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Necromonkey – Necroplex (2013)

Posted in Ambient, Electronic, Instrumental, Post-Rock, Progressive Rock, Review, tagged , , , , , , , on February 28, 2013 | 7 Comments »

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TRACKLISTING:
1. Pea (3:11)
2. Asshole Vote (6:16)
3. Elements (4:17)
4. Tuba Melt (2:04)
5. Small Rome (2:35)
6. Every Dead Indian (8:37)
7. Empty Traps and Nightfall (2:49)
8. Spoken (2:58)
9. The Utopian and the Teaspoon (5:04)
10. Winds Over Iceland (1:21)
11. Knock Knock Hornets Nest (6:29)
12. Notebook Memory (2:04)
13. Last Entry (4:56)

LINEUP:
David Lundberg & Mattias Olsson – keyboards, guitars, drums, percussion, drum machines, electronics, sound effects

With:
Cecilia Linné – cello (1, 2, 5, 6, 13)
Michele Benincaso – bass (2, 5, 6, 7, 9)
Ulf Åkerstedt – contrabass trumpet (2), bass trumpet (2, 4, 9), tuba (2, 4)
Einar Urgur Baldursson – electric guitars, e-bow, electric sitar (9), baritone guitar (10), electric 12-string guitar (11), mandolin (13)
Yann LeNestour – bass clarinet (6, 9, 12)
Ulph Andersson – additional editing (2), reading (4)
Matti Bye – Hammond L-100 (6)
Noah Gest – lap steel (11)
Shep Gest – voice (8)
Elvira de Troia – voice (2)
Akaba & Tiger Olsson– vocals (13)

Necromonkey was born from the meeting of two artists whom a thousand-odd US progressive rock fans had the pleasure of seeing on stage in the summer of 2012. Drummer Mattias Olsson is a household name in prog circles, being a founding member of legendary Swedish band Änglagård (which he left in the autumn of 2012), while keyboardist David Lundberg is one-fourth of NEARfest Apocalypse revelation Gösta Berlings Saga. Olsson (a classically-trained percussionist, composer and producer) met in 2008 during the recording sessions for Gösta Berlings Saga’s second album, Detta Här Hänt, and realized they were kindred spirits. Lundberg was subsequently invited to join the reformed Änglagård as a live keyboardist for their 2012 dates, while Olsson joined Gösta Berlings Saga on stage at NEARfest for the band’s exhilarating encore.

Necroplex, the title of Necromonkey’s debut album (composed and recorded in 2010 at Olsson’s own Roth-Händle studios in Stockholm), refers to the Echoplex tape delay used by many notable guitarists in the Sixties and Seventies. While Olsson and Lundberg handle the majority of the instruments, combining cutting-edge technology with vintage equipment, a number of guest musicians (including Gösta Berlings Saga’s guitarist Einar Baldursson) contribute to the final result with an array of acoustic and electric instruments. Clocking in at about 52 minutes, the album features 13 relatively short, mostly instrumental tracks that – unlike so much of the formulaic, somewhat “safe” fare that seems to be popular these days – challenge prog fans’ irresistible urge to label everything.

Debunking the stereotype of the dour Northern European, Necroplex is pervaded by a healthy dose of slightly absurdist, tongue-in-cheek humour, evident in the track titles and the descriptions included in the CD booklet, emphasizing that the making of the album was a relaxed and highly entertaining process for  Olsson and Lundberg. Though first-time listeners may be disappointed to find a different animal than the bands with which the two artists are associated, successive listens will reveal subtle but unmistakable references to the sound of both Änglagård and Gösta Berlings Saga.

Melancholy and appealingly zany in turn, balancing acoustic, electric and electronic elements with skill and delicacy, Necroplex possesses a hauntingly cinematic quality that hints at Olsson’s experience as a composer of film and theatre soundtracks. Variety is the name of the game, each track telling its own story in exquisitely multilayered fashion. From subdued ambient interludes such as “Winds Over Iceland” (featuring Einar Baldursson’s meditative baritone guitar), the sparse bass solo of “Empty Traps and Nightfall” and the rarefied clarinet of “Notebook Memory” to the free-form avant-garde leanings of the wacky “Tuba Melt” and the surreal narration of the aptly-titled “Spoken”, the album offers a veritable journey through moods and atmospheres as wildly shifting as the clouds depicted on its cover.

The liberal use of drum machines imparts a martial, almost robotic pace to tracks such as the angular “The Utopian and the Teaspoon” and “Asshole Vote”, where it is reinforced by scratchy turntable effects, and softened by Cecilia Linné’s sober cello, while the ever-present mellotron confers to the sound an orchestral quality through an array of choral and string effects. “Small Rome” has the allure of a classical chamber piece, with its cello and flowing piano, while the album’s two longest tracks – the 8-minute “Every Dead Indian” and “Knock Knock Hornet’s Nest” – merge harsh industrial suggestions with the surging post-rock sweep of Gösta Berlings Saga, driven by Olsson’s eclectic drumming and accented by chiming guitar. Closing track “Last Entry”, on the other hand, privileges the warmth of acoustic instruments such as mandolin, vibraphone and glockenspiel, enhanced by gentle chanting and mellotron, introducing a note of folksy Scandinavian wistfulness that evokes Änglagård and Anekdoten at their most introspective.

Forward-thinking lovers of instrumental music will not fail to appreciate Necroplex – an album whose thoroughly modern stance also pays homage to the likes of early Pink Floyd – as will those who have been intrigued by some of the bands and artists covered in this blog, such as Ergo, Knitting By Twilight, Lüüp and the obvious choice, Gösta Berlings Saga. All in all, this is an album that rewards patience, and proves that vintage prog staples and cutting-edge technology can be successfully combined to produce music that is genuinely progressive, yet appealingly down-to-earth. Even if released early in the year, I expect Necroplex to appear in many “best of 2013” lists. Fans will also be glad to hear that Olsson and Lundberg are already working on a follow-up.

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Necromonkey/109218875773387

http://www.youtube.com/user/RothHandle

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Garden Wall – Assurdo (2011)

Posted in Avant-garde, Contemporary Academic Music, Electronic, Progressive, Progressive Rock, Review, tagged , , , , , , on February 4, 2012 | 2 Comments »

TRACKLISTING:
1. Iperbole (6:21)
2. Butterfly Song (8:31)
3. Trasfiguratofunky (7:31)
4. Negative (7:03)
5. Just Cannot Forget (2:25)
6. Flash (5:23)
7. Clamores Horrendos Ad Sidera Tollit (6:49)
8. Vacuum Fluctuation (8:04)
9. Re-Awakening (8:03)
10. Isterectomia (7.26)

LINEUP:
Alessandro Seravalle – vocals, electric, acoustic, e-bow & 12-string guitars, synths, keyboards, samples
Raffaello Indri – electric guitar
William Toson – fretted & fretless bass guitars
Ivan Moni Bidin – drums
Gianpietro Seravalle – electronic percussion, soundscapes

With:
Simone D’Eusanio – violin (1, 2, 8)
Cristian Rigano – synth solos (3)
Giorgio Pacorig – keyboards (3)
Pietro Sponton – congas (3), vibraphone (4)
Flavia Quass – vocals (4)
Andrea Fontana – percussion (4)
Davide Casali – bass clarinet (5)
Jacques Centonze – percussion (8)
Carlo Franceschinis – double bass (8)
Alessandro Bertoni – piano (9)
Mariano Bulligan – cellos (9)
Massimo De Mattia – flute (9, 10), bass flute (10)

In spite of a name referencing one of Genesis’ most popular songs and a “progressive metal” tag, Italian band Garden Wall are neither one of the many followers of the “retro-prog” trend, nor a bunch of Opeth or Dream Theater devotees. Hailing from the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli, the band was put together by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Alessandro Seravalle in the late Eighties, and released their debut album in 1993. Assurdo, their eight album, forms the third and final chapter of the trilogy begun in 2002 with Forget the Colours, and continued with 2004’s Towards the Silence. It is also their first release with Lizard Records  (one of the most rolific independent labels for modern progressive rock), and – unlike their 2008 album, Aliena(c)tion – contains completely new material.

Now a quintet, with only Seravalle and guitarist Raffaello Indri left of the original lineup, Garden Wall have pulled out all the stops for their recording comeback. Not being familiar with their previous output, and misled by the “prog-metal” tag, when I first heard the album I was confronted with something that was almost impossible to label. Moreover, while most of my reviews include comparisons with other bands or artists (something that readers generally appreciate), this time I was hard put to find any suitable frame of reference within the progressive rock spectrum.

If I had to use a single adjective to define Assurdo, I would call it unpredictable. While far too many albums and individual songs seem to endlessly reproduce the same structure, the 10 compositions featured on Garden Wall’s eight CD take the listener on a veritable rollercoaster ride that will leave all but the most open-minded rather bewildered, as well as drained. To say that Assurdo is not an easy listen would be an understatement: spanning a wide range of influences and moods, each song conceived as a mini-suite in many different movements, and providing a canvas for Alessandro Seravalle’s amazing vocal gymnastics, the album is an exercise in deconstruction rather than a showcase for cohesive compositional standards.

Obviously, this is not meant as criticism: though Assurdo is clearly a daunting prospect for anyone not used to more challenging fare than the average “mainstream prog” release, it can also be immensely rewarding for those who will invest time and patience in  trying to “unlock” it. Its densely woven texture, made of so many different layers, its deeply literate nature (the album’s title comes a quote from Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, “Everything is absurd when you see it clearly”), a complex instrumentation  blending state-of-the-art electronic soundscapes with warm ethnic percussion, lyrical flute and violin, and gutsy electric guitar – all make for a very demanding listening experience, though one that can confidently bear the “progressive” label. For all its cosmopolitan, cutting-edge allure, Assurdo does have that indefinable “Italian” quality that the use of the Italian language (though juxtaposed with English) lends to even the most avant-garde musical efforts – as proved by a band like Nichelodeon, whose mainman Claudio Milano has been actively involved in the realization of Garden Wall’s latest effort.

Assurdo is one of those albums that need to be absorbed as a whole, so that trying to describe any of the tracks in detail would feel like a pointless exercise. The tracks run between 2 and 8 minutes, with the lone instrumental “Just Cannot Forget” strategically placed in the middle, as a sort of interlude. Taking Demetrio Stratos as a springboard, Seravalle dominates the rest – at times speaking, at others whispering, or even screaming or growling.  Garden Wall’s  impressively omnivorous approach encompasses the academic suggestions of opener “Iperbole”, to the deconstructed funk of the appropriately-named “Trasfiguratofunky”, the haunting trip-hop of “Negative”, the heady Middle Eastern flavour of “Vacuum Fluctuation” – blending jazzy organ, industrial electronics and heavy riffing as in “Clamores Horrendos Ad Sidera Tollit”, employing flute and violin to complement the spacey, ambient-like electronics of closer “Isterectomia”.

At under 70 minutes, Assurdo is not an excessively long album for today’s standards.  However, with its unabashedly eclectic, experimental bent, coupled with a distinct lack of anything even remotely resembling a catchy tune (as well as Seravalle’s acquired-taste vocals), the album is rarely a comfortable listening experience – though a much more solid effort than some overly pretentious releases in the experimental prog field. In any case, adventurous listeners will find a lot to appreciate in Assurdo, one of the most intriguing albums released in 2011, and one that definitely deserves more exposure.

Links:
http://www.gardenwallband.com/

http://www.lizardrecords.net63.net/index.php

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Big Block 454 – Bells and Proclamations (2011)

Posted in Avant-garde, Electronic, Progressive, Review, RIO/Avant, tagged , , , , , , on April 17, 2011 | 4 Comments »

TRACKLISTING:
1. Pyjamageddon  4:16
2. Blind Jack of Knaresborough  4:21
3. Yockenthwaite  3:59
4. Metal Trees  4:52
5. The Cloud Of Unknowing 6:56
6. Blind Jack’s Unicycle 0:59
7. The Modern Architrave  5:43
8. Kirton In The Rain  3:55
9. Long Shore Drift  3:33
10. Rubber Road  3:16
11. Crossing the Bay 0:37
12. The Sun Unconquered  3:34

LINEUP:
Mark Joell – keyboards, tumbi, shouting through cymbals, funny vocals, funny handshake
Colin Robinson – 6-string fretless bass, corrupted vocals, shehnai, xaphoon, tablas, junk
Alex Stone –  guitar, accordion, kantele, portable harmonium, serious vocals

With:
Sean Corlett – voice (1)
Tim Bradshaw – trombone  (7)
Nastassja Joell – vocals (8,12)

In spite of England’s exalted status as the cradle of the original progressive rock movement, I do not get to review modern English bands very often. This week, however, I have chosen to devote both of  my new reviews to bands hailing from the British Isles, even if I can hardly imagine two acts as different from each other as purveyors of classy pop-prog Exhibit A and arch-experimental outfit Big Block 454.

Hailing from the north-western English city of Manchester – better known for its pre-Britpop scene of the early Nineties than for progressive music – Big Block 454 (named after a car engine developed in the Seventies) were founded in 1988 by Colin Robinson and Pete Scullion, and have been active since then, though in different configurations. Bells and Proclamations, their seventh album, sees them stripped down to a trio of multi-instrumentalists (including Robinson, the one constant member of the band) with guest musicians featured on some tracks.

Even a cursory look at Big Block 454’s back catalogue will clearly reveal their self-proclaimed nature as “a semi-amorphous post-modern / situationist neo-dada cross-platform compositional construct” rather than a band in the traditional sense. While quirky, absurdist titles such as Their Coats Flapped Like God’s Chops (their fifth album, released in 2004) might bring to mind post-rock bands, Big Block 454 are quite a different beast – a veritable melting pot of diverse influences and sources of inspiration, rendered in an outwardly conventional song form, with short, even snappy morsels which are instead densely packed with ideas and variations. This is art-rock in its purest and most literal form – indeed, in its earliest manifestation, the band provided the soundtrack for a Dadaist art installation. Though the easiest way to categorize Big Block 454 would be to place them squarely in the somewhat overcrowded RIO/Avant camp, if you expect something along the lines of the darkly mesmerizing chamber-rock of Univers Zéro or the Canterbury-meets-avant-garde compositions of Henry Cow, you will be disappointed. In fact, the band lean more towards the humorous side of the RIO/Avant spectrum, as embodied by the likes Samla Mammas Manna or Stormy Six, though with an uniquely British twist.

Armed with an impressive instrumentation, including both conventional rock staples and more exotic items, the band offer 12 tracks none of which runs longer than 7 minutes, and which might be very effectively described as deconstructed pop songs. While there faint mainstream suggestions to be found in Bells and Proclamations, they are treated as parts of a fascinating mosaic. Indeed, though the very first impression may be a bit too off-kilter for comfort, threads of melody will emerge from repeated listens, and the album as a whole may prove much less impenetrable than a lot of music bearing the RIO/Avant tag. Eclecticism is the name of the game here, and – though it will probably not have symphonic prog fans jumping for joy – the album will intrigue and reward motivated listeners.

All of the 12 numbers feature vocals, and the vocal style adopted by the members of the band complements the music perfectly – deep-toned, not exactly melodic, yet oddly catchy, occasionally even infectious. Opener “Pyjamageddon” immediately sets the tone, both with its quirky title (used as a chorus of sorts throughout the song) and its extensive use of electronic effects, enhancing an almost danceable tune that might bring to mind some instances of techno/house music. The next two songs develop in a similar vein: “Blind Jack of Knaresborough” blends snippets of melody with electronic noises, theatrical vocals and blaring sax over a strong percussive background; while “Yockenthwaite”, with its mix of the pastoral, the quirky and the experimental, made me think of Barrett-era Pink Floyd. Things turn mellower with the haunting, folksy “Metal Trees” and its accordion-infused coda, and especially the beautiful “The Cloud of Unknowing”, the album’s longest item at almost 7 minutes – a hypnotic, psychedelic mini-epic driven by organ and melancholy guitar chords and vocals, again strongly reminiscent of early Pink Floyd – like a 21st-century version of “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” minus the scream.

After the short, chaotic interlude of “Blind Jack’s Unicycle”, “The Modern Architrave” offers a skewed take on an Eighties synth-pop song, suggestive of archetypal ‘pronk’ acts such as The Stranglers, followed by an entertaining (though quite unrelated), circus-like section; while the brisk “Kirton in the Rain” evokes memories of Devo, with its funny vocal harmonies weaving in and out of the song. The hauntingly minimalistic “Long Shore Drift” is another highlight, with its slow, almost liquid movement and mournful vocals, which seems to flow into the muted, lullaby-like “Rubber Road”, peppered by faintly sinister creaking sounds. The album is then wrapped up by the snappy “Crossing the Bay”, almost like a Fifties’ pop song filtered through modern electronics, and the New Wave-meets-raga of  “The Sun Unconquered”, with its quirky, slightly out-of-tune vocals and atmospheric keyboard coda.

From the above description, it should be quite clear that Bells and Proclamations is the kind of album that is likely to send fans of traditional prog running for the exits. Indeed, I would call it a textbook example of the ‘great divide’ between ‘progressive’ and ‘Prog’. Needless to say, an open mind is indispensable in approaching this album, as well as the whole of Big Block 454’s output. This is an album that, as I previously hinted, may need repeated listens in order to sink in fully, and is also very unlikely to appeal to people who prize melody and great hooks. On the other hand, fans of Krautrock, Eighties new wave, electronic music and genre-bending acts such as Zappa, Gong and King Crimson (and eclectic-minded listeners in general) will find a lot to appreciate in Bells and Proclamations – a genuinely progressive effort with a welcome dose of offbeat, very British humour. The album can be downloaded (for free or by naming your own price) from Big Block 454’s Bandcamp page.

Links:

http://bigblock454.bandcamp.com/

http://bigblock454.tumblr.com/

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Ukab Maerd – The Waiting Room (2010)

Posted in Ambient, Electronic, Instrumental, Progressive, Review, tagged , , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2011 | 2 Comments »

TRACKLISTING:
1. The Cave (23:35)
2. White Light, No Heat (11:28)
3. God’s Elastic Acre (18:16)
4. Sati & The Trainman (11:14)

LINEUP:
Gayle Ellett – analog and digital keyboards, electric guitar, effects
Chuck Oken, Jr. – analog, digital and modular keyboards, electronic percussion, effects, loop processing and reconstruction

With:
Richard Pinhas – guitar loops (1-3)

Ukab Maerd’s The Waiting Room, the second of Djam Karet’s side projects to be  released in 2010, is a very different affair from Mike Henderson’s song-oriented White Arrow Project. The brainchild of Djam Karet’s founding members Gayle Ellet and Chuck Oken, Jr., with legendary French musician Richard Pinhas guesting on three out of four tracks, Ukab Maerd (“Baku Dream” spelled backwards – a reference to DK’s 2003 album A Night for Baku) is a vehicle for the creation of hypnotic soundscapes inspired by the European electronic music of the Seventies. The two musicians describe the album’s content as mind music that draws its inspiration from dream language and Surrealist art – a definition that fits it to a T.

While neither an expert nor a dedicated listener of progressive electronic music, I recognize its importance both in historical and artistic terms, and The Waiting Room provides a fine example of the possibilities offered by technology. Even if its running time of about 64 minutes (divided into four tracks, none under 11 minutes) might turn it into an ordeal for people who are not used to listening to music produced almost exclusively with electronic instruments, the album undeniably possesses a mesmerizing quality, at least if taken in judicious doses. As can be expected, the main points of reference are German giants such as Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, as well as their followers from other European countries (including Pinhas’ former band Heldon). Most of the album was recorded live at two different performances by Ellett and Oken, with Pinhas’ parts added subsequently.

Many people are put off by electronic music on account of its supposedly cold, overly cerebral nature, unlike warmer, more down-to-earth musical forms such as rock or blues. While this may in some respects not be entirely wrong, the music presented on The Waiting Room intrigues and captures in a sharply different fashion than guitar-driven rock, progressive or otherwise. As the pointed out in the press release, it is music that appeals to the mind rather than the body, conceived to be listened to with some degree of concentration, and therefore always at risk of fading in the background if used as a soundtrack for other activities. With a minimal amount of percussion, and guitars manipulated in such a way as to become unrecognizable, the music ebbs and flows with hypnotic regularity, while all kinds of electronic sound effects enhance the moods and atmospheres created by layers of synthesizers.

“The Cave” evokes the titular place with uncanny accuracy, eerie sounds suggesting machinery or sloshing underground waters, the keyboards surging in waves or subsiding with a movement that may come across as monotonous, but also subtly unsettling and quite fascinating. The following “White Light, No Heat” alternates between majestic keyboard surges that create a sense of keen tension and disturbing industrial noises, replaced in the second half by tinkling yet vaguely robotic keys; while “God’s Elastic Acre” unfolds in a cinematic sweep underpinned by clanging, echoing sounds, droning and bubbling noises, while the solemn tone of the keyboards takes on a more upbeat, Eastern-tinged note towards the end. Album closer “Sati and the Trainman”, the more accessible number by far, revolves around a pulsating synth line paralleled by a slower, more atmospheric tune that suggests a train running through a darkened, slightly sinister landscape.

Needless to say, devotees of this particular genre will be able to show The Waiting Room the appreciation it deserves; while those listeners who can only process small quantities of almost completely electronic music might find it a bit too demanding to sit through the whole 64 minutes, and decide instead to break the album into separate segments. On any account, The Waiting Room is a fine example of vintage progressive electronics, and –  even for those who, like me, have never been keen followers of electronic music – it is very much worth a listen.

Links:

http://www.myspace.com/ukabmaerd

http://www.djamkaret.com

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Franco Battiato – Sulle corde di Aries (1973)

Posted in Electronic, Progressive Rock, Review, Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI), World Music, tagged , , , , , on July 11, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Tracklisting:

1. Sequenze e frequenze (16:22)
2. Aries (5:26)
3. Aria di rivoluzione (5:01)
4. Da Oriente ad Occidente (6:32)

Lineup:

Franco Battiato – lead vocals, VCS 3, guitar, piano, calimba
Gianfranco D’Adda – percussion
Gianni Bedori -  tenor sax (2)
Jane Robertson – violoncello (3)
Daniele Cavallanti – clarinet, soprano sax (3)
Gaetano Galli – oboe (4)
Rossella Conz – soprano (1)
Jutta Nienhaus – recitative vocals (3), soprano (1, 4)

After two reviews of English-language albums, I thought it was time for me to introduce one of the greatest artists on the Italian scene – a musician that, while still relatively obscure in English-speaking countries,  has quite a strong following all over Europe.

Possibly the most eclectic, innovative artist on the Italian pop/rock scene, Sicilian-born Franco Battiato, like many of his contemporaries, started his long career in the early Seventies, when Italy was swept by a wave of musical creativity inspired by the British progressive rock movement, though only partly rooted in it. The ancient island of Sicily possesses a rich cultural tradition, where north and south, east and west comfortably meet and influence each other, and Battiato’s music is the living embodiment of this archetypal ‘melting pot’. Even his poppier Eighties songs are brimming with references to the heady exoticism of the Middle East and India, or the melancholy, decadent milieu of Central Europe before WWI. Similarly, he is not averse to using foreign languages in his lyrics, or even his native Sicilian dialect (which, like every other Italian dialect, was once a full-fledged language). His erudite, thought-provoking lyrics draw upon a vast body of knowledge, not solely limited to the western world. Philosophy, mythology, religion, literature, art, all is fair game for Battiato, the man who brought multiculturalism to Italy way before  the current wave of immigration had even begun.

Released in 1973, at the height of the popularity of progressive rock in Italy and elsewhere, Sulle corde di Aries is in every way a quantum leap from Battiato’s first two albums, the still rather immature Fetus and the more accomplished Pollution. Even if for today’s standards it is a very short recording (a bit over 30 minutes in length), its four tracks pack an aural and emotional wallop that most of the much longer offerings released nowadays can only dream of achieving. The 16-minute-plus, electronic tour-de-force  Sequenze e frequenze opens with haunting strains of synths and wind instruments, which only hint at what is to come. Then Battiato’s filtered voice kicks in, a voice miles away from the big, dramatic vocals often associated with Italian prog. Somewhat thin and reedy, with a heavy Sicilian accent, it is however perfectly, exquisitely modulated, and strongly redolent of the Middle East – almost reminiscent of a muezzin’s call. The short lyrics are incredibly evocative in a visual sense, so that when he sings “ogni tanto passava una nave” (every now and then a ship passed), in my mind’s eye I can almost see a ship slowly moving over the horizon in a hazy summer’s day.  When the singing finally fades away, the track turns into an orgy of eerie, trippy sounds wrung out of a VC3 S, overlaid by the hypnotic, lilting beat of a kalimba – and almost nothing else. It is all very simple, even minimalistic, but at the same time extremely powerful, in a way that so much electronic music can rarely achieve.

Introducing what used to be the B-side of the album, Aries is a mostly instrumental track with a definite avant-garde vibe, featuring harsh saxophone and galloping percussion beats. An excellent piece of music indeed, but in my opinion not as successful as the remaining two tracks, where Battiato’s distinctive singing style is pushed to the fore. Aria di rivoluzione paints a picture of Europe in the years between the two world wars – the Italian lyrics reference the Abyssinian war, while the German ones  (courtesy of Wolf Biermann, spoken by Analogy’s Jutta Nienhaus in a tone that hovers between martial and sensual) mention Hitler and Stalin. The juxtaposition of two such different languages, of the singing and the spoken word (a strategy that Battiato would further pursue in his career), adds depth and interest to what is the most melodic offering on the album. Finally, Da Oriente a Occidente seems to foreshadow the increasing influence of  world music in more recent times, with Battiato’s chanting vocals skillfully backed by two sopranos, and a beautiful, mandolin-led coda.

I saw Battiato performing live in the early Eighties, when he was on his way to his major commercial breakthrough. I entered the theatre as a sceptic, and came out as a convert. This unique musician, who brought a genuine breath of fresh air to the staid Italian pop scene, showed that there was a whole musical world to be explored beyond the established traditions of the opera and the canzone. Years after, I introduced my all-American husband to Battiato’s music, and am happy to say that this album has become one of his desert island discs.

Sulle corde di Aries is undoubtedly one of the great masterpieces of Italian prog, and one of the still-undiscovered gems of progressive rock. Even if the album may not be easy to find for people outside Europe, I hope this review  will encourage more people to delve into the music of this amazing artist – as well as dispel any preconceived notions about the supposedly sickly-sweet, mock-classical nature of Italian progressive rock.

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