MARCO-CASTELLO-Quaglia-subversive
Choose a title like “Subversive Quail“ it is already a programmatic gesture: a poetic declaration disguised as an affective toponym.
“Quaglia” is the name with which Ortigia, the historic center of Syracuse, is identified, but above all it is the way in which Marco Castello overturns the concept of belonging: not postcard nostalgia, but rather a microcosm full of microstories.
Castello – born in '93, a Syracusan multi-instrumentalist who grew up surrounded by sonic craftsmanship and cosmopolitan listening – has long worked at the high edges of a scene that intertwines auteur pop, chamber electronics, Mediterranean sophistication that harks back to the minimalism of Erlend Øye, a friend he hangs out with, as well as the velvety composure of Nu Genea.
But here the trajectory is no longer just that of refined “cultured POP”: “Subversive quail“ it opens a fault line, an idea of imaginary cinema that takes the shape of an island, perhaps Ortigia, perhaps the whole of Sicily, perhaps simply a mental place where reality distorts and becomes a story.
The ten tracks move like episodes of everyday life: '70s songwriting cleaned of any nostalgic veneer, yacht rock evaporated into pure texture, discreet funk, jazz filtered with an almost curatorial intent, plus a series of Mediterranean grafts that act like an underground grammar. The result is a very lucid sound, at times obsessive in its care.
On a textual level, Castello sharpens a ferociously lateral writing: disastrous petrol stations that trigger global catastrophes, low-intensity anxieties that swell like fuses, small distortions administered with a caustic gaze. It is an irony that feigns lightness but digs beneath the surface, to the point of a melancholic aftertaste that does not allow itself solutions.
Microstories become representations of the present: ecological transitions that evaporate, feverish desires that never find form, feelings treated like emotional bombs.
“Quaglia sversiva” is a layered album, brilliant in its intentions and, for the most part, solid in its performance.
A work that does not reinvent auteur pop, but reconfigures its margins with intelligence, method and a certain controlled shamelessness.
SCORE: 7.50
THREE SONGS TO LISTEN NOW
Pumps – Mutu and cup snatching – Eureka
SONGS TO SKIP
35 minutes of sonic sweetness and lyrical acuity.
TRACKLIST
Pumps
Vessenals
Hide them
Mutu and cup snatching
Edict from the underrock
Make a lullaby
Close yourself / Don't close yourself
Eureka
To ice water
Flying Rock
DISCOGRAPHY
2021 – You're happy
2023 – Pieces of the evening
2025 – Subversive Quail
WEB AND SOCIAL
@maccucciu
