Giardini di Mirò

One of the earliest Italian indie outfits from the 2000s to attract notice beyond national borders, the post-rock ensemble Giardini di Mirò came together in Cavriago near Reggio Emilia during the latter half of the 1990s. A self-titled EP appeared on their own imprint in 1998, and the Iceberg EP arrived the following year via Gammapop. At that stage the group consisted of guitarists Corrado Nuccini and Jukka Reverberi, bassist Mirko Venturelli, keyboardist Luca Di Mira, and drummer Lorenzo Lanzi, with frequent assistance from collaborator Emanuela Reverberi on violin and trumpet. After inking a deal with Homesleep, they issued their debut full-length, Rise and Fall of Academic Drifting. Widely regarded by critics as among the strongest Italian first efforts of its era, the album revealed a unit clearly shaped by post-rock ensembles such as Godspeed You Black Emperor! and especially Mogwai, yet skilled at forging distinctive and sonically exploratory textures. Just two actual vocal tracks featured on the record, performed by guests Matteo Agostinelli of Yuppie Flu and Tram’s Paul Anderson. The Soft Touch EP and the remix set The Academic Rise of Falling Drifters both surfaced in 2002. Issued in 2003, Punk...Not Diet! shifted toward a more song-driven approach, aided by vocalist Alessandro Raina; the album, which also saw release in Germany through 2nd Rec, featured appearances by Christian Kleine, Styrofoam, and Nitrada. Hits for Broken Hearts and Asses, released in 2004, gathered the initial pair of EPs plus contemporaneous recordings, while North Atlantic Treaty of Love from 2006 blended fresh material with remixes and first appeared across two separate 12"s before emerging as a CD. By then Francesco Donadello had taken over drumming duties from Lanzi. That same year Nuccini put out his solo debut Matters of Love and Death, and Di Mira issued his own first effort under the Pillow name, Flowing Seasons. Dividing Opinions arrived in January 2007; with Raina having departed, vocal responsibilities fell to Reverberi and Nuccini.