analoguesound

Ah, you rant against our Americanism and then tell us to ask Americans for their opinion on "the" PFM? Ahahah got it.. Look, I’ll tell you even if you don't know a damn thing about PFM.. PFM was lucky enough to play a couple of concerts in America, one of which was recorded in "Live in USA", while in America the album was released under the name "Cook!" because it seems they had to work as waiters in a fast food restaurant to make ends meet in America :S.. At that concert, for your information, three-quarters of the audience were all Italians.. considering that Americans have very little in common with progressive rock.. you still remain a great poet.. Rivoli.. for the lofty tone of your last post, we could even put you in place of Ugo Foscolo.. you even talk about aliens.. my goodness, gentlemen, this is a zealot.. save yourselves if you can!

Valerio Rivoli, given the junk culture of your middle-aged American men, they can't understand a damn thing and they've almost never understood a damn thing about "prog," this unknown genre, since you’re so “expert in the field” that you say the Area were niche, considering they were the most acclaimed, the most brilliant, and the most experimental of the time.. and anyway a milestone of Italian prog.. oh right, but now that I think of it, you must belong to that thick crowd of people convinced they are “super experts in progressive rock” having only listened to a couple of shitty albums from those jokers you call "I PFM" or more syntactically correct "LA PFM" as I would call them.. at least to prove you attended second grade, and more specifically, the lesson on definite articles.. so for you the Area are niche.. whatever.. write a book on Italian prog, then.. then you shoot crap like this and they'll impale you on the spine of a hammerhead shark.. and again.. the Area may have been politically corrupted, so what? So’ compagni, what’s wrong with being politicized? At least they never said any bullshit.. they’ve always been motivated in the most right and ethically correct way by communist ideals.. and if there’s nothing you can hum it’s definitely because you know nothing about the Area.. there’s plenty of stuff to hum about.. I’ll give you a little sample of things you could hum from the Area.. "Luglio Agosto Settembre (Nero) - Arbeit Macht Frei - Consapevolezza - Le Labbra Del Tempo - Cometa Rossa - L'Elefante Bianco - Gioia e Rivoluzione - Il Bandito Nel Deserto - Hommage A' Violette Noizieres" all famous songs even covered by current bands like Elio e Le Storie Tese and Afterhours.. it’s just you who doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.. because let’s be real, gentlemen.. Valerio Rivoli doesn’t understand a damn thing about prog, nor about "the" PFM, nor about the Area, nor about De André, and not even about music in general.. multiple facts prove this.. from his comments about the Area and De André who brag in the paradises of whatever the hell I know to giving the same rating to Dark Side Of The Moon and Metallo by the cugini di campagna.. then you yourself say "sad pornolalia, infantilism, personal attacks based on egos inflated with nothing, without any intellectual depth".. but Valerio Rivoli, go reread your latest comments.. you’ll find a mix of your “pornolalia” and your “infantilisms”.. Rivoli, stop at the "P" of pornolalia, put down the Italian language dictionary, and go dig in the dirt.. and one more message for the DeBaser staff, delete this review, it’s better..

The review is nice, perhaps just too brief and empty.. the album is a masterpiece, but Vento In Faccia has nothing to do with it, it's a track from "Mohito Football Club," another masterpiece..

No, I don't comment on the conservatory... then you explain to me how the conservatory is related to this review, to my controversy, to my life in general, and to wasting a comment on the album... hammerofgods, after quoting me like a four-line aphorism, you said the same thing I meant, which is that you can go to the bar with friends and talk a load of nonsense... you can also trash talk Frank Zappa, for example, but preferably not in a review, especially if it's unique as you said. Maybe you misunderstood my diatribe. Gianluigi Di Franco, ANYWAY, may have done Calimba de Luna with Tony Esposito, but he also dedicated himself intensely and wholeheartedly to music therapy in his lifetime.

Of the Cugini, perhaps the absolute best track is only available as a 45 RPM single; it doesn’t exist on any album, has never been reissued on CD, and is practically impossible to find (I know it because I'm lucky enough to have it). It was the B-side of "Innamorata" and is titled "Il Vascello," a three-minute piece of incredible grit (even if we think about the Cugini di Campagna). I would classify it as hard rock, loosely drawing on "cellar" progressive music, with good use of the Moog synthesizer, nice drumming, and a bassline that is a delight, featuring bridges with tempo changes. In short, it’s an absolutely unusual track compared to the entire output of the "national cousins."
The review might be a bit exaggerated; the record is halfway between nice and mediocre. However, I would like to tell everyone that it isn’t necessary to compare it with PFM, Le Orme, Battiato, De André, and Area. Considering that PFM has always been overrated, that Le Orme have a good style but after a couple of albums you’re sick to death of them, that Battiato is great, especially for the early albums, from Fetus and Pollution up to L'era Del Cinghiale Bianco and La Voce Del Padrone, but then he also sold out, that De André was more than a singer-songwriter, he was a good poet, with songs that were more or less musically almost identical, yet he was a prominent figure and had a great personality, regarding Area, they are not at all niche, and I think it’s better not to bring them up. The musical comparison to the previous acts is worthless, and the comparison to the Cugini di Campagna seems excessive to me.

"Nick ghost watches that prog is often a poorly executed imitation of King Crimson" of course, considering that for you prog means Premiata Forneria Marconi, but also Premiata, but also PFM, but also P.F.M., but also PFM and PFM and PFM and PFM... it's perfectly normal that prog is often a poorly executed imitation of King Crimson... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah progressive... this unknown...

They say it’s the most beautiful of the entire King Crimson production, maybe because that shoemaker Bob Fripp hardly does anything, aside from a few guitar riffs here and there and a solo on "Ladies Of The Road" that makes you shed a tear of disgust.. and there are people who have the courage to say that Fripp is an absolute genius and other three thousand bullshit. But anyway, Mario Merola is a genius too, right? Coming back to Islands, it’s really a nice album, the orchestral structures are beautiful, but still not fundamental in the progressive realm, a bit like the entire discography of KC. I agree with MuSo, you’re absolutely right when you say that King Crimson had a slight tendency to drag things out in their songs; it’s a bit like what happens in "Epitaph," when at the beginning of the second verse you want to hit your scrotum with a hammer. In Islands, though, I noticed that doesn’t happen; maybe after a bit of experience, KC had learned to restrain themselves, definitely a point in favor of KC. Too bad that later Mr. Fripp suddenly decided to dissolve everything; they were starting to become expressive.

"the voice may be the weak point".. a statement that inevitably undermines the already too sparse review of this wonderful album. Guys, "the voice may be the weak point" is more of a comment worthy of being expressed at the bar down the street, but if you want to be critics, at least do some research on who the good soul Gianluigi Di Franco was and how much effort and energy he spent in his life for that strange thing called voice.. then if we’re making comparisons with the showcase of the scum from Sanremo, perhaps yes, there might be someone with a slightly more "graceful" voice (according to the music's moralists) but unfortunately what’s missing is precisely the music.
Anyway, keep in mind that, according to the musicians themselves, Cervello actually wanted to express frantic and, why not, cerebral music. This is one of the album's peculiarities, not a weak point. Rustici at the time was 17 years old, a pure guitar genius, he would enter the recording studio, do unimaginable things for the time and for his guitar experience, and leave home happy and carefree. It’s no wonder he later became what he became. Certainly, Cervello doesn’t say much when listened to only once, especially if you haven't noticed that Italians are once again a step ahead of the English, creatively speaking (the album might not sound exactly noise-free like the contemporary Jethro Tull albums, but in the end, isn’t that a form of moralism too?). If we start comparing them with PFM, it’s like comparing them to King Crimson for invariant properties, given that PFM was one of the least original groups in the seventies. It's a bit like saying that Pendragon are pleasant to listen to when at home you only have albums by Yes, King Crimson, and ELP. You almost feel like you already know them by heart.

You can respond whenever you want, this isn't a chat :) Anyway, no, I don’t have anything else to say. Just a question that has absolutely nothing to do with it; what do you think of the second disc of Ummagumma?

So let's start by saying that I consider Richard Benson a buffoon, and I was joking. You might as well accuse me of being a die-hard fan of Gigi d'Alessio, while we're at it. Benson is just the first one that came to mind; I could have mentioned Michael Angelo Batio just as well, since they all suck. A bit like Fripp on guitar in the early King Crimson albums, come on.
The first KC album is a good album, aside from all the filler and the passages that vaguely remind you of the Moody Blues ;) In Italy, more exciting results were achieved without the mental gymnastics of Fripp and company. I mentioned Blind Faith because, in my opinion, they hit harder, and their album came out before KC's. What do I care about Eric Clapton? I think he played better than Fripp back then anyway. The latter would later become an atrocious technical wizard, as from 1981 onward with Discipline, the albums turned into technical studies that were neither fish nor fowl. The bands I mentioned didn’t use pentatonics excessively because they didn’t need to; instead, they learned to control the most powerful instrument you can use in music: SILENCE (much more than Fripp's mellotron). In KC's albums, you can't hear a single moment where silence isn’t metronomic. It's part of that nanosecond-precision technical baggage (which Fripp is so obsessed with) that Italians have learned to do without: this is how masterpieces like Osanna's Palepoli come to life. Anyway, I assure you that I care little about technique; for me, saying that technique is fundamental is like saying that if any work of art wasn’t made with Photoshop and an inkjet Epson, then it should be thrown in the toilet. And metal, in general, makes me cry hysterically; maybe you didn’t get that Iron Maiden were just serving as a comparison.