“Two songs, twenty minutes each, and not one chorus.” This is how Dargen D’Amico describes his last creation, Nostalgia Istantanea, probably one of the most original and intriguing things to appear in the Italian music scene, in this first half of 2012. Even if it would be an intimidating task, that of finding a clear theme in a stream of consciousness, it is possible to say that in the oxymoronic title, Instant Nostalgia, one can find a perfect description of our time and mood.
In a society that is constantly obsessed with feeling emotions and showing this emotions to others (no matter how fake the emotions can be), that of nostalgia is a good example of how we transformed our feelings into commodities. Everything that is done on a social network nowadays, has a nostalgic impulse. The pictures we immediately post on our Facebook pages, transform something that we have just experienced five minutes earlier, into something we are already longing for. And this is how our time is used and consumed; or think about apps like Instagram, that transform our low quality photos, in low-fi photos taken years ago, giving them that aura of nostalgia we need.
D’Amico uses a powerful image when, trying to explaining his idea, he describes a contemporary Christ being filmed on a modern cross, by thousands of cellphones. And there is definitely something biblical, jeremiad-like, in his speech. Speaking of a world where “we are all tired, and we use the words of others”, the rapper tries to awaken the consciousness of an entire generation of Italians, lost not only in an economic crisis, but also in the disappearance (in the entire society) of values and ideas.
This artist does a great job, in reminding us that, as he says: “A picture of the sun will never be warm, no matter how hard it tries.”
Disposable Nostalgia
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You can listen to the first song in the album here:
tindari 