Electric Frankenstein
What, Me Worry?

There was a time when Italian music was able to produce masterpieces and forgotten records that it would be a shame to leave in the shadows. Among these is also What, Me Worry? by Electric Frankenstein, recorded in London back in 1976, during the explosion of Italian prog, with bands like Orme, PFM, Banco, Sensation’s Fix, Osanna, Area, which during those years were garnering international acclaim and recognition.
What, Me Worry? is, however, an album that we can only elliptically define as prog, being the creation of one of the most innovative guitarists of the time, Paolo Tofani of Area, who shortly after would retire from the artistic scene to embrace monastic life and move abroad for several years, but marked by a different taste and a different aesthetic, characterized by a different approach compared to the prevailing trends in “alternative” Italian music of the time.

The songs contained in the album, entirely played and sung (in English) by Tofani, indeed have a rock vocation that is not seen in the other aforementioned groups or even in Area itself, resulting in some ways as a tribute to the Anglo-American tradition, with some connections to the more lysergic Neil Young. At the same time, Tofani revisits in the album some pieces played with his old band, i Califfi, active in the late '60s, and integrates many tracks with the intervention of synthesizers, obtaining a final effect that, to make a vague comparison, can be akin to Gioia e Rivoluzione contained in Crack by Area.
The structure of all tracks is very similar and homogeneous, and this allows to bypass the usual analysis of the individual pieces in sequence: the rhythmic fabric of the songs is characterized by a “continuous motor” rhythm guitar, on which the synthesizers manipulated (more than played...) by Tofani, and the electric guitar are set, with overdubs ranging from blues (Get Together, Waiting, Music Man) to Hendrixian-inspired hard rock (Somebody Help Me, Feeling). Some pieces are simple and of limited duration (like those just mentioned), others longer, almost touching the suite, like Somebody Help Me, with late psychedelic influences. On other occasions, Tofani abandons the acoustic guitar and indulges in pure electronic digressions (synths and guitars), as well evidenced by the excellent Moon Walk, with references to solutions and styles of Tangerine Dream and Hawkwind. A great synthesis of the various approaches contained in the album is found in The Land of Magic Wizard, with its majestic and disorienting progression.

An album to purchase for lovers of Italian prog rock from the era, if only to complete their discography, for those who appreciate less predictable music recorded in the seventies, more challenging for everyone else, even though these are frank, direct, and not overly cerebral recordings.