Pearls Before Swine
One Nation Underground

In fact, more underground than this you die. “It's strange” they say, but even more than strange it is beautiful, indeed gorgeous. Imagine a wobbly yet very graceful sound, imagine the small limping miracle of a little song that limps and sends flashes from a shadowy corner, imagine infinitesimals, golden specks, the trembling moment that crosses the mirror and finally a gentle scarecrow with a crow on its right shoulder and maybe even one on the left, Now, scarecrows don't smile, but this one does, even if the smile isn't enough and the crows are there for that, because if everything were light of light we wouldn't even notice. Besides, the scarecrow isn't really a scarecrow, but Tom Rapp, the leader of a noble group of ragged ones that has taken an impossible name: Pearls Before Swine, tell me how can you think of breaking through with such a name. It's the sixties and, far from fashionable things, our guys make a sort of angelic off-tune folk, sweet and crazy sparks so lit that it almost seems as if the moment might explode, and beware, anyone can explode chaos, but try causing grace to explode if you think you can. The fact is that if those sparks produce light, that light is something else too. There is indeed a kind of sinister nuance, something perhaps stemming from the wisdom of the crows and which I believe is wise not to name. As wise, indeed, is also to look at the Bosch on the cover only fleetingly, as I admit I always have, Mr. Nobody and humble adherent of the “truth hurts me I know” party. I think, Tom Rapp—our scarecrow—takes a fleeting glance at what the crows offer and slips it into the uncertain flight of music, it's the time of a blink of an eye, mind you, just an instant, only then that moment expands as if it knows every flicker and every secret path. This is why this music is not just grace and sweetness, but, as someone said about someone else, it is “three parts flute and one part blood.” Then yes, everything is so slender that you can't help but think of stumbling, then add that chopped childlike voice, add the whistling little organs and all those strange instruments, add that starting from grace in the end it comes undone and the scarecrow's hat flies away, and not only the crows, but even the wind gets in the way. But come on, it's okay because all of this is in agreement with the first of the three laws of musico dynamics by John Hassell, the one that states that where things are too still no light can pass. This is an album I love so much and have listened to practically forever, and so it almost seems sacrilegious to describe its songs. I will only tell you that my favorite one was written by our Tom after realizing that the universe doesn't care about us. Well, this was something I too suspected. Trallallá...