their primal formula of psychedelica and noise mixing with alternative country and pop. For this release the ever-corroding band around Paolo Iocca and Marcella Riccardi has invited a bunch of musicians / friends into the studio blowing up the songs and arrangements in size and impact. After their debut record made it into my stack of albums to listen to on weekends when I am out in the little house on the hills far away from the traffic and noise of the big city, “like a smoking gun in front of me” makes me opt for a exchange (there is only place for about two dozen CDs out there – a decision made on purpose), that’s how good it is.

Together with Morose this is my favourite band from Italy at the moment, though with the move Franklin Delano has made from their debut record “all my senses are senseless today” it’s hard to pin them down geographically in Europe. They have become so deeply doused in that kind of alternative American music that I like to call prairie-music that apart from a few insecure inflections in the singing, there is not a lot left which is definitely Italian. There is more to FD for sure. Touring with Califone has had their impact on them as well, so they’ll include the willingness to experimental sounds right there in the first song. “Call it a day” is a call to the listener to sit down and relax and open their ears for the songs and sounds to come. And then it will lay it on them, starting with some lonely guitar notes and flanged bends moving into beautiful male/female-singing and ending with a good three minutes of weird guitar sounds growing into a full fledged noise wall and zooming out in a single note drone. I like that kind of bashing harshness, especially when starting a record or band with. It sets the tonality perfectly, saying: what’s coming on here is more than you suspected or expected so listen closely. And they’ll reward the listener with the perfectly poppy “please remember me” right afterwards.

There is only one band I can think of right now that would be able to pull this mixture off as straight forwardly and consequently and beautifully as Franklin Delano and that’s The Decemberists. But instead of the Decemberists militarian allusions and pioneer-/frontier-imagery Paolo Iocca and Marcella Riccardi – who make up the basic core of Franklin Delano – seem to be more interested in personal relationships, their break up and the overall misery of humankind entangled in every day life. Slightly hinted at or more directly approached almost grotesque fates and small time incidents that seem world-changing only to those involved and frowned at by the rest of the world, are being blown up into their coordinate size. For this Iocca and Riccardi employ various kinds of experimental as well as time-tested strategies, both lyrically and musically. From the longwinded, noisy-spooky intro of “We don’t care” to the finely wrought singing on “sounds like rain”, there is a lot to discover on here, time and time again. Contrasts play a big role in the build up of the whole record, in which dense but subtle and somehow soft (and no, that’s not a contradiction) noise layers as in “Travel in space” exchange with the melancholic pop/country-beauty within the waltz-rhythms and steel guitars and violins of “Me and my dreams” that take onto the softer sides of Arcade Fire or the most emotional sides of Connor Oberst. A wide range to ride, in which it takes a lot of control to go from underground to straightforward and from direct to the long and winding road. The band moves in and out of these fine dynamics, taking their time, using noise as well as harmony to sharpen their songs until I start to wonder, if they will be able to pull these sounds of convincingly on a stage reduced to a trio or quartet. Maybe they will; the right venues might help them, I guess, because atmosphere plays as much into the music of FD as melody does.

The inter-continental friendship between Franklin Delano and Califone reminds me a lot of the Valina – Sicbay-friendship structurally. I wonder if FD should be ale to catch more fame in the US than around here (this is just a point of interest, I wish them the best of luck all over the world) and that again reminds me of the strange fate of The Walkabouts being more well-known in Europe than in the US, where they have always remained a critic’s choice act. Another analogy to the Walkabouts would be the core band male/female pairing keeping it up at all times, but that might be taking it a bit too far already. But the thing that should be remembered here is the honesty and truthfulness with which this band approaches their music and evolvement. There are quite a few bands that have shown what is possible in music if staying true to yourself and to your foremost vision of a special sound or a perfect song, and this is kind of honesty, which needs a lot of selfconfidence and ability of self introspection without too much arrogance or self-centeredness, is hard to come by, but FD do possess it. And I keep telling myself I can hear that difference in every single note played or sung. Sometimes it is just the perfect change of chord to make it happen, at other times it is an almost involuntary moment of bliss; with both the same true dedication and honesty is necessary. I guess, Franklin Delano deliver.

www.franklindelano.org

9/2005