Le Orme
Uomo Di Pezza

After a solid performance the previous year, in 1972 Le Orme returned with "Uomo Di Pezza"; an album where the compositions are compressed both to enhance impact and to avoid the famous progressive trap: virtuosities that serve no purpose and eventually become exhausting for the listener.
"Uomo Di Pezza" can be defined as the album of the Venetian group's early artistic maturity, as it merges the best avant-garde insights of their early period with the classic song form, which the group knows how to make extremely flexible despite its rigid structures.

The opening is entrusted to one of the trio's most famous pieces: Una Dolcezza Nuova, where the Hammond dominates the opening before giving way to a melancholic and delicate piano that accompanies Aldo Tagliapietra's usual vocal caresses. Gioco Di Bimba is simply a dream with open eyes, fragile and delicate, with a truly catchy keyboard melody. The next track, La Porta Chiusa, represents one of the band's greatest creative peaks where pathos, restlessness, and solemnity are felt flowing under the skin during listening, not to mention an exquisite taste in the piece's melodies and arrangements. In Breve Immagine, a dreamlike keyboard alternates with the usual magnificent voice and a very engaging and exciting chorus, where once again Tony Pagliuca's keyboard notes know how to touch you deep in the soul.
In the following Figure Di Cartone, the acoustic guitar plays a primary role, with the aid of a truly compelling drum rhythm, before a long keyboard solo. In this piece too, an oneiric sensation prevails, reinforced by the preciousness of the text. Aspettando L'Alba evokes distant images in time but close in memory, where melancholy and emotional involvement take on almost real aspects thanks to the superb interpretation by the usual Aldo. The last track, Alienazione is the awakening from the dream, the tremendous confrontation with reality, the feeling of helplessness in the face of the unattainability of the best dreams with the consequent alienation from everything; from all this emerges an instrumental piece at times truly chilling and overall truly anguishing.
Certainly, this type of composition has never been a habit for the group, but this makes the album even more complete.

As previously mentioned, the main element that links the various pieces is the dream as a tool to evoke images and scenes from a world, unfortunately, forever lost. "Uomo Di Pezza" takes you by the hand in the oneiric labyrinth and cradles you in the warmth of its notes with inhuman elegance and delicacy, before the cold awakening.
If you are looking for an approach to this group, do it with this album, you will be simply ecstatic...