Bologna has a rich history of radical experimentation in politics, visual arts and music, the modern origins of which are arguably traced to the revolutionary social movement known as autonomia that gripped Italian society, and rocked the city, at the close of the 1970s.

Autonomia was powered in part by the Centri Sociali (social centres) – originally large collectively managed squats – that provided a space for Bologna’s youth to experiment with new forms of living and creativity that fell outside the discipline and demands of waged labour. As such, a vibrant culture of self-organised music events, art happenings and political interventions flourished across the city from the late 1960s. While autonomia would broadly come to a close by the mid 1980s (in a wave of state repression aimed squarely at halting its expansion), Bologna’s ‘creative autonomy’ persisted, albeit in more constrained conditions.

These concerns aside, Bologna has maintained its reputation as a power house of radical cultural innovation, and the record shop, music label and Centri Sociali known as Sonic Belligeranza (the brainchild of Riccardo Balli, aka DJ Balli) has, since the early 2000s, stood at the centre of Bologna’s experimental music cultures. Sonic Belligeranza provides a welcoming and productive ‘encounter space’ for visiting musicians, artists and students, and operates in the city’s proud tradition of creative and joyful dissent.

Sonic Belligeranza’s main record label is dedicated to platforming extreme dancefloor sounds that stretch the boundaries of what is both possible and acceptable within Italy’s EDM scenes. Two sublabels also exist: +Belligeranza, championing noise and ideas, and -Belligeranza dedicated to softer sounds and weirder content.

Below is a curated tracklist of Sonic Belligeranza releases from the last two decades, tracks taken from the main label and from each of its sublabels. Placed together they offer a route map illuminating Balli’s thinking, his interventions and forays into – and his support of – Bologna’s experimental music scenes and DIY cultures.

Sonic Belligeranza
“Tutto È Buono, Quando È Eccessivo”
From Serious And Comical Investigations At Around 333 BPM
(Sonic Belligeranza) 2000

This is the label’s first release, written and produced by Balli, with the help of Mu B and others. Three really is the magic number. A track that runs to 3 minutes 33 seconds, all of its frequencies tune cut at 33.3 hertz, with beats reaching 333 bpm and, of course, presented at 33⅓ rotations per minute, the standardised speed of the vinyl LP. Both a tongue in cheek ‘assassination’ and a tribute to all things ‘speedcore’, the track is built around the sample “Tutto è Buono, Quando è Eccessivo” (“All things are good, when carried to excess”) taken from Pasolini’s infamous 1975 movie Salò, Or The 120 Days Of Sodom. Fully complying with the above quote, Balli accelerates the 4/4 kick, the synth melody and the bassline in a truly excessive manner.

DJ Balli
“Seitan Is My Favourite Drug”
From Straight-Edge Rastafari Manifesto
(Sonic Belligeranza) 2003

An EP establishing uncanny similarities between the straight-edge punk scene and the clean spirituality of Bobo Ashanti – who unlike other Rastafari mansions limit their marijuana use to times of worship. “Seitan Is My Favourite Drug” is an extravagant sound clash, mixing mid-tempo industrial breaks with powerful ragga riddims and a Bolognese polka. Accordions sampled from local trad music get quickly demolished by a breakcore bulldozer. ‘Liscio’ or ‘Filuzzi’ – the name given to this traditional accordion music – gets twisted and reinvented in Balli’s hands. This track is dedicated to Franco Balli.

DJ Balli
“Whipping A Boyscout”
From Boyscout-Ravers Must Die
(Sonic Belligeranza) 2007

The Italian free party scene has long been dominated by a zombie-like four-on-the-floor beat, locally known as tekno. For all its revolutionary rhetoric the tekno scene contains its own reactionaries, as Balli once found out. This tune is a response to Balli receiving a bucket of water over his decks during a set at a free party from a disgruntled ‘teknusa’ upset by the DJ’s eclectic choice of tunes. Balli reasons tekno parties operate in the same vein as scout camps – reproducing a childish adherence to a collective orthodoxy. This track is his response: a gabba-breakcore remix of a traditional boy scout song, filled with chopped up nursery rhymes and schemas.

DJ Balli & Ralph Brown
“Intro / Audio Tweet 1”
From Tweet it! (Extratone Mix)
(Sonic Belligeranza) 2012

“Tweet it!” is a pseudo-scientific transposition of Twitter’s complete data flow into an audio file. A mediation on Paul Virilio’s ‘dromology’ (the study of speed and its effect) expressed through Extratone, a musical style focussing on audio going beyond 1000bpm. When the beat gets this fast it’s impossible to detect by ear – the sound becomes slow, an endless drone. However, the key changes give this tune the dynamics necessary to label it dance music rather than noise.

DJ Zoologist
“Galvanized By Electrical Energy Coming From Dissecting Luigi Galvani’s Leg With Zinc Scapel And Copper Rods”
From GALVANIzed
(Urbsound) 2018

DJ Zoologist is the name adopted by DJ Balli to explore zoomusicology. In “GALVANIzed” the focus is on amphibian sounds and on Luigi Galvani, who, in the 1870s, performed experiments at the University of Bologna involving frogs. While dissecting a frog’s leg, Galvani’s zinc scalpel touched a brass hook, resulting in an electrical current that made the leg twitch. Mr Galvani receives a flying kick on behalf of amphibians everywhere via reversed, time-stretched and ultra-fast Amen breaks.

Rancid Opera
“NecroViagra”
From Azionismo Bolognese In Rap
(-Belligeranza) 2016

The three tenors/terrors – MC PavaRotten, MC DominGORE and MC CarrerAXE – present “NecroViagra”, a putrid horrorcore capsule blending bel canto and death-rap over an orchestra of samples sourced from cult Italian horror movies, funereal beats and necro-funk scratches directed, dissected and dis-orchestrated by DJ Balli.

DJ Balli
“Skatebored Is Not Skateboard”
From In Skateboard We Noize!
(+Belligeranza) 2007

Can skateboard music be different from Suicidal Tendencies and the usual run-of-the-mill skate punk offerings? Recording his own tricks on a skateboard using Zoom and editing these on an Amiga, DJ Balli strings together a sort of skateboard musique concrète, celebrating the acoustics of skateboarding.

Balli-Marraffa-Balli Trio
“A Super Mario Supreme”
From 8 Bit Jazz Furlough
(+Belligeranza) 2024

The Balli-Marraffa-Balli Trio are an 8-bit free jazz outfit. Powerful sax solos storm over Game Boy melodies that are rendered unfamiliar in Balli’s hands, who warps and distorts the formulaic 8-bit tunes into something new. Comprised of Balli, the Bologna based saxophonist Edoardo Marraffa (who has recorded as part of Wayne Horvitz’s European Orchestra) and a cardboard cutout of Balli, this is the first jazz trio to include a permanent lifeless stand in. Catch them live if you can.

Read Seth Wheeler and Jamila Squire’s full report from Bologna in The Wire 499. Buy the issue in our online shop. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital magazine library.