REVIEW: Antoine Diligent – La Forma
Antoine Diligent’s follow-up to Futurisms is a whimsical trip through the human-psyche compromised of exceptional psychedelic instrumentals. On La Forma Diligent sings “you better know what you want to say before you put on a show” and it’s a clear that Diligent knows what he wants to say on this record. Running through psychological concepts in the very psychedelic “Psychotropical” and the search for answers on “Just a Human”—singing “I’m just a human with some questions to which the answers I might really not want to know.” The exploration of human-psyche is all over this record especially showing up in “Ephemera” and “Cosmic Culture”. Diligent delivers a timeless sound that offers a delightful menu of technicolor dreams. If you love psychedelic rock we highly recommend La Forma for your listening pleasure. This is a superb record with all the right elements you would expect in 5 star alternative rock album. Standout Tracks: “Kill Your Ego” “Hyperphantasia” “Just A Human” and “Cosmic Culture”
SOUNDS LIKE: Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Tame Impala
TASTES LIKE: a sweet strawberry frozen margarita in summer
More on La Forma:
La Forma is the second full length album by Napa via Los Angeles based psych-rock artist Anthony Polcino, a.k.a Antoine Diligent. Like its predecessor
, 2016’s debut Futurisms, La Forma plays out as a modern day concept album, unabashedly owning all the cinematic elements that make up such
types of work: the suspenseful overture, the specific track listing, interludes,
instrumentals, warped tape audio collages that include faded memories of
past work, a prismatic palette of analog synthesizers and pointed guitar solos
that could slice through steel, and of course, a lyrical thematic arc. While the
musical production might go “far out” at times, the subject matter of the lyrics
is solely based in the realm of the human mind. To elaborate, their focus is primarily the awareness of one’s own human psyche, an attempt at the decon-
struction and rejection of it, the acceptance of the futility of such a feat, and finally, the reemergence of said psyche although with – at the least the percep-
tion of – a renewed sense of peace and purpose.
La Forma means “the shape” or “the form” in Italian. The title calls to the
creator’s own cultural heritage, and how that singular life fits in the shape of
all things. As the closing track of the same name proclaims, “we already live
in the shape of things to come.” Throughout the listening of the album, the
search for evidence of truth in that statement is the dominant aim.
