Simon Hanes is a bit of DIY plethora. Solidifying himself as an unpredictable character, Hanes garnered attention for his aggressively active (and often nude) presence in Guerilla Toss as the former bass player. Hanes fearlessly explores alternate personas in his other projects: Tsons of Tsunami (which explores the ‘macho’ guitar rock persona), Combman (the perverted, repressed obsession persona) and more recently, Tredicci Bacci, which introduces Luxardo, Simo Hane’s smooth and sexy alter ego, as well as the Tredicci Bacci frontman.
Consisting of 13 members, Tredicci Bacci takes the tired concept of reworking and regurgitating a past genre, and does so literally and quite suavely. Based on a short lived era of Italian films called Giallo (the Italian genre for slasher movies), Tredicci Bacci celebrates the ferociously vibrant colors, beautifully crafted scores, and the promiscuously over the top sexy vibes that permeated the 1970’s. At first listen, Vai! Vai! Vai! is almost jarring, simply because one isn’t used to the camp that inherently exists in the music.
Tredicci Bacci is a shout out to a time where romantics were starkly different than they are now, when “It seem[ed] like it was a lot easier to be a sleaze ball…than it is now,” Hane’s puts it bluntly in an interview with Boston Hassle. As the ears become more attuned to the sound, it ultimately plays out as a refreshing and relaxing listening experience. The crisp production is dreamlike and transformative, with a soulfulness we rarely see today. Tredicci Bacci explores an element of the generation that seems to have been pushed away, and where everything musical seems to be pushing forward, Luxardo is smacking us on the head with sounds and moods long discarded in pop music.
Vai! Vai! Vai!, out next month, is streaming below.
