Costume – The Best Cure

Italian duo Costume (Claudia Placanica and MauSS) return with their newest album The Best Cure. The work consists of 9 original tracks moving between lounge ambiances, house music influences, almost tribal rhythms with a 90s jungle feeling and even somber recalls of music from the mid of the last century. 

The Heart Of The World starts with a rhythmic pattern firmly built upon steady drums and delicate guitar loops, while Claudia’s voice moves among piano sounds. Placid electronics have their say in the composition enforcing an almost liquid atmosphere. That’s All employs a ritualistic rhythm in an archeo-futuristic urban affair with jungle moments in contrast with the sensual vocal delivery, while Ertè travels in time recalling piano-bar music with orchestrations and slow, charming movements.

I Followed You is an instrumental pastiche with noir dissonances and cinematic passages, before it dwells in tribal effects and trip-hop broken rhythms linked to nocturnal atmospheres and heavily effected vocal samples, Here’s The Joy evokes 90s dance sounds with 4/4 kicks and steady snare drums upon which Claudia places her voice soaked in filters.

No Knife is an intriguing return to slower movements underlined by jazzy samples and mechanical rhythmic structures, while a Kiss With Closed Eyes renders guitars and synth sounds in a lysergic, acid style recalling 70s psychedelics and mid-90s soundscapes. The final title-track re-establishes  faster dynamics while keeping acidic undertones in an elegant yet somewhat upbeat crescendo with a “summer-vibe” feel-good spirit.

As always with Costume outputs, The Best Cure is coherent to their general aesthetics and sounds, but at the same time it’s is own beast with its own sound-world. This time the more experimental and “punk” elements are forfeit in favour of an alluring, liquid atmosphere, but the songwriting keeps the heterodox approach in mixing different styles and vibes using 90s sounds as a platform upon which various paths are explored. The general theme could be defined as “happy”, but not shallow, going against the current trend in morose releases influenced by the events of the last two years. If you enjoyed their past efforts, have a listen to this new venture. 

Release date: May 9, 2022.

Text by: Davide Pappalardo.