not waving: tremendous/s.m

Not Waving makes his anti-fascist feelings clear with two banging tracks that trust dancefloor irony is not dead and leftist solidarity is alive in 2019. Closing out a banner year with a club-ready boot up the ass, Not Waving's Alessio Natalizia follows his divergent 2019 outings beside Jim O'Rourke, Mark Lanegan, and Jay Glass Dubs with a wildly driven lunge for the strobes. Balancing pure escapism with a reminder to dance and laugh at the populist peckers that dominate the news and global politics, this 12" is exactly the kind of statement that should be heard more often in underground music's naturally left-leaning network of inter-linked, fringe and minority communities. The A-side's Belgian new beat-styled détournement "Tremendous" makes ironic use of a foamy-mouthed but blithe Tr*mp speech about the Paris attacks, sliced and jacked into a strapping mix of jagged EBM arps and Italo/Detroit chromatics with a naggingly playful aesthetic that harks back to Belgian new beat and UK rave's mix of pop-politics and subversive escapism. His B-side "S.M" then opens with a rabble-rousing recording of Italian students chanting "Salvini, merda" against Matteo Salvini -- Italy's immigrant-hating far-right former deputy Prime Minister -- over a bucking, pulsing electro groove that sounds like CoH jamming Ro Maron. Acts of subversive defiance such as this, encouraging dissent and ridicule of pompous right wing blowhards -- and no matter how small in the wider scheme of things -- have never been so vitally required in the modern day. Political dance anthems in a new beat/new beta-style. Orange vinyl; mastered and cut at 45rpm by Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin; edition of 300.