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Rating: Listening to the tipsy vocal metamorphoses with which the whimsical singer of the Love Machine irrigates the rustic agro-pastoral frescoes molded by his ragged companions of revelry, I picture a sort of freaky Peter Steele with a necklace of freshly picked, fragrant, and vibrant daisies.
A good-natured Glen Danzig who, instead of pounding weights with bodybuilding, engages in the sacred art of crocheting and cross-stitching by candlelight.
An Elvis Presley in a Kiarostami film.
A Jimbo Morrison who, instead of gargling with tequila, intoxicates himself with Tantum Verde.
Or maybe my auditory hallucinations are due to the presence on the cover of the prominent feet of a member of the German folk-bucolic quintet. Looking at them, you might think they play a rustic Mazurka at best.
Here I say it: I detest, from the depths of the popliteal cavity, feet. Of any length, width, and shape.
And I detest even more the shoes that shamelessly display their sinewy branches: slippers and open-toed sandals should be abolished by an emergency government decree.
And I don't care that Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, in one of the most delirious discussions in (more or less) contemporary American cinema, lingered on the mastery of massaging them.
If it weren't for my low tolerance for pain and the fact that I'm a certified wimp, the ones nature provided me with would have been chopped off long ago.
The hatred is not due to the obscene odor that, in the most extreme cases, they manage to produce: science, despite years of study, has not yet precisely identified what releases such virulent force.
But I simply find their obscenely aggressive shape execrable.
For this reason alone, therefore, this would be an album rated One-Fixed: as if it were the Campobasso of the good old days.
But today I want to be magnanimous and I will continue with this DeReview.
But I'm doing it just for you.
Know it!
Because beyond the disgust for pinkies and thumbs, it is only fair to underline that this pedestrian artifact exudes its peculiar charm: my ignorance in the matter makes me perceive it as a archeo-proto-folk-rock-parapsychedelic of a purely agro-pastoral nature.
And I must say I was literally inebriated by this bouquet of more or less acoustic meditative guitars, pseudo-Andersonian flutes, pseudo-progressive keyboards, and light but appropriate percussion.
An academic citation of praise goes to the guitar hero possessing the same riff wisdom of the compatriot colleague who carves six-string menhirs in Electric Moon, but who, unlike his compatriot, has the gift of synthesis. Or perhaps he just does fewer drugs.
And then that singing: sober yet alcoholic.
Placid but resolute.
The fact is that this is an album that is in no rush, wandering and roaming among Far Distant Worlds even without ever having heard anything by Battiato.
It invites you to sit, or rather to lie down comfortably and savor it with sadness and serenity.
Even better if accompanied by any substance more or less findable in nature that makes the experience free and full.
Personally, I adopted a cocktail of Vim Clorex (to tackle the rockier parts) and finely ground saltpeter (to ignite the more lethargic ones).
To spice it all up, a few sprigs of rosemary are its death blow.
But I'm not sure if I should actually recommend it.
You might end up liking it.
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