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Paolo Catena, aka (because this is true art) Paul Chain, after a brilliant career as a guitarist, composer, and co-leader of Death SS - a fundamental band in the Italian scene (and beyond), born in '77, creators of the so-called "horror metal" and forerunners of the '90s black metal scene - leaves them to form the Violet Theatre, with which he releases four beautiful albums and, finally, in 1986 abandons this project as well to pursue a "solo" career (in reality, he continues collaborating with musicians from the previous incarnation for quite some time).
In 1989, he releases this double "Violet Art of Improvisation", an utterly unexpected album, which undoubtedly surprised many of his admirers at the time. While until then, the musician from Pesaro had almost even "restrained", relatively speaking, his enormous creativity (compared to what would happen shortly after), with this album, he shows himself for what he truly is: a genuine mine of innovative ideas and downright brilliant creations.
The work consists of a collection of pieces recorded between 1981 and 1986, all entrusted to improvisation, always a constant in Paul Chain's music.
The first part of the album consists of three pieces played (in both senses) with typically rock instrumentation (vocals, guitar, bass, drums), and the second part includes experiments with cosmic and electronic music.
Frankly, I find it difficult to describe the emotions evoked by listening to this album, but even from the bizarre titles of the tracks, one can sense their psychedelic and "abstract" nature.
The first disc opens with "Tetri teschi in luce viola" (1981), an unsettling and very long doom-metal ante litteram introduced by spectral organ notes. The track is supported for almost its entire half-hour duration by a gloomy three-note bass riff, promptly supported by Paul's ultra-distorted guitar and his voice, here treated like any other instrument. This includes the recitation of a mass in Latin, noise, psychedelic effects, and inspired solos on keyboards and guitar.
The first track, certainly of difficult assimilation, is followed by "Emarginante Viaggio" (1981), a strange experimental piece with an extremely inconsistent rhythm. This first disc closes with the Black Sabbath-esque "X-Ray" (1984), another long Jam Session, which then passes the baton to "Old Way", the start of the second journey, entirely made in 1986: hypnotic, filtered, and manipulated voice, sighs, electronic effects, synth, and two sampled acoustic guitar chords.
Following are the even more mesmerizing and disorienting, as the title itself suggests, "Hypnosis", and the avant-garde madness of "Casual Two Your Mister", an interesting noise experiment, which has nonsense not only in the title.
The acoustic guitar joins the arsenal of instruments for the hallucinogenic folk of "Celtic Rain" which adds further quality to the work as a whole.
The journey continues with the spacey "Dedicated to Jesus", in my opinion one of the best tracks on the album, beautifully sung by guest Gilas and equally sublimely arranged by Paul Chain.
The work ends with its funeral: only a sepulchral organ and a resigned lament in "End by End", which sadly marks the end of this authentic musical life experience.
In summary, "Violet Art of Improvisation" is not an album for everyone, I particularly recommend it to lovers of improvisation and experimentation, as well as fans of Paul Chain and great Italian music, while for those who want to venture more easily into Chain's world, I could recommend masterpieces like "In the Darkness", "Life and Death" and "Detaching From Satan", perhaps more easily assimilable.
But, for those who want to know more, in Paolo Catena's prolific musical career (about 40 different releases including singles, albums, and some compilations), there's still much more to listen to...
According to me, it's also important to mention the other valuable musicians who collaborated in making this album (in reality, present only on the first disc): drummer Thomas "Hand" Chaste (born Andrea Vianelli) and bassist Claud Galley (Claudio Galeazzi), both former members of Death SS.
One last consideration to make about this album (in my view, one of the most important in the musician's career), particularly about the lyrics, which are a peculiar aspect of Catena's entire discography. Listening to the tracks, one might indeed think of some indecipherable English or another foreign language, when it is a "phonetic language" devised by Chain himself: the lyrics therefore consist of a series of senseless words improvised by the artist, certainly resembling the English language.
I leave you with a quote from a phrase in the booklet:
"L'arte... che cos'è l'arte?"
As for my review, feel free to criticize as much as you like, it's the first one I've ever written and a couple of tips wouldn't hurt.
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