Premiata Forneria Marconi
Jet Lag

It seems to me that, with 'Jet Lag', all of Premiata Forneria Marconi's works have been reviewed on DeBaser. I'm taking on 'Jet Lag' regardless of the fact that it is the missing piece in the discography with DeBaserian marks; I know this album very well... Practically, since I was a young boy, I have worn it out and I must add that I owe it to this album that I am still a drummer.

What can I say after so many years have passed and youth is behind me? What has 'Jet Lag' given me and, above all, what has it ceased to give me?

Bear with me: a very small personal flashback. During my summers in Puglia, a private broadcaster in the very early 80s, during the broadcast schedule of programs, used to play "Stand up" by Jethro Tull and, indeed, "Jet Lag". With a cassette player with a microphone, I had recorded the audio source and would listen to the two albums over and over...

Today: 'Jet Lag'; in 1977 (a crucial year for Italy) PFM concluded their American adventure, absorbing the lesson of primitive fusion in real-time. Weather Report, Mahavisnu Orchestra, Return To Forever were the headline names. The Milanese band must have seen fit to assimilate the emerging musical field that certainly attracted them due to the jazz/rock/funk crossover, where, to a somewhat distracted eye, the technique was "intelligence" and "inspiration" (to me Zawinul is primarily a poet). For skilled instrumentalists, the opportunity was alluring: moreover, their label, "Zoo," was just born, and what better way to start than with a sleek album, their skill impossible to question? But are we provincial?

Mauro Pagani was replaced with the luxurious "Stranger" (Gregory Bloch, a great violinist of Mark-Almond), Lanzetti was confirmed as the voice after the excellent performance on the beautiful "Chocolate kings", thus solving the long-standing deficit of a true frontliner, also with a perfect English pronunciation, and here comes this sky-blue cover with a paper airplane in flight in stores.

"I've gotta get my senses aligned/I'm in a Jet Lag/Feelin' rhythm of my body in another land"; a travel diary, therefore (keeping oneself in check because one is in an estranging situation, being here and there at the same time). So Lanzetti's voice on the album's title track, after the melancholic, quiet instrumental ballad "Peninsula", all on Francone Mussida's strings. The Italian peninsula where one rethinks of the enterprise of enterprises for an Italian group: the conquest of America. And already you feel the cold air. The track is complex and structured in several movements, a paradoxical concept; the meticulous work of the arrangements, carried by the sixteenth notes on Di Cioccio's lively ride, amazes and then chills us. Yes, the quality is high "for an Italian group" but there is an academic feel and everything is verbose and embalmed.
"Storia in La" is an improvisation laid on a calm and airy base all for Premoli's agile fingers on the minimoog, reminiscent of Ian Hammer. A transitional track for the funk-stomp of "Breakin' in", whose lyrics seem to tell of the other side of oneself that hides and vanishes just when you think you've met it (my ARBITRARY interpretation, I await corrections)

Flip side: here is the only Italian track on the album, "Cerco la lingua", closer to the classic sounds of Premiata. Lanzetti's vocal acrobatics (always excellent) twist around programmatic lyrics. Wherever the language may be ("in the language of the streets/in the inns./In the ink of the planets/that doesn't go away") if it is alive it is always creative. But it is the song itself that is dead, with its drawing-room vitalism. "Meridiani" sees Mussida again as the protagonist, with the electric this time. It recalls Alta Loma, but played in a freezer, and gets lost in an almost-free tangle.

"Left-handed theory" is dedicated to left-handed geniuses: "Think of Da Vinci/his ambidextrous hand/Hendrix guitar sang sweet feedback lightnin' from Mars"); a theory that, as a right-hander, I support. It's a lively track, based on an amazing, athletic bass line by Djivas, though we are in drawing-room chit-chat; luxury chit-chat, however... With "Traveler" and all its "resurgent" sadness, thanks to the fade-in, PFM sums up the experience and closes a significant chapter in its history. A twilight track, not devoid of invoking energy, in the lovely meter of 11/8.

It will then be the time for the imperceptible Passpartu' to follow... Well, it's another story, and it's been told well on DeBaser already...