•
Rating:
Silencio.
The tiger speaks for itself, it's already leaped to the body, whether you like it or not, before you could even notice it.
It's not true. It's all false, "No Hay Banda."
The music emerges from nowhere, but it is likely that it doesn't exist: it is likely there has never been a band playing it, it is likely that the man who conceived it never existed, or at least tried carefully to erase his tracks. It is likely that CDs, vinyl, files, hard disks, stereos, and speakers are spinning in a void. "No Hay Banda, No Hay Orchestra." But it's not even all recorded, it's all in your head, it's simply the music that you, poor idiot with an average IQ, always had in your neurons but were never able to realize.
"No Hay Orchestra." Of course not: it's all in your mind.
THIS RECORD IS TRULY PSYCHEDELIC! IT'S TRULY A CORPSE TURNED ON ITSELF! IT'S TRULY A MACABRE TRIBAL DANCE! IT'S TRULY SHARP GUITARS CUTTING IN THE LIGHT OF MADNESS!
It's 1970, and Peter Green, perhaps the greatest bluesman of the English wave, decided that the party was over and it was time for swinging London to close its doors. This lesser-known gentleman replaced Clapton when he decided to flee the Bluesbreakers; Mr. Green stayed for a couple of years and then ran off to form Fleetwood Mac: for them, he would write "Rattlesnake Shake", "Oh Well", "Albatross", "Black Magic Woman", and so on, only to go mad. He would give himself over to LSD, go on trips without being able to return, and give away all his money in the name of spirituality, after growing an excessively long beard and starting to wear guru robes.
God only knows what drove him to record this last album before a long, mysterious disappearance: perhaps the willingness to donate the proceeds to charity (as he did), or maybe it was his way of saying enough, or more likely he entered the studio with a rhythm section picked up at the last minute, turned on the amplifiers all strung out as he was, plugged in the guitar, and started playing. What did he play? Blues? Hard-rock? This album is as close to Fleetwood Mac as metal is to mustard: we are in the dreamy, damp, mystical, and highly toxic territory of Bitches Brew, with the pieces appearing in fade from nowhere, finding ourselves as intruders, in medias res, listening to the delirium of a shaman hunted by the forest, a Kurtz of music who has looked the tiger in the face and now takes orders only from it, from the basses that pump like spirits surrounding the unfortunate, and from the toms that sound like calls to Africa and the darkest soul.
This record sounds like the jungle.
"Bottoms Up" is THE ride, period; "Timeless Time" is a trip to unknown shores, probably real only in the mind of our protagonist; "Descending Scale" is the materialization of madness and the cacophony reigning in a brain melted by LSD; "Burnt Foot" is blues-rock assault so elemental, hard, and shocking in its simplicity that no one has ever dared to do it; "Hidden Depth" the last prayer, the last ritual of gratitude to the sky before the deflagration, the definitive explosion of the wah-wah.
You have reached the heart of darkness, you have reached the end of the games. The guitar will not spare you, don't struggle, it's useless. Enjoy the torment that will perpetuate on your skin.
THIS RECORD IS TRULY HORROR! IT'S VIOLENT! MYSTICAL! UNMISSABLE! MORTAL YET ETERNAL, GIGANTIC, BLOODY, CLANDESTINE, HIDDEN YET LUMINOUS, IT'S…
Don't worry. Soon the dream (nightmare) will be over. The tiger is gnawing your last shreds, teasing you with its sharp blades. Are you still alive? Now no longer, you've been finished under its blows. It's time to come into the light as new flesh.
Turn on the light. "Hay Banda. Hay Orchestra." The dream is over. Unfortunately.
But you, you, will never be the same again.
Silencio.
Loading comments slowly
