JACULA

Concurrently things were brewing in Italy where a young Antonio Bartoccetti was nurturing his own vision of how to craft a new art form that would take the darkest and most mysterious sounds possible and insert them into the foundation of what the Italian progressive rock scene was developing around that time. The result was his band JACULA which aimed to embody the emotive responses of the Italian horror culture that was sweeping the late 1960s and early 1970s utilizing themes form film director Mario Brava, a trait that Goblin would pick up on in the latter part of the decade and craft an entire career around. The band was founded in Milan and designed to be an experiment between Bartoccetti, electronic music expert Doris Norton (aka Flamma Dello Spirito), church organ master Charles Tiring and the occult medium Franz Porthenzy.

JACULA on the other hand has remained underground and mysterious even to this very day and recorded some bizarre recordings as far back as 1969 that were purportedly intended for religious sects and ritualistic purposes. An album called "In Cauda Semper Stat Venernum" supposedly came out in 1969 but has pretty much been dismissed as nothing more than demo status material that was reworked and completed and only officially released in 2001. JACULA was totally different from any other band gestating in the early Italian prog years and went down a completely different path that still remains utterly unique and truly bizarre. Featuring only three members, Antonio Bartoccetti on guitars and bass, Doris Norton on vocals, flute and violin and the 68-year old Charles Tiring who played church organ, harpsichord and moog, JACULA featured no percussion and offered one of the most mysterious sounding albums to emerge in 1972.

TARDO PEDE IN MAGIAM VERSUS (Latin for "A Slow Foot Towards The Magic") was sold together with the magazine JACULA which was a horror-porn comic from the era. The music was based on Christian liturgical music with touches of progressive rock, ritual ambient and spoken word narration in the Italian language. Supposedly some of the dialogue included Italian translations of lyrics from King Crimson's "In The Court Of The Crimson King" as well as Van Der Graaf Generator's "Pawn Hearts." What set TARDO PEDE IN MAGIAM VERSUS apart from virtually any other album that graced the early 1970s was the dark pompous use of church organ that absolutely dominates the album's distinct sound as if the entire album was recorded in some underground setting where bizarre occult practices and rituals take place unbeknownst to the public at large.

Secondary to the hermetic occult organ runs is the evocative vocal presence of Doris Norton who adds a gothic occult persona to the dark mysterious musical processions. All lyrics are in the Italian language and the album is said to have been created during seances and other occult rituals. While the music itself may not exactly be considered rock music due to the fact that it features no percussion and the guitar and bass aspects are rather minimal in comparison, the compositions do exhibit a parallel strain of what the prog rock ethos was undertaking in the 1970s therefore it has been adopted into the greater Italian prog rock paradigm of the era. While dismissed by many as a mere gimmick and as an immature attempt to cash in on the shock and horror culture, JACULA really did succeed in crafting an album that takes you into the darkest recesses of music and never lets you escape the journey into the occult for the album's run. Personally i think this is brilliantly unique and enjoy this quite a bit.

The music is somewhat transcendental and one of the most convincing occult rock albums ever released. The over-the-top church organs just take you on a journey that is so powerful that you are literally sucked into this strange new world for the entire run. The incessantly ubiquitous organ runs offer a truly frightening and overpowering experience topped off by the various vocal technicals of Doris Norton who offers some blood-curdling spoken word narrations as well as extremely emotive singing styles. The guitar and bass are secondary but do provide moments of needed contrast while tracks like "Jacula Valzer" eschew the church organ and offer a little respite from the horror of it all. This track features a softly strummed guitar accented by pacifying flute and Norton softly wailing softer wordless vocals behind it all. This is a love or hate one for many but so utterly strange and astonishingly unique that i can't help but love the heck out of it.

As I have already written in my previous Jacula's review, there is a bit of humour as Jacula was the main characer of a porn comics of the 70s, whose name is a mix of "Dracula" and "Eiaculate". (the J in latin is spelled "i": like "ian" instead of "John").

Even if released as second, this is effectively the first recording of Jacula, later transformed into ANTONIUS REX. The album has been remastered and its first true release is dated 2001. Further releases and reprints followed, thanks to the Black Widow label. Respect to Tardo Pede... the operatic vocals are absent, and it's Antonio Bartoccetti's voice that's sometimes heard, like in "Magister Dixit" (The master said).

It's mainly dark baroque church organ, closer to neo-gothic than to prog if it wasn't for some effects. The speeches are about a magician who freed a vampire. It's a sort of grimoire read by a lecturer. The horrorific and satanic environment is more explicit in Triumphatus Sad. This track is opened by a heavy distorted guitar. Triumphatus Sad is an English grimoire of the late 17th century about witchery. I don't know how much of this track has been overdubbed above the original, but this is a heavy metal track with no doubts, even if the keyboardist makes a great work in a Keith Emerson style.

"Veneficium" (Poisoning) returns to the church organ stuff in the intro, Luckily the guitar takes its duties with an unreferenced harp. It's possible that the harp has been added later during the remastering. It really sounds like SENMUTH.

On "Initiatjo" the vocals don't sound like Bartoccetti's voice, it seems female but it may even be him. A choir instead of a single singer would have been fantastic. A suggestion for a cover. Musically speaking this is the best album track. There's something similar on CAMEL's The Snow Goose, but less dark.

Finally, the title track. The initial speech isn't very interesting. A guy is in a wood in the night watching the Moon and joked by a fairy. The alternance between church organ and speech is a bit boring. I mean, one Italian speaking can be curious the first time as it's like listening to a story, but the second time it's just boring.

Remastering and publishing this early work is interesting as a document and there's at least one good track, but documentary apart, I can't suggest it. It's an ancestor of black metal, but mainly a neogothic thing.

So there's at least a bit of humor in the choice of the band name. Zora is the vampire girl of another comic, probably by the same author.

Said so, it's not strange that the music in this album is trying to setup a dark, satanic atmosphere mainly based on the church organ. The album and some songs have a latin title, which should recall the ambient of catholic churches.

The result is a fusion of classical elements. I don't know what U.F.D.E.M. means, but the lyrics are about the modern man in search of money, making the world dark. It ends saying "may this modern man, who denies Mistery and Eternity, die". "Presentia Domini" (Presence of the Lord) is entirely spoken in Latin. It's a sort of maledition to the modern man. It repeates "God sees you, God hears you, Deads see you, Deads hear you". Interesting the last chord is a major chord. The only major chord in all the song.

The following track, "Jacula Valzer" is instrumental. It sounds differently from what has been going on up to that. Flute, some mute vocals, similar to an Ennio Moricone soundtrack even if background dissonances are placed to remind us that this album is about sins and evil. So after 3 of the 6 minutes of the track the background and the foreground are swapped. I think to the distopic world of HP Lovecraft. This track has the atmosphere of Azrael's "Azatoth".

Absolution is a mass with a standard catholic formula in Latin, then "Long Black Magic Night", starting with harpsichord and flute playing a sad melody before coming back with the church organ on the closing track "In Old Castle".

It's quite obvious that GOBLIN have been influenced by this album, and possibly some echoes of it can be heard also in some works of Keith EMERSON (through his collaboration with Dario Argento) and later by others. The sometimes operatic vocals remind to today's masterpieces of UNIVERSAL TOTEM ORCHESTRA.

An excellent album, very original in its era. The organ is a bit too much present. Leaving some space tothe other instruments wouldn't have been bad, but the band wanted to create a dark ambience and succeeded. The refereneces to Satan, and Evil in general are closer to the christian medieval views, so I wouldn't think of Jacula as a band of satanists. They have just paisd a visit to the "obscure centuries".

No references to comics or vampires utside the band name and the album cover which is surely drawn by the comics author.

Occult rituals, unseen forces and powers beyond control in a melodramatic and Gothic setting, with chilling wind and other mysterious effects through damp, forlorn and ivy-laden ruins and long forgotten, long crumbling churchyards as the natural complement. Truly a mood affair this album, with little to offer in terms of fiery melodic exercises and shining, complex composition. Just about everything is about space, atmosphere, reflection, imagery and focused impact.

The dirge-like church organ feels as overpowering and sombre as the finality and inescapability of death, but rather than pure horror at the thought, there's always a streak of sadness and chilling beauty that comes through. It is rather merciless in its onslaught, sucking all the air out of the compositions in a commanding and unrelenting way. Together with some delicately played and contrasting airier piano ringing out its cleansing and relieving melodies, the mood is occasionally lightened, but always given a dark and fateful grounding. This feeling is only enhanced by the sparse, but loudly booming, echoing and funereal percussion. On Initatio, a beautiful wordless female vocal transcends this mix of sounds into something really spiritual and remarkably tender, without ever truly letting go of the aforementioned all-encompassing gloom. A high-point of the album.

But having said that, this is where the experience turns a bit sour for this reviewer. Because the proto-doom guitars that occasionally rear their ugly heads here and there are a definite let-down. Leaving the debate of when they were actually added and if they could possibly be one of the earliest use of such sounds aside, they still don't work, regardless of possible inventiveness. They ruin the atmosphere in clumsily plodding sounds that are both dry, bloodless and out of place. Where this type of riffs and guitar-work is majestic in the hands of Tony Iommi and in a Black Sabbath-setting, here they just feel extraneous and jarring. Naked and ugly in a way that sharply contrasts to the profoundness of the rest of the album. It's just mismatched to me. Where I'm sure the idea was to emphasize and add weight and power, to me they have the opposite effect, making the album head into gimmicky and crudely effect-seeking territory. Unfortunately the exact same thing can be said about the cringe-worthy and matter-of-fact Latin incantations that ruin the experience of the music from time to time. If you don't want vocals, that's fine, but don't give me soulless, hollow comments instead, in Latin or otherwise. Gimmicky, and desperately hammering in a mood and setting which is already perfectly clear when the music speaks for itself. Some poetic or melodic sensibility could perhaps have saved them, but this unembellished delivery is not doing it. Thankfully, they aren't that many or that long.

On balance, it's a conflicted album. Where I would have wanted a purer experience, based on the sides I thoroughly enjoy, the band obviously was looking for something else. Good for them, bad for me. Regardless of my personal opinion, it's still a rather unique experience. And there are great moments scattered all over the album if you're willing to dig for them. I just don't see myself doing that all too often.

2 stars.

//LinusW

Specifically, the album feels to me like it's halfway between a demo tape (though a reasonably competently produced one) and the sort of meandering improvisational jam releases you saw in the psychedelic and Krautrock scenes of the era. The musical approach involves long, almost ambient stretches of church organ backed with occasional bursts of riffing and rare intonations of sinister Latin phrases. Like the first Tangerine Dream album it's perhaps better approached as spooky, psychedelic-leaning proto-prog background music than as a set of fully developed compositions, but the atmosphere of doom and dread evoked here is so different from what most bands producing this sort of jam album was going for, and the musical approach is very different from the approach taken by the doom-and-gloom brigade in the 1960s and 1970s, making it a uniquely odd work.

The predominantly instrumental album is almost totally driven by the Charles Tiring's overwhelming church organ, and it's absolutely beautiful. Good to hear the real thing, and not some clinical cold emulation or keyboard imitation you might get these days. Long meandering organ dirges, often accompanied by Jacula main creative force Anthony Bartoccetti's dirty heavy-rock guitar riffs, creating a dominating and oppressive sound. His searing electric guitar solos push you even further down. Black Sabbath and early Pink Floyd might be some slight reference points. However, the music is in no way heavy metal, but it might be seen as being quite ahead of it's time and an influence on that particular genre.

Some may find the album hugely tedious and monotonous, but I find the repetitive nature of much of the music to be one of it's greatest strengths. It draws you in, hammers down on you, and can often create a feeling of being lost, trapped in a nightmare, or deep in personal reflection.

My personal highlight of the album is the somber piano driven instrumental `Initatio', with evocative sighed wordless vocals by Fiamma Dallo Spirito. She has a weary, tormented and sorrowful tone to her voice. The track is equally ambient, subtle and surprisingly low key, it might even be one of my favourite instrumental pieces in my entire prog collection. It brings me to tears.

Although the album has a strong dark occult influence, I don't feel you need to be Satanic weirdo to appreciate it's haunting beauty! I follow a lot of Christian beliefs in my life, and I don't find this album offensive in the least. I truly appreciate being immersed in such an evocative personal and emotional musical experience. The old cliché of beauty found in despair and darkness certainly holds true for this album.

The cover of the album perfectly complements the murky tone of the album. Almost as unnerving as the cover of the first Black Sabbath album, It's quite a haunting and horror filled image, well worth particularly grabbing the vinyl reissue edition to really let it compliment the music.

I feel a little intimidated posting this review, when others such as Finnforest have already provided a definitive and more detailed review. I don't know if my simple comments can really offer much more that hasn't already been said. But I felt compelled to do so anyway, due to how much this album has meant to me over the years, how I'm constantly drawn back to it, and how I love finding new hidden secrets within it with each new listen.

Hypnotic, maddening, suffocating, emotional....the debut album of Jacula.

Really four and a half stars.

This album follows the same path of its predecessors, sharing the darkest and gothic side of progressive rock. It contains seven compositions that together make a total time of 47 minutes. The first track is "Jacula is Back", whose first minute give us an introduction to its dark, funeral gothic world. Later the organ enters and along with those strange noises, produces some kind of fear, tension. Before the third minute a delicate guitar appears contrasting with the previous sound, here, it sounds softer and even gently but it only lasts for a minute, because later the music explodes, keyboards and drums join and the sound is heavier, sorrowful and rockier. And the song continues with that rockier mood, including guitar riffs and metal-like drums.

"Pre Viam" is the longest composition of the album, reaching almost ten minutes. It starts softly with acoustic guitar, then keyboards put some nuances little by little, sharing an evident sense of uncertainty and nervousness. There is a female voice, which is sensual but scary at the same time; the synth work is wonderful because it produces almost everything, from the atmospheric tranquility to the fragile tension. The charm in Jacula's music lies in the imagination, I mean, each and every of the songs are a perfect motif to create stories, put words, sounds, images in our heads and create a parallel world.

"Blacklady Kiss" is a slow-tempo track in which as you can imagine, will listen to the voice of precisely, the Blcklady, accompanied by soft but cardiac piano notes and synth atmospheres. The second part of the song is completely different, the structure of the first one vanishes and now the rock element is present and evident with the guitar riff. "Deviens Folle" starts again with acoustic guitar, later beautiful, yet sorrowful piano notes accompany it, along with the obligatory keyboard background. Later it changes a little bit, creating once again an ambient of tension. This song is great, at first I thought it was weaker than the previous ones, but I was wrong, one has to give it a chance, listen carefully to it and then will understand what is it about.

"In Rain" shows a soft first minute with a peaceful keyboard sound, later the organ enters along with some church male vocals, it continues like this for some minutes until the song morphs once again into a rockier track, offering that mandatory guitar riff. "Godwithch" has a rain sound as background all the time, while a repetitive but addictive piano is playing and increasing its intensity little by little.

The last track of the album is "Possaction", in which we will find the funeral drums, the scary organ and sorrowful and painful voices as background, adding even more fear, accelerating our heartbeats. A great track if you are willing to have nightmares, so go and listen to it with the lights off, nice headphones and you will surely be moved by its scary sound. What a song to finish this album!

Nice comeback from Jacula, a solid album, though I stay with "In Cauda Semper?". Anyway, Pre Viam deserves 3.5 stars.

Enjoy it!

The key to this album is perhaps forgetting about the past. I know that sounds kind of harsh, but if you are anything like me and absolutely adore the first two trailblazing albums of this band, then you will undoubtedly find yourself in quite the pickle just approaching this record with a clean slate. The thing is, those two albums were unlike anything else from around that time. They foresaw the whole doom genre by at least a decade, as well as cemented Jacula's status as something of a mystical vampire-like act that fed off burning absinthe and the blood of unborn babies.

If you can approach Pre Viam on its own terms, just like one preferably should any other album, a wonderful little album opens up in front of you, and even if the Jacula of old with the gargantuan church organs are a thing of the past - you'll almost certainly pick up those inherent dark traits of mastermind Antonio Bartoccetti.

This is essentially melody driven RPI with all the charisma and sweetness the "genre" can muster teamed up with the dark menacing presence of that special little something that Jacula always had. They are Gothic unlike any other band I've come across, and if you are sitting out there thinking about Type O Negative and Bloody Kisses, warm red wine and raw lamb chops, then imagine this type of thing transcribed onto an Italian symphonic setting. The metal side of the aforementioned band is also quite present on Pre Viam, and even if I am not among the biggest fans of slapping metal on old recipes - announcing them to be brand new and everything, I must admit that it works pretty well within the confines of this album. There is just something about the combination of hard hitting guitar riffs and the softness of the Italian sprinklings found throughout this album that coalesce rather beautifully together. That and the impending raptures of organ and synthesizer breaks that on occasion break through the thickets, are very much proof of just how well harmonized these different ingredients are mixed together. Come to think of it, there are indeed some organ sections on here that reflect the old Jacula heritage, and what this does is, basically, to give you a small but highly efficient peep back into the past, and as short-lived as these may appear, they do add a little je n'est c'est quoi to the proceedings here.

For the most part Pre Viam is instrumental, but all of a suddenly you get these high soaring sections of serene female vocalizations that just grip a hold of you and transport you elsewhere. They are cold and beautiful like giant blue icebergs, and whether you choose to look at the art work, or just recognize the whole feel of the thing, -that chilling and clean structure in many ways convey this record's Gothic essence right down to the t.

If you're into vampires, old abandoned castles with motes, sea-snakes and ancient myths surrounding the place - then I urge you to hunt this album down. It is indeed surrounded in what feels like an ancient horrific cobweb, which is as untouchable and seductive as the early morning mist. 3.5 stars.

As you'd expect from Bartoccetti the music is suitably dark and gothic. The feel of the original Jacula is present though with an updated sound. Long gone and missed is the wonderful church organ work of Charles Tiring. His place is taken by Bartoccetti and Norton's son Rex Anthony who is responsible for all keyboard work, Norton also being absent. Piano and orchestrated synth sounds largely, though not entirely take the place of organ work but still manage to retain a dark vibe as well as often being hauntingly beautiful. A couple of pieces include drums and Bartoccetti's electric guitar work, the nearest they get to a standard rock band format. Other than that the music is fairly low key going for an atmospheric approach where acoustic guitar sits alongside Anthony's keyboard work and is often content to lock into a repetitive yet effective pattern. The absence of Norton robs Jacula of their vocalist whose place is taken by spoken word vocal contributed by someone who goes by the name of Blacklady, though these only make an occasional appearance.

Whilst Pre Viam won't be to everybody's taste, fans of Bartoccetti will lap it up and despite missing the church organ I'd probably consider this my favourite Jacula album overall.