ABBIAMO TUTTI I SUOI PROBLEMI

PICCHIO DAL POZZO (whimsically translated as "woodpecker from the well") is famous for having been Italy's only answer to England's Canterbury jazz Scene that developed from that warm and fuzzy complexity generated by the pioneers Soft Machine and Caravan. They emerged in Genova all the way back in 1973 but only sparsely released albums with their self-titled debut not emerging until 1976. While many progressive bands were starting to cave to the pressures of crafting more catchy accessible commercial music, a few staunchly stubborn bands carried the torch of the progressive rock heyday of the early 70s. While finding little success commercially speaking, PICCHIO DAL POZZO dazzled the critics with their unique amalgamation of Canterbury jazz, psychedelic space rock, Zappa-esque quirkiness and symphonic Italian prog on their debut and has become somewhat of an underground classic for those in certain circles.

While it took four years for the band to release their followup album ABBIAMO TUTTI I SUOI PROBLEMI (roughly "we have all your troubles"), much had changed in the music scene since their debut. During this brief four year timespan, punk had completely dethroned prog from its perch, disco, new wave and other catchy groove oriented styles of music had become the norm and the prog bands that hadn't disbanded completely adapted to the new musical trends with bands like Genesis, Yes and Gentle Giant jumping on the pop hook bandwagon. PICCHIO DAL POZZO on the other hand, went completely in the opposite direction. Not only did they buck the trend of 1980, but delivered an even more complex delivery of brutal prog than the debut that jettisoned most of the hypnotic space rock and symphonic prog sensibilities of their homeland and went for the avant-prog jugular. They did however retain ample doses of Canterbury jazz woven into their intricately angular compositions.

The first noticeable aspect of ABBIAMO TUTTI I SUOI PROBLEMI is that the grandiose epic sound of the debut that featured a total of fourteen musicians strewn about the album had been trimmed to a mere quintet but the members effortlessly pick up the duties of playing a multitude of instruments present on the debut. While the Canterbury elements are always lurking in the shadows (and sometimes dominate), this sophomore album owes a lot more to the Rock In Opposition movement which found more inspiration from Henry Cow's "Unrest" and "Western Culture" in its bombastic time signature workouts that relentlessly unfold with seductively complex metrics and Gentle Giant inspired contrapuntal compositional form. Also retained is the Zappa-esque melodic and guitar work on tracks like "Moderno Ballabile." While the core of this collective is still Palo Griguolo, Aldo De Scalzi and Andrea Beccari, the vocal contributions of Beccari have been relegated to small appearances and thus De Scalzi's dominate, however the album is for the most part dedicated to complex instrumental passages. Vocals that do occur are beautifully performed in the Italian language.

Despite all the comparisons to certain aspects of PICCHIO DAL POZZO's sound, they truly delivered two classic albums that not only sounded completely different from one another but each album sounds unlike anything that had ever been recorded before or after. PDP effortlessly soars like a flock of birds in perfect unison where the guitar, bass, piano, sax, flute, clarinet and recorder can free flow along in perfect angular unison or they can create complex counterpoints that defy rational explanation. This is one of those complex for complexity's sake type of albums yet retains an underlying melodic warmth that allows the avant-prog tinged Canterbury jazz to release its beautifully designed magic. While the debut sort of mesmerizes and slowly ratchets you into the groove of the album and unleashes its complexities in incremental doses, ABBIAMO TUTTI I SUOI PROBLEMI immediately goes for the jugular and delivers with abundance. Overall this one delivers the timbres and tones of Hatfield & The North while executing the punishingly complex chamber orchestra sensationalisms of Henry Cow's later albums.

This album originally came out on the record label Orchestra which specialized in Italian groups that fit into avant-prog, Rock In Opposition, free improvisation and avant-garde jazz but the label would fold in 1983 and PICCHIO DAL POZZO would call it quits shortly after the release of ABBIAMO TUTTI I SUOI PROBLEMI. By all means check out the 2006 reissue on the RēR Label. It was remastered beautifully by Bob Drake (of Thinking Plague fame) and contains the excellent bonus track "Uccallin Del Bosco" which offers yet one more aspect of PICCHIO DAL POZZO's many moods. This one provides an insight as to what the band would've sounded like had they added more rock guitar to their avant-prog Canterbury sound. There are a few (brief) moments when the guitar sounds more like a Joe Walsh classic than a high art prog band well beyond the conceptual threshold of the masses. This one is highly recommended for the lovers of music as complex as it can be. A worthy 10 on the prog-o-meter. While it took me longer to warm up to this one than the debut, this one has emerged as their second masterpiece of the ages.