Saturday, Sunday and a Student is not just the title of PUAH’s second album, it is a small declaration of desertion. From routine, from collective apathy, from the constant noise we call normality. Out on 6 February 2026, the new work by the Piccola Unità Anti Hi-fi of Alessandro Pagani takes shape as a compact narrative, ten tracks for just under forty minutes, following the suspended time of a weekend and the restless gaze of a student who does not recognise herself in the world around her.
Pagani, formerly of Valvola and Stolen Apple, once again moves outside the well trodden lanes of Italian electronic music. His is an electronic pop that does not seek polish or perfection, but feeds on friction, deliberately imperfect sounds and minimalist writing that leaves room for atmosphere and thought. After the debut Due Acca Hho in 2024, welcomed with curiosity and attention by the independent press, PUAH refines its language without taming it.
The album is built as a sequence of states of mind. Each track is a fragment of a young woman’s weekend as she observes a tired, technologically dependent society, incapable of imagining alternatives. Around her, people who seem to vegetate rather than live, trapped in cynicism, everyday selfishness and small forms of power exercised without responsibility. There is no rhetoric and no manifesto, just a subtle, constant discomfort that runs through the tracks and blends with a melancholy that never fully resolves.
It is only on Saturday and Sunday that this restlessness finds a truce. Away from the compulsory rhythm of weekdays, the student reclaims herself, her body and movement, and tries to imagine a different future. The music accompanies this temporary space of freedom, alternating more rarefied moments with almost danceable episodes, always maintaining the underlying feeling that something is not right, yet still worth searching for.
From a sonic point of view, Saturday, Sunday and a Student is a choral work, while maintaining a very clear direction. Alongside Pagani, handling guitars, keyboards, programming and backing vocals, voices and instruments appear that enrich the narrative without distorting it. Details that do not show off, but build a coherent, living sonic fabric, crossed by a handcrafted sensitivity that avoids digital gloss.
Distributed by Audioglobe via The Orchard, the album confirms the coherence of a project that rejects the mainstream without taking refuge in the self satisfaction of the avant garde. PUAH continues to move in a middle ground made of conscious lo fi, punk attitude, skewed pop and a declared distrust of technology when it becomes dehumanising. Saturday, Sunday and a Student is a record that does not ask to be explained, but listened to. Carefully. And with a bit of time, the very thing that today seems to be missing the most.
TRACKLIST
Total duration 37 min. 43 sec.
Sogno – 4:23
Aurora – 2:25
Pool Over – 4:04
Shopping (Folla folle) – 3:49
Nel Club – 6:09
Taedium – 2:34
Imperial Sushi – 3:36
Cinepanema – From Brazil with Fury – 3:50
24 – 3:23
Saturday, Sunday and a Student – 3:30
CREDITS
Alessandro Pagani
guitars, keyboards, programming and backing vocals on “Saturday, Sunday and a Student”
Martina Ciasullo
lead vocals on “Saturday, Sunday and a Student”
Valentina Gerace and MDGA
vocals on “Sogno”
Sergio Toma
guitar on “Aurora”
Oreste Polizzi
organ on “Pool Over”
Emma F.
clavinet on “Nel Club”
Ricardo “el bate” Caschera
percussion on “Cinepanema”
Amanda Pellé
flute on “Imperial Sushi”
Cover photo
Gabriela Cheloni
BIO
Alessandro Pagani was born in Florence in 1964, where he lives and works. Active since the 1980s in the Florentine underground scene, he took part in the Pat Pat Recorder movement and gave life to numerous projects spanning punk, electronic, noise, post rock and lounge. Among them Stropharia Merdaria, Parce Qu’Il Est Triste, Hypersonics, Subterraneans, Malastrana and Valvola, with whom he also founded the independent label Shado Records, active until 2007.
He was drummer for Stolen Apple and is currently playing with the punk rock band CUMA X. At the same time, he develops his solo electronic project PUAH, Piccola Unità Anti Hi-fi, which debuted in early 2024 with the album Due Acca Hho.
Pagani is also the author of humorous books and the creator of the ironic Facebook page Meme o non meme. His publications include Le Domande improponibili, Perché non cento?, Io mi libro, 500 chicche di riso and I Punkinari, to be followed in 2026 by I Punkinari 2. His artistic output, both musical and literary, is marked by corrosive irony and a constant critical tension toward cultural and technological conformism.
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RomeCentral is a Magazine completely no-profit , whoever writes in this magazine does his job without any commercial pressure.
NB: No people in Rome Central, from managers to employees etc .., receive any type of compensation.
The love for the free journalism repays all our efforts.
The Rome Central - Italy in the world editorial staff consists of freelance editors, journalists, photographers, filmmakers, doctors, writers, video-makers, supporters, poets, writers, actors, singers and many friends.
RomeCentral is a Magazine completely no-profit , whoever writes in this magazine does his job without any commercial pressure.
NB: No people in Rome Central, from managers to employees etc .., receive any type of compensation.
The love for the free journalism repays all our efforts.