By Jared Gudnason 

Writer/Reporter 

I once ate lunch at an Italian truck stop on the road from France to Southern Switzerland. Traditionally, the country is known for Opera, so much so that it even ventures into another of their musical exports, the metal genre. Mind Enterprises, however, is neither of those two.  

Working in tangent with Minneapolis’ First Avenue, they performed in downtown Saint Paul roughly three weeks ago on March 28. The supporting act, Pearz, was also an Italian solo performer playing the bass, keyboards, and a drum machine. If you can imagine The Beach Boys but from the Mediterranean and not Southern California, that’s arguably what they sound like. 

Mind Enterprises has been active for around 14 years, and their newfound success came in the form of a viral hit via social media. As a duo, one hails from Torino in the north, and the other from the island of Sicily. They are arguably reminiscent of their musical neighbors to the northwest, France’s Air, and they had zero instruments aside from drum machines, two keyboards, and a culturally appropriate bottle of Campari. Most lyrics, when they rarely made an appearance, were sung in English. Drum machines as usual, provide tempo; Mind Enterprises’ songs were largely composed in a four-four time signature, enabling the audience with no shortage of dancing opportunity. Aside from that, drum machines have the ability to produce pitch notation, and while present in percussion, is typically reserved for strings, brass, or the woodwind family.  

Mind Enterprises has an absolutely massive following – especially on Instagram – and are 200K short of a million followers. We live in a very new time for the dissemination of music overall. Currently their most-streamed song is “Idol,” off of their 2019 extended play “Panorama.” Aside from a brief concern when they lit cigarettes onstage – which I thought the audience of at least 400 might follow – they poured Campari into their glasses, and everyone danced well into the small hours.