Marco Salzano

Kate Bush seeks and finds a miraculous synthesis between the electronic (synthesizers, samplers, and drum machines) and the acoustic (piano soliloquies, tempestuous strings, Irish jigs, and messianic choirs), crafting songs that feel like cinematic narratives poised between wakefulness and dream, with vertiginous temporal flashbacks to childhood (Cloudbusting, The Big Sky). The long suite The Ninth Wave (a metaphorical journey from the abyssal dark to the misty light of morning) remains her masterpiece.

I return everything to the family (with brother, husband, and son) after 12 years. It's, like Hounds of Love, divided between a 1st CD of songs (highlighted by the reggae-like King of the Mountain dedicated to Elvis, the Renaissance ode to son Bertie, the atmospheric trip-hop Joanni, which evokes Joan of Arc, and the piano solo A Coral Room on the elaboration of grief) and a 2nd with a pastoral suite that, through the Latin jazz of Sunset, culminates in the vital pulse of Aerial complete with distorted funk guitar.

First and finest solo album by Emerson, who uses for the soundtrack of Argento's film some themes intended for a second Piano Concerto. The leitmotif is a melancholic and unsettling melody in minor, which is then revisited, varied, and developed by an orchestra with accents that are sometimes romantic, sometimes expressionistic. Our Verdi is referenced in the tight jazz rock Taxy Ride (Nabucco) and in the choral Mater Tenebrarum (Requiem). Aside from this, we are closer to Komeda than to Goblin.

One of a Kind by Steve Hillage's group. Deadly Hammond-Guitar riffs (a bit like Atomic Rooster) in sometimes grandiloquent tracks. However, the instrumental skill, especially of Stewart and Hillage, is undeniable.

Compilato by Fripp with poorly edited snippets from the jam sessions of the American tour of Islands, it's a bootleg that sounds bad even in the "restored" edition. Free rein is given to the torrential (yet sometimes excessive) verve of Mel Collins and the delirious solos of Ian Wallace, while Fripp ventures into blues rock meanderings like a fish out of water, and Burrell attempts embarrassing scat singing. Nonetheless, the fierce version of 21st Century is worth a listen.

Farewell to the British romanticism of the past and welcome to the wild young blood of the Yankees Levin and Belew. Thus are born the new KC new wave musicians who look to the minimalism of Reich and Balinese Gamelan. They enchant with the dazzling mathematical precision of the title track and Frame by Frame, the hypnotic exoticism of The Sheltering Sky, the roaring onomatopoeia of Elephant Talk, the urban funk of Tela Hun Ginjeet, and the chaotic fury of Indiscipline. More "normal" is the country ballad Matte Kudasai.

Red has grandly closed a chapter in the band's history: the clocks mark distortion and the sky is always dark, but Starless remains an extraordinary farewell with its brilliant crescendo built on a single repeated guitar note and those anarchoid incursions of Bruford's metallic percussion. When the tension then resolves in McDonald's fierce sax solo and the final recapitulation, it's pure delight.

The nebula on the cover aptly represents this brief hypothesis of Crimson. The Mediterranean sensuality of Formentera Lady (inspired by the Odyssey) resolves into the anguished Sailor’s Tale (featuring Fripp's sensational "electric banjo"). In contrast, the title track is a serene watercolor in which a few strokes of diluted color outline the metaphor of man as an island. The Letters and Prelude rework old pieces. Ladies of the Road is a perverse blues with Beatles-esque vocal harmonies.

It was supposed to be a double (with McDonald's Birdman suite). As it stands, it inevitably faces comparison with the debut, especially in the initial sequence, but Pictures is more jazz, Cadence more pop, and the title track (in which the 12 archetypes of the cover are listed) more solemn. Now a producer with Sinfield, Fripp employs a more dramatic use of the mellotron, especially in The Devil’s Triangle, drawn from Holst's The Planets. Tippet's dada piano shines on Cat Food, an anti-consumerism satire.

Manically crafted medieval fantasy by Fripp and Sinfield just a step away from masterpiece status, if it weren't for the confusing satirical jests of Indoor Games and Happy Family (a venomous anti-Beatles nursery rhyme). On the other hand, the opener Cirkus (the delirious TV circus) is good, featuring a blazing gitana guitar and mellotron, and the ethereal Lady of the Dancing is lovely… and the suite is superb, a monumental tapestry woven from the chromatic blends of the brass. After a piercing solo by Fripp, it all concludes with a sinister little organ.

Meditative and shadowy project, signed by Jakszyk Fripp & Collins, built on the volatile breath of Fripp's soundscapes, on the discreet and elegant rhythms of Levin and Harrison, on the fluid, reverberated fingerpicking of Jakszyk, and on the sublime ripples of Collins' ethereal sax, which often and willingly shake the music from its lethargic torpor. Best tracks: Scarcity, The Price We Pay, The Other Man, The Light of Day.

Hutter and Schneider play with the polysemy of the title and the 1930s decor of the cover to highlight the influence of two modern molochs: the great generator - servant and master - and the mega radiant antenna. Between the robotic voice of the former and the radio waves emitted by the latter, two prototypes of synthetic pop songs (Radio Activity and Airwaves). It concludes, with a bittersweet note, Ohm Sweet Ohm, a radioactive mantra for mellotron and vocoder. Caution Radiation Kraftwerk.

Hutter and Schneider play with the polysemy of the title and the 1930s décor of the cover to highlight the influence of the two modern molochs: the great generator - servant and master - and the mega radiant antenna. Between the robotic voice of the former and the radio impulses emitted by the latter, two prototypes of synthetic pop songs (Radio Activity and Airwaves). It concludes, with a bittersweet note, Ohm Sweet Ohm, a radioactive mantra for mellotron and vocoder. Caution Radiation Kraftwerk.

First and best album by KTU, an alchemical fusion of the dynamic duo Gunn - Mastellotto (TU) with the Finns Kluster (Pohjonen and Kosminen) born from the further fractalization of a crimsonian Project. Long, vibrant echoes from the deep, driven by the most extreme improvisation. States of tribal trance induced by Pohjonen's shamanic vocalizations and his protean accordion weaving through the industrial soundscapes of Mastellotto and Gunn (warr guitar in Absinthe).