Premiata Forneria Marconi
Storia di un minuto

They used to hum in a bakery in Cremona and often were a bit annoying.

Flavio Premoli, Giorgio Piazza, Mauro Pagani, Franz Di Cioccio, Franco Mussida, also known as Premiata Forneria Marconi, were never perfectionists: their music isn't perfect. It's organic, lush, new age, avant-garde, original, not perfect.

Giulio Rapetti, known as Mogol, met them and immediately loved them. He wrote "Impressioni di settembre" for them and brought them to success. In Bollate, at the venue "Carta Vetrata" (where the five often performed), a commotion broke out. And rightly so. "Storia di un minuto" (a minute that lasted thirty years) is the first album of Premiata Forneria Marconi, and it is their masterpiece. "Impressioni di settembre" is, as they say, worth the price of admission. Beyond the artistic value of the lyrics (still beautiful), what stands out is the absolute mastery of the group's instrumentation. Mussida's acoustic guitar magnificently fills the first three minutes of the song (Mussida's voice is highly elaborate) while the long and resounding finale sees the first use of the famous Moog synthesizer in Italy. The track lasts just under six minutes, yet the final Moog seems to slide away without any uncertainty or heaviness. Remarkable also is the perfect use of string instruments: the incredibly inspired Pagani who, in a spasm of pure musical ecstasy, forcefully counters on the violin with sounds and notes that would make, in order, Paganini, Uto Ughi, Angelo Branduardi turn pale.

Yet, despite great talents and ambitions, their music is not perfect. "Impressioni di settembre" seems, in some passages, uncertain and rushed, the guitars seem to abound, and the low (no, extremely low) voice at the beginning clashes incoherently with the long, crazy, accelerated second half. But the music, the words, the Moog cover this evident authorial imperfection: Premoli, Piazza, Pagani, Di Cioccio, and Mussida, known as Premiata Forneria Marconi, undoubtedly, are very good, play very well, sing so-so (although overall, they sing well) but are not perfect. "Storia di un minuto" is their only truly notable album (the much-praised "Jet Lag" is nothing particularly exceptional), yet their imperfection is immediately noticeable in the very long musical interlude titled "Dove... quando", an epic musical duel between guitars, drums, Moog, flutes, and harpsichord. A musical number on the verge of the circus: very tight, very exciting, phenomenal. Here and there, however, hints of irreverent authorial self-satisfaction spoil the composition and ruin the atmosphere.
Premiata Forneria Marconi is not perfect, right?

Notable is "La carrozza di Hans", the penultimate, grandiloquent track that solemnly closes the most interesting (and also most famous) album of Pfm and opens, somewhat overestimatively, an interesting but unremarkable decade (for example: Battisti records "Anima latina" and Peppino Di Capri triumphs in Sanremo).