No Strange
Medusa

Medusa is one of those records that seem to have slipped out of the wrong time fold. Released in 1998 but recorded six years earlier, in 1992, it’s a work that eludes the official No Strange timeline and, not by chance, is born with an uncertain identity: originally conceived as a solo project by Ursus, it would eventually be released under the name No Strange by decision of the Toast label. Here I can’t help but think how Toast itself, which holds the rights to the first No Strange albums, unfortunately stubbornly refuses to reissue small psychedelic jewels like L’Universo and the legendary and mythological first album Trasparenze e suoni.

The lineup is unusual and deserves clarification, especially to avoid recurring misunderstandings: Alberto Ezzu is not here. Medusa is recorded by an essential and visionary trio:
Salvatore Ursus D’Urso, his brother Tony D’Urso on guitar, and Fabio Maffia on keyboards.
Tony, a musician active since the late ’60s, brings with him a wealth of experience spanning decades of Italian music, having also collaborated as a session player with names like Ron and Tullio De Piscopo. A detail that, when listening to the album, is not just trivia but a key to interpretation.

Medusa is a cosmic mini-CD, closer to a mind journey than to a collection of songs. The coordinates are clear but never derivative: krautrock, hypnotic pulses, analog electronics, empty spaces and reverbs that seem to breathe. The most immediate references are the early Gong, certain German kraut music, but also the cosmic-ambient explorations of Beaver & Krause. This is music that looks more toward inner space than to song form.

Here, the No Strange (or perhaps it would be better to say Ursus) definitively abandon any lingering sixties or beat residue to venture into a more abstract, almost ritual dimension. There is no melodic urgency, no concession to immediacy: Medusa unfolds through slow, circular layers, like a lysergic spiral that does not seek the listener but waits for them.

An emblematic episode is the track that in the compilation Apocalisse di diamante will appear under the title "Gorgone", in a completely different mix, almost unrecognizable compared to the version present here. A further sign of how fluid, unstable, and resistant to a definitive form this work is. It’s not an “easy” record, nor is it representative of the best-known side of No Strange. But precisely for this reason Medusa is a fascinating object, a kind of secret document of their path, a cosmic detour that today sounds even more coherent than it did back then.

A work that doesn’t ask to be understood, but experienced. Like looking Medusa in the eye: either you turn to stone, or you accept the vision.