P.C. Translate
Collage Creation

Paolo Catena, Paul Chain, Paul Cat. Here is the Artistic Trinity among the most valid and, obviously, most underrated in Italy. Master Catena, a proponent of Doom Metal masterfully played for much of his now thirty-year career, has been able to evolve several times during his artistic journey. A journey of mixed fortunes, with highs featuring remarkable compositional peaks and lows (few) where his "followers" were literally bewildered.

Well, the long Paul Chain period ended in 2003-2004. The artist, by then, felt a new vital energy coursing within him. He had to create a new project to unleash his relentless compositional vein. The Maestro has "completed" himself over the years by becoming an abstract painter and sculptor, enabling him to better embrace his beloved art. If there is an Italian musician who can truly be called an "Artist," it is Paolo Catena, adopted Pesarano, who, throughout his career, has seldom done anything for money, maintaining intact his compositional verve and musical attitude (he is a multi-instrumentalist) to be savored album after album, many of which are self-produced.

A champion of self-production, he has created highly valuable works that have inexorably remained in semi-oblivion. Many of you probably remember "Dies Irae," a masterpiece (in my opinion) from 1994, a challenging album, so introspective and difficult to grasp that it could have "seen the light" only thanks to self-production. What artist attached to money would have had the courage to first create and then produce a work that he likely would have sold only 4-5 copies of?

His is pure love for Art, and the sale of the music produced is simply aimed at survival. There are no calculations, marketing studies, and various strategies perhaps only vaguely outlined during the very first (youthful) phase with Death ss.

Hence the birth of the P.C. Translate project under the pseudonym of Paul Cat. A project so sincere, crystal clear, and genuinely "naive" that it borders on the miraculous. Naive because in this rotten society, no one, I say no one, gives you anything for free. Well, the maestro has once again demonstrated honesty, consistency, and courage by making his music absolutely free for everyone, available for download from the website paolocatena.it. In this project, he has gone decidedly beyond, in search of Total Art. He allotted the sale of about 300 copies of each of the first two works under the P.C. Translate moniker entitled "Lo-Fi Lovers" from 2005 and "Collage Creation" from 2006.

The peculiarity is that these copies were handcrafted by the Artist, who personally took care of the artwork, providing some variations of graphic style, numbered them, and even signed each copy of the very limited edition.

The biggest mistake one could make is trying to categorize this project within a specific musical realm. There is "inside" a bit of all the experience accumulated by the Artist in over thirty years of career. You will not find (if you are still looking for them) masterpieces in Catena's latest efforts. You will find a lot of good music with truly evocative episodes. Sound suggestions with a good margin of improvisation. There is rock, psychedelia, traces of doom, electro-ambient in compositions sometimes short (in my opinion the best) sometime long for a total of about seventy good minutes. Clearly, a track-by-track review from me is pointless given the ease with which you will savor this music, which, as I already mentioned, is difficult to classify.

Almost forgot, the singing is not much to speak of, but in this case too, the artist's effort is evident from having "coded a phonetic singing" which at a quick listen may seem to be in English when in truth, on many occasions, it means absolutely nothing. Courageous, isn't it?

I conclude this review very simply; Thank you, Paolo!