Italian Darkwave Producer Torba Scratches the NIN Itch with “Dare”

Sometimes interesting album art is enough to get you through the door. Flipping through my inbox recently, I spotted a 1990s-infomercial-ass photo of a chef showing off a big knife, moments before slicing into a cream pie. The chef’s eyes are cut off but he’s smiling, while the makeshift face on the cream pie looks concerned. Subtly sinister but mostly funny, this cover did not exactly prepare me for the onslaught of darkwave and industrial that came clattering out when I pressed play on Torba’s second LP, II. 

Frankly, I was and still am surprised at how good the music is, especially because almost no one is talking about Torba (stream counts around 1,000 or less, video plays under 100). His creative process, as described in a press release, sounds intriguing: He favors out-of-tune instruments, over-processed samples, bit reduction, digital distortion, and a destructive streak that finds him hollowing out and fucking up this noise. “I see it every day—people not making extreme decisions anymore,” Torba writes. “They record the stuff clean, and then they try to find the tone during the production. I always try to do the opposite. I try to look for the sound immediately.” 

Torba is the alias of multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and producer Luigi Pianezzola, whose press photos look ripped from an old advert for men’s suits. He operates out of Northern Italy, and must have met the Soft Moon, aka post-punk explorer Jose Luis Vasquez (R.I.P.), when Vasquez was living in Venice and recording at Hate Studio with engineer-producer Maurizio Baggio about a decade ago. Pianezzola became a touring member of the Soft Moon, and his music shares a sensibility—and producer—with Vasquez’s gothic EBM, as well as other artists who’ve worked with Baggio in recent years, like the darkwave duo Boy Harsher. (I was psyched to realize that Baggio also mixed one of my favorite noise-pop records, EMA’s The Future’s Void.) 

These bona fides offer a solid sense of the vibe on II, but the reference point I keep coming back to is Nine Inch Nails. I’ve noticed more indie rock acts, like Model/Actriz, channeling Trent Reznor in recent years; Torba is not that, but something more haunted, pulsating, and strobe-lit. For my Brooklynites out there: I want to hear it in the dungeon-y basement club underneath Knockdown Center, even if the Newtown killer is still at large. On “Dare,” my favorite track on II, Torba shrouds his already-murky vocals in fog, blasts the bass like a weapon, and layers in ticking-clock beats that up the ante. I know I’m a sucker for this sound, but I think this guy’s onto something.