C+C = Maxigross

“Nuova Era Oscura – Vol. 1” is the ninth work by the Veronese musical art collective C+C=Maxigross, which has been releasing records with the most recognized independent record labels since 2011 and brings its psychedelic live show between Europe and Italy. In fact, with over six hundred concerts (including in the US in 2012) they have played at the best venues and festivals in the industry (in 2016 they were the first band to represent Italy in the official billboard of the renowned Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona).

With “NEO – Vol. 1,” the collective welcomed into the ever-evolving lineup the new elements of singer Anna Bassy (former collaborator of Gianluca Petrella’s Cosmic Renaissance) and experimental pianist Luca Sguera (member of Scope, with Laura Agnusdei, and A Nice Noise, with Adele Altro, among many other projects), who pushed the sounds of C+C=Maxigross for the first time toward jazz and noise shores.

“NEO – Vol. 1” consists of 12 tracks that represent a cycle of post-modern fairy tales, told chorally around an imaginary bonfire to cross the dark night whose end is not seen, like the disturbing era we are living in. Only when all hope is gone does a ray of light pierce the darkness and dawn returns to restore meaning to our existence. Once again it is only Art that helps Humanity to see beyond the evil of living that accompanies us.

The C+C=Maxigross collective has always combined Music with the other Arts, whether visual or performing, collaborating with a variety of personalities from the world of Photography, Cinema and museum contexts (see Franco Maria Ricci’s Il Labirinto della Masone, which in 2019 hosted a site-specific performance by the collective within its labyrinth), with an eye toward those who are pushed to the margins of our contemporary society because they are labeled “different.”

In fact, the cover of the 2019 album “Deserto” was a work from the tiger cycle-masterpiece by painter Antonio Ligabue, one of the greatest exponents of 20th-century figurative art, known worldwide.

For the new record NEO vol. 1, the collective chooses as its cover a work by Veronese artist Carlo Zinelli (1916 – 1974), one of the world’s leading representatives of the concept of Art Brut, who created all his works (always untitled) during the decades he spent in an asylum due to schizophrenia that began to manifest itself in him when he was in the war as a volunteer.