Donald Fagen
Morph the Chat

CATS'N'COOL. "And now what the hell am I supposed to invent?!" seems to say our Donald Duck on the cover, absorbed with his hands on his lap, sitting in the studio that once belonged to his grandfather. "Damn it... 13 years and not an idea... how the fuck is it possible, socmèl" (everyone knows about his Modenese origins, from which he got the nickname "Fagèn"). No way, he hit the famous "Steely Dan Cool Sound" with his sidekick Walter Becker at the end of the 70s, and after the overwhelming success of "The Nightfly" in '82 (!!), he had a little jolt with "Kamakiriad" in '93, practically ignored by everyone, even by himself (famous was his press conference with a balaclava and a falsified voice), but then... nothing! Apart from a couple of reunions with his old buddy under the signature of Steely Dan, he had disappeared. What the hell has he been doing in these 13 years?!? Has he renewed his style? Did he squander all the money he accumulated? Has he taken up horse racing? Has he produced new talents? Or did he pull a Paul Simon trick, piggybacking off Eno's sound to refresh songs born already old and tired? NO WAY!!! The graying Faggiano comes out with an album... hear hear... PRACTICALLY identical to his usual stuff!!! If this isn't genius, then what is?! Listening to this "Morph the Chat" is like listening to a "The Night fly-down," which is to say the same album but without the novelty, zest, and originality of then (damn, we're talking almost 25 years ago!!!). Not surprisingly, The NightFly "set the tone" for that horde of lounge-jazz-cool-sticazz-style compilations that were so popular in the years to follow... and well... hats off... but what we wonder now is... AND NOW?! EMBÈ?!?! AND THEN?!?! And above all: WHY?!?! In short: AS IF NOTHING HAD CHANGED. As if 25 years of musical evolution served no damn purpose and the world remained stuck 25 years ago. As if I were still walking around with a Geloso tape player listening to crackling music from old reels or roaming around with a punk mohawk and piercings TODAY with almost twenty years passed! Completely A N A C R O N I S T I C. Weak and subdued tracks with the usual Rhodes piano sound (now a must, like the track "Morph The Cat") with the funky-jazz-rock-fusion rhythm, with the usual little guitars adorning with the usual jazzy interlude ("H-Gang") and the usual well-harmonized double vocals ("What I do")... in short... everything too neat... everything terrifyingly already heard... everything predictable and obvious, worse than a rush to the bathroom with colitis: you always know what to expect a minute later!! By the 4th track, I want to drop everything and smash the stereo but 1) I realize he has nothing to do with it, poor thing, in all this 2) I am slightly masochistic and it's crazy to let such delicacies slip away! By the time you reach "The Great Pagoda Of Fun" (I swear... it's not my invention: that's really what it's called!!), I would like to chew off my balls, but I don't even have the teeth to cry (?!). Nothing... Junk and predictability galore... nice sound, mind you, but the songs are all brutally monothematic and identical to each other with an arrangement made with the same rusty cookie-cutter of my grandmother Anaclea's cookies. The 7th track titled "The Night Belongs To Mona" seems like a good omen invitation for the lovers of the gentle "female carpaccio" from Veneto... nothing doing. DAMN, I know I'm repeating myself and don’t want to, but it's the same tired old wank worse than a scraped ice shredded with TurboGirmi at speed 9. Can't take it anymore... I set the CD to volume 2 and read the latest booklet by Paulo Cohelo and let the last two tracks do the rest. And indeed, before I even finish reading the 7 words of the title "I'm supine on a meadow floating the emanations of my Inner Self," I fall fast asleep on the hammock on the terrace. Let them come to talk to me about Dormiben, Sempersonn, or various Camomille... I've found my natural method for sleeping alright: two or three tracks of this CD, chosen at random and... 99% GUARANTEED results (the 1% are those who genuinely love this disc - and am I kidding?). Yeaaaaahwwwl... 'goodnight!*)donotadministertothoseunder30years-followthewarningsandtherecommendeddosesonthepackkeepawayfromthemusersoforiginalandunpredictablemusicandpregnantwomen.