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How is the President of the Republic
we warmly hope
along with all Italians
that he enjoys good, indeed excellent health
and diligently attends
to his lofty mandate.
How is the President of the Republic? This question is posed by Picchio Dal Pozzo, one of the greatest Italian progressive bands, arriving here at their second album (or third, depending on the format considered), following the fantastic self-titled debut, "Picchio Dal Pozzo," a story of a boy named Picchio, wandering through fantastic and dreamlike landscapes. Here, it seems we've moved from the enchanted forest towards the city, with its noises and realizations that the real world is not a fairy tale but a harsh reality, sometimes very sad. And so, how is the President? His health is a concern for all of us, even for that Picchio who a few years earlier roamed through enchanted woods with Rusuf, and for him that was his world; now, the health of his nation matters. And he worries about it with the usual sound, infused with the best of Canterbury's Caravan and Zappa, but this time more concrete and rhythmic compared to before, as if influenced by the change of atmosphere, now more frenetic. The tracks, not just this one, are much longer with excursions that seem infinite, free jazz that has nothing to envy from the many American leaders of the genre.
Where the beach meets a ship
seeking shelter in the Irish Sea
and a band walks playing the foam
of a breeze
I regret having left
the wet imprints of studded shoes
on our need for time.
And here is the time stopping, on a grey morning, a Sunday morning, alone, with a "demodé tailcoat" where the only audible music is that of the sea foam crashing against our melancholy. We face the Irish Sea, vast, cold, which not even a sax can mitigate, there's only time to regret having left "the wet imprints of studded shoes on our need for time." Visions of cliffs and clouds, echoes of bands and the desire to travel, not for pleasure, but to find refuge, perhaps in that same grey sky. Meanwhile, a voice carries us with the usual monotony through this gentle and melancholic chant, full of resentment and awareness that, even though so vast and enormous, the Irish Sea can no longer suffice.
One day I too will have my home
I will build it with my own hands
I will go to the darkest street there is
I will even move the cars
in a square center
Sad for the Irish sea, we move towards other shades of grey, those of the city. Here, there is a desire to change it, to make it more human and sensitive, or perhaps the need to create for oneself a familiar place that at least isolates us from its sad monotony. A place relatable to our personality and ourselves. However, the text was taken from a wall in the suburbs of Turin, photographed and set to music without any modification, except for the third and final verse that was added. In the finale, note the sax solo, in a crescendo leading directly to the third verse, in which it seems like a collage of words put in random order, in true PDP art style, with a final sax that solemnly closes the track "Città."
Alone on a grand boulevard
I read what will be
to a woman
who resembles me a little.
Thus begins the last real track of the album in question (which precedes the brief and concluding "The Irish Ghost"). A true suite, with a somewhat surprising name: "Pinguini". Musically, it is the most complex and articulated track of the entire set: a true progression of free jazz, in which, to the Canterbury school are added hints of Space Rock and experiments similar to the German ones, with typically offbeat vocal contributions, which give a dream-like air to the track. Truly one of the most beautiful tracks of Italian Progressive.
They say a lot that
the penguins elect as king
someone who lives alone in an old
demodé tailcoat.
And it hardly matters who these penguins truly are, whether they are really arctic animals or just people wearing old demodé tailcoats.
Maybe they have to do with politics, yes maybe it must all be a metaphor you think. The only advice I can give is not to strain too much in search of a meaning or anything. Don't take these Picchi too seriously, not even they do with themselves, rather enjoy yet another masterpiece from a truly underrated band in our prog scene.
Second only to the self-titled. Rating 4.4.
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