Area International POPular Group
Arbeit Macht Frei

"Arbeit macht frei," a phrase infamously known, whose gloomy and cruel meaning I believe we all understand from the years when the mad Nazi dream sought to radically change the fate of the world to subject it to the whims of a visionless madman who has unfortunately never paid humanity the price for his senseless and absurd mental delirium.

Thus, Area titled their explosive debut in the Italian music scene, causing a tumult of opposing opinions among the public and critics. In my opinion, never has an debut been so daring and courageous, and no one else will ever manage to attract so much attention and deliver a masterpiece like this on the first try, where the word "music," in the true sense of the term, loses its meaning to transform into an alchemic fusion of a thousand different influences: pure free-jazz, progressive rock, contemporary Mediterranean music, Middle Eastern folk, electronics, psychedelia, the boldest experimentation, Balkan music, simple noises, and God only knows what else these madmen managed to irreversibly tie together in this masterpiece released in 1973 for Cramps Records.

All this musical diversity in a single work comes from the fact that the members of the International POPular Group ("internationalist fusion music," as Stratos called it) came from different backgrounds: some from jazz, others from contemporary music, some had experiences in electronics in the U.K., and they all tried to merge their baggage into something that is hard to define and escapes all possible categorizations.

These are the founding fathers of Area:

Dyivas will later leave the group to join the PFM and will be replaced by Ares Tavolazzi, and with him, Busnello will also decide to pursue other projects.

Demetrio Stratos will die in a New York hospital on June 13, 1979, from a sudden leukemia, and with him, the most gifted, interesting and unparalleled voice that Italy and the World have ever had the fortune to hear will be gone.

With Demetrio, the voice becomes for the first and perhaps last time (similar things were done only by Tim Buckley, but the two cannot be compared...) a musical instrument in every respect, the vocal apparatus is the subject of a frantic study, which goes beyond just technique, but examines the inseparable bond that, for Demetrio, existed between psyche and voice. Nothing, according to him, was impossible, and by combining technique with the psyche, any result could be achieved, and territories that at first glance were practically unreachable (due to mental block, precisely..) could be explored.

If we listen to masterpieces such as "Cantare la voce" or "Metrodora" we realize we are facing a real phenomenon, never arrogant, but only eager for experimentation and keen to make his own the world of acquired knowledge.

"Arbeit macht frei" certainly divides opinions due to a highly daring musical approach and not easy for most to understand, and, certainly, for the experimental lyrics with clear political references; for this reason, Area has always been kept somewhat on the margins of the scene precisely because of their political leanings.

"Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (Nero)" opens this masterpiece and explains what Area wanted to do with their "music," bringing together whatever came to mind to find a new form of song, destroying known schemes, reassembling them only to pulverize them again with daring improvisations, stops, continuous tempo changes, odd times, noise, monstrous accelerations. Nothing seemed to have a limit in their compositions, nothing, even if it sometimes seems, is left to chance, everything finds a precise placement and creates something that calling it a "song" is rather reductive.

The piece must be viewed within a specific period, related to the news about the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and the attacks they carried out, including those at the Munich Olympics and the Fiumicino airport. Area condemned and disagreed with those atrocious acts but tried to see the situation from the other side as well, from the deprivations suffered by Palestinians in refugee camps, forced to wander without a fixed residence, no longer having their land, evicted and ousted in the total indifference of the World. Many did not understand their position and tagged them as reactionaries, extremists, and subversives.

It starts with a "stolen" recording from the Cairo Egyptian museum, followed by a vocal introduction from Demetrio who recites:

"Playing with the world
breaking it into pieces
children whom the sun
has already made old..."

(Note the effect intentionally executed by Demetrio on the word "children").

It starts with an apparently simple groove that recalls the contemporary music of the time, stops with singing, bass, and organ, repeated in the next verse, then as the piece progresses, the rhythm increases, accelerates frantically, to stop again in an improvisation of ethnic sounds and noises, percussion, seemingly random notes, jungle-like vocalizations, a chant from Demetrio that follows the bass and organ, gradual acceleration with entry from Capiozzo and all the others in a continuous crescendo and final apotheosis that leads into the boldest jazz.

Decomposing this first, striking track (which can be done with the rest of the album as well), we can easily find a multitude of elements to calmly compose multiple separate pieces, each different from the other in genre and time.

We come to the pure instrumental improvisation of "Arbeit macht frei".. And what to say? Endless minutes of pure musical madness introduced by Capiozzo's skins, confirming himself as one of the most skilled and versatile drummers in Italy at that time and perhaps even today, to which we add a claustrophobic bass line, Moog, psychedelic effects, flute, and saxophone, noises of all kinds, which at first seem to be discordant from one another (but they blend perfectly), then we move into lands of free-jazz totally out of any scheme.

Our friends accelerate like crazy flashes, slow down, do what they want, and they could go on for hours, always doing different things and never getting tired. Demetrio arrives when the piece seems to take on a stable rhythm, warbles, but still, the piece changes, improvisation dominates, a stunning keyboard solo, impossible ascending and descending scales, and rhythm seemingly resumes normally to allow Demetrio to conclude with the final verse of the song, which, after yet another vocalization, stops abruptly. There are no words to fully describe the individual skill and talent of the musicians, it takes just listening again and again to really understand the value of the compositions from these pioneers and violators of the musical score and metronome. Monstrous.

A vertiginous scale opens the third track "Consapevolezza".

Our friends ascend, descend, instruments clash against each other, Capiozzo does an astonishing job on the drums and it's hard to understand the transitions, then everything stops to design a brief parenthesis that refers to pure psychedelia, and Demetrio begins with the singing, just two stanzas, vocalizations and off we go, we return to the most absolute madness of jazz, then stop again in saxophonic digressions, slow and cadenced rhythm, subdued, offbeat, and everything gradually takes flight for the last phrasing by Stratos with a finale in which the singer leaves one stunned by what he can do with his voice as an instrument.

"Le labbra del tempo" immediately also kicks off with impressive stopped scales, then everything stops to give space to guitar, bass, and winds; Demetrio follows alongside Busnello with the vocal lines, ending the verse with a tenor-like vocalization and from there the genius of the unregulated musicians takes off again, drawing a canvas at the edge between pure free-jazz, psychedelia, experimentation, and the most absurd madness, stopping abruptly to leave just a drape of organ and synthesized sounds accompanying a sticky Stratos in the final part. It resumes in offbeat with the rhythm gradually increasing until the end of the piece and then fading out..

"240 Chilometri da Smirne" seems like a jazz piece at first sight, where Capiozzo does what he wants, never outlines a defined time, but composes it with a continuous solo, Dyivas does the same, while Busnello, Tofani, and Fariselli follow without a word, then everything stops and the bass begins its dizzying solo, accompanied by an impressive Capiozzo incessantly working his wrist on the skins and raid; gradually the others join in and everything merges, the rhythm and volumes escalate dramatically, Busnello takes the stage with the sax as the main actor, then everything stops, and you're left wondering: damn it...is it true? Did these people really play like this? Thirty years ago? You can hardly believe how they managed to fuse so many influences and styles in just a few songs, you don't find it humanly possible.

All that remains is to listen in astonishment and respect in religious silence.

After these five songs that have already upset and thrown the listener into a limbo from which they cannot return, our friends have thought to conclude the album with the most daring and experimental piece of all others:

"L'abbattimento dello Zeppelin" demolishing every known musical form known until now, deconstructing the form "song", managing to go beyond, passing their own limits to arrive in a parallel universe, made of individual sounds, words, noises, music, magic, and compositional madness.

Stratos here reaches truly unbelievable levels, his interpretation is masterful, whispers, warbles, and a sound that starts slowly, then gradually and monstrously increases and destroys your speakers if the volume is a little too high, soprano-like warbles, ungraceful screams and a final virtuosity that the human ear finds hard to believe.. It seems like his voice has no limits and let's remember that he was only at the beginning of his studies. The others engage in the purest experimentation, in the most absolute musical delirium. Even today, it's hard to understand a piece and an album like this, and it takes multiple listens to fully appreciate its value.

An immortal album, considered by many to be the masterpiece of the '70s progressive scene, something no one will ever be able to match in ideas and creativity. Immense musicians.

A must-own.

I apologize if there are already two reviews of this work, but I wanted to share my thoughts on a group that changed my way of listening to and interpreting music and opened my mind to distant horizons.