Francesco "G"
Music Terminal

So, relatively off the cuff. With the first album "Manifesto spurio della musica simpatica," the "string" of "The-" Francesco "G" makes his bad intentions clear by distributing pieces of questionable taste that incorporate some of the main fundamentals of ambient and digital music shamelessly vomited onto the unsuspecting (but not blameless) listeners, mixed with interesting ambient tracks. The modus operandi is quite simple and can be reduced to a formula: the first is ugly.

If this experiment is certainly interesting and suggestive in good parts, the subsequent "Music Terminal," although with the same improvisation-based process, proves to be more polished, thoughtful, and mature, touching upon results that are visionary, and asserting itself forcefully among the most interesting avant-garde works of recent years.

Despite the unmistakable carefree and indifferent underlying style (which has contributed so much to The Strings' Opera), here our artist manages to better control the humorous intent, focusing more on an introspective (but also extrospective) music that was already present in the first work. The first 4 long acoustic tracks are proof of this. A typically Fahey-like guitarism is used to narrate in reality a very different mood. Alienation and serene unease, sparse and skewed melancholic and changing folk pieces that, beyond all expectations, are characterized by a cold and primordial metaphysical aura due in part to disorienting anarchic and anti-intuitive harmonic progressions that do not sacrifice moments of sweet melodism, in part to the addition in post-production of reverse recordings cleverly and brilliantly placed (randomly) within the tracks, which one almost does not notice. This creates a rarefied dreamlike/hypnotic atmosphere within an unprecedented and evocative mixture of free-folk and electronics, which seems like a miracle given its "un-searched" nature. The percussive masterpiece miniature Two Drum Solos serves as a watershed between the first and second side. Elettrogenia Senza Utilizzo di Propulsore is a rough and precious piece of heavy psychedelia not unlike the compositions of Bardo Pond/Hash Jar Tempo; towards the end, amid the blind (and deaf) traction of the psychedelic rock whirlpool, there is also the incursion of a small noise collage of post-production effects. With Bites e rolinsons (duet Tonino and Gianni), the beautiful forays of the two friends already appreciated on the first album are revived, a must of which we can never have enough. And here we arrive at the last part of the journey with Sentimental Peripathet and especially Suite Elektronak: I Industrial Panic; II Cybernetic Reflux; III Joke which is an unbreakable gem of automatism and amusing music, a diligently and wisely woven delirium with unacceptable impertinence on Bontempi organ bases that ranges from dance, to trance, to cosmic music, to pop, to Latin American dances, to damn ballroom music, through continuous changes of rhythm, timbres, speeds, a true musical amusement park. The suite Dedicated To You But You Were A Solar System closes the album in glory (quite comparable to the closure of the previous album); a seething and disjointed cosmic music that moves between indefinite tones, jolts, stasis, dreaminess, flying leaps, sidereal speeds, worldview, even homage citations to Faust, up to the moving and harrowing finale, which screams clumsily and helplessly in a vast alien space; the painful point, especially of this last piece, is the low quality and "credibility" of some fundamental effects used that could undermine its immersion and charm.

In short, automatic composition, amateurism, incompetence, declared superficiality, lack of respect, with improvisation and "first takes are good," massive abuse of sped-up or slowed-down reverse effects that unexpectedly well resolve the lack of will to compose, but an irrepressible expressive will free from constraints in conjunction with an innate originality and a strong personality, for an anti-self-indulgent album with neither head nor tail that at first glance may seem a joke, but that improves exponentially after the fourth listen. And in the end, despite the (dis)engagement, what matters is the overall result.

P.S.: Being somehow in competition on a compositional level, I was very strict in listening to and evaluating my colleague's album, ultimately having to acknowledge its absolute validity.