Picchio Dal Pozzo
Abbiamo Tutti I Suoi Problemi

Absurd and borderline nonsense lyrics, tracks at times repetitive, at times always shifting, "messed up" rhythms, delirious brass.

This is the music of "Picchio dal Pozzo", a Ligurian band that revives the craziest and most unmanageable Canterbury sound (from the little I've heard, I could compare them to Gong). Indeed, this album, "Abbiamo Tutti i Suoi Problemi", is a free jazz delirium, so strange that it could be considered garbage. I was almost giving credit to this hypothesis when I listened to the album again and noticed it seemed different from the first time. I'm here to review the record because I know that if I listen to it again, it will always sound different, I won't understand it better. There are harsher tracks, more melodic ones, and some that are unclassifiable. Belonging to the latter category is "La sgargianza", divided into 4 detached parts except for the third and fourth which are unified. The first has a fast and ethnic pace, while the second is downright neurotic (as the lyrics themselves state "C'è in giro una tale nevralgia..."), and the third and fourth are based on strange chords from an unknown instrument (keyboard, guitar, I don't know). A challenging track is "I problemi di Ferdinando", unrhythmic due to a lack of drums and characterized by toy-like winds and keyboards rather uncoordinated with each other. Here the tempo is slow, but the rhythm is completely absent. In this sense, I believe that "Picchio dal Pozzo" is the opposite of "Quintorigo": if the latter can keep time even without drums; the first, even with the aid of percussion, go completely all over the place, I think deliberately. The track isn't one of my favorites because it's ultimately repetitive.

A beautiful and more orderly track is "Moderno ballabile", which starts with a slow rhythm to become faster. The song is ten minutes long and around the seven-minute mark the voice comes in, accompanied by keyboards. But in my opinion, the masterpiece of the album is "Strativari", which plays with the name of violins. The drums are both present and absent, the bass serves as a backbone for the other instruments, saxophones go wild, keyboards have their best moments, the flute appears as well, and everything blends into a bizarre and raw composition, with rare moments of musical balance. The pseudo-suite "Mettiamo il caso" is an adventure in melodic jazz-rock, which starts with acoustic guitars and quirky but delicate singing and continues with a more accelerated rhythm, with violins, more acoustic guitars, brass (which are never lacking), and surreal lyrics. One of the calmest and most melodic pieces on the entire album, which relaxes after the massive dose of drugged free jazz. The bonus track "Uccellin del bosco" has a regular and fast rhythm, it's a silly text (you heard correctly, not genius, but silly), and it's pleasant because it doesn't further confuse the brain. A very strange album, at times ridiculous, that stands out from the stale undergrowth of Italian progressive, primarily because it has only the inclination to go outside the box.

In short, an album that can be summarized in one sentence: "To make an album like this, you need to be on drugs, to listen to it you don't need to be on drugs, but after listening to it, you feel like doing it! :-D" Recommended for lovers of extreme music, otherwise it might be too difficult. Bye bye bye to everyone!