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"If you believe that the album X by the Occitan supergroup Y is a masterpiece, it's because you philistines have never had the guts/wallet to purchase Z!!"
Isn't that how the perfect review of a hidden gem of Progressive Rock should begin? Moreover, what I'm talking about is not just a hidden gem, it's indeed an unfindable jewel (except on YouTube), buried under meters of earth and cement, locked in a tomb forgotten forever...
Forget the cliché of the 70s Prog-Rock band unknown to Fantasy, Spring or Cressida: here you won't find the syrupy flatulence of the mellotron that characterizes such albums: instead, we set course for an unknown frontier aboard a sleek and futuristic vehicle, aided by four English engineers: Paul MacDonnell, Robert Cross, Trevor Darks, Dave Ball.
In the middle of 1976, these four students, tired of the bullying from their classmates (unexpected ex-Camel fans who turned to punk and became violent in a matter of months), decided to form a band to channel the ambitions of the leader MacDonnell. He developed his own concept of a totally guitar-based suite, capable of modulating bold baroque harmonies on sharp sounds, while avoiding the trivial and banal quoting of a certain prog that had too haphazardly attempted to merge rock and classical.
The band's sound is centered on the sound of two twin guitars that entwine incestuously throughout the entire album, supported by bass and drums.
The suite "The Great Panjandrum Wheel," divided into two parts, is a manifesto of intent: an hypnotic, ecstatic, and shocking dance of electric strings possessed and transformed into vipers that alternately encircle, shake, shatter and, possessed, climb and descend infinite scales at the edge of the Abyss.
The scant instrumentation of the group should not suggest a two-dimensional or simplistic structure of the music: the composition in fact closely resembles baroque music, and many episodes generously offer shining passages reminiscent of fugues by Bach (or Paganini), bestowing an architectural quality to AFT's sound and at the same time rendering this album much more "classical" than the devastating sonic impact might suggest.
Can I say it? one of the absolute masterpieces of English Progressive... at your local supermarket you'd find it at the "Hard Prog" counter.
It's crazy to think that due to contractual obligations the group recorded such a track in one session, first take, still finding laser-like precision in the endless "interlocks" of the track.
It's worth mentioning that after over half an hour (the two parts of the suite last fifteen minutes each) one does feel the need for a breath of fresh air. But "The Great Panjandrum Wheel" is beautiful precisely because it is claustrophobic, captivating, and surprising.
The rest of the album sees two shorter numbers, the first being "Gladioli": here the two twin axes slice through a riff that seems familiar to me (similar to something by Mozart?), transforming it into a sort of High Tide track (I imagine the "second" AFT guitar as the understudy to Simon House's violin). Let's just say that the flaw of this short track (4 minutes) is that it too closely resembles the overwhelming fresco already described above.
The last track is "Queen Of The Night," a more approachable piece, though less fascinating: a bluesier sound and - I swear!- some vocals! Not too thrilling, to be honest.
The band played at the Reading Festival only to disappear into anonymity. After all, if you've read "The Rotters' Club" by Jonathan Coe, you'll know how Prog was received in 1976.
It's a shame because these guys made a farsighted album, which in certain ways anticipates many prog-metal albums and a certain guitar-driven Prog often too hastily attributed to King Fripp's shrine.
In conclusion, the sonic references to which we can compare Automatic Fine Tuning are: certain guitar whims of the aforementioned Frippo Marx, High Tide, Heldon, maybe Djem Kharet (later on). No one else comes to mind, and these are still models not very close, further proof of the quartet's originality.
Go listen to them now, because, due to its rarity, the next review of this album will very likely be in 30 years.
Invaluable and extremely rare
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