2010 release. "Monofonicorchestra is not a disc recorded in mono / is not ambient music / is not funky / is not experimental music / is not funny / Monofonicorchestra is not avant-garde / is not pop / is not op / is not Dada / Monofonicorchestra is not fashion / is not hard-core / is not horror / is not Frigidaire." --Maurizio Marsico, at 10h20 on Wednesday, December 23rd, 1981. A country: Italy. Several countries: Italies. Late '70ss, early '80s. The ether of punk is in everyone's nose and disco's virus invades even the most reticent legs.

New-wave for sure rules the underground. Neo-dandyism attitude applied to the Italian post-rock era; Dolce Vita with a dreamed revolution in the background. United Countries of Italy! Bologna and the Confusional Quartet, Gaznevada, The Stupid Set. Not to forget the Naif Orchestra from Florence and all trans-border adventurous navigators such as Piermario Ciani, Vittore Baroni (Lieutenant Murnau, Trax), the members of the musical theater Magazzini Criminali. The vivid eclecticism of the above-mentioned is to be compared to the aesthetic manifesto of the AtaTak crew from Düsseldorf (Der Plan, DAF, Tödliche Doris, Pyrolator), or the Vanity label Japanese explorers (Tolerance, Aunt Sally, Normal Brain, BGM, RNA Organism).

These bands were not leading the Italo disco movement, neither were they really punk or industrial nor waving cold-wave banners. They went off into the industrial darkness to assert humor, may it be black, as a revolutionary weapon throbbing over the ruins of radicalism. The dreams have moved towards conscious needs: the desperate hope of having fun. And so is the Monofonicorchestra. The music of Maurizio Marsico is repetitive music. Mi. La. Short pieces 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Every record Marsico makes is a conceptual sequence of drawings. Casual, soundtrack-like Casio-jazz cartoons. There is nothing to decipher here, it's all given already, all referenced. The appearances are pleasant and you get trapped in the depths of some cynical easy listening rhizome where ZNR merges with Steve Reich and Blue Gene Tyranny. Indeed, it has something of the Lovely Music elegance. Housed in a full-color digipack sleeve. Also including a 12-page full-color booklet with original graphics and photos as well as liner-notes by Samon Takahashi.