Area
Arbeit Macht Frei

THE REVIEW

Confused feelings, or rather difficult to grasp, desires repressed by a morality that wants you to be a slave to your desires, your mediocre desires. This is the essence of the great work by Area that I am listening to again tonight for the umpteenth time.

A "progressive record", which can hardly be let go of, and it is difficult to resist the temptation to grasp every single nuance. Take power, seize the essential: all the utopias (?) of the 70s are probably collected in this wonderfully played record. And it's not easy to summarize these concepts that escape with a few words, within the few lines that many will probably harshly criticize: because Area (International Popular Group) have been able to summarize, aiming their work at the few who have not lost their animality: and only a few - even today - will be able to understand it.

Not to mention that it is absolutely necessary to free oneself from the dependency of the first track, the beautiful and respectable "Luglio, agosto, settembre (nero)", which has so tormented the "superficial" listeners (with all due respect), and that (perhaps unpresentable today, 2006, and if we are all homologated it almost seems like a compliment) should be rediscovered by generation-X, who knows they cannot reach their "ridiculous" ideals. Because it is absolutely necessary to listen to everything else, and AFTER the first track: surpass yourself.
Otherwise, you risk diminishing the masterpiece: "il vento mi ha detto che morirò". The sound orchestrations are beautiful, the technique sublime, a truly complete work that no genre enthusiast, willing to open their ears to the avant-garde (?), should miss. Because the true meaning of the words in the lyrics (to which Stratos lends his voice, though not their author) is the repression of desires, the gloomy conformism that still today forces us to be neutral, apathetic, heartless, driving us to distrust novelties, the beauty of things in themselves, to not be able to understand (unfortunately) the meaning of what is transposed into music - as it is expressed in life.

I know, you're looking for a genre: if you really want, we could define it as "jazz-progressive-avantgarde-rock". But the very fact of writing about "perfect" and "complete" works like “Arbeit Macht Frei” (or “Consapevolezza”) actually diminishes the expressive force they possess. You need to listen from start to finish, with soul and eyes open, because "in your miseries you will recognize the meaning" of such a work.
Area not only created with this album a work worth experiencing, but they established that it no longer mattered to decide on the precise note to insert in the score, because every single damn note had to be "experienced", and that's it. And behind the (apparent) barricades hidden behind "L’abbattimento dello Zeppelin" - with a clear reference to the "almost" homonymous hard rock group - lies a "soul-mixing", "conscience-awakening" work, that should make us "music listeners" reflect.

Because the king is naked, the servant dances with the king, "learned" music (?) mixes perfectly with the popular, and nothing will ever be the same again... Because we play with the world while we tear it apart, and in the meantime, we don't realize that what we are searching for - paraphrasing a great philosopher - has always been walking beside us...