AKTUALA

Eight minute opener `Mina' is instantly spirited and lively, as hazy harmonica, frantic acoustic guitar strums, darting sax and exotic percussion weave joyfully together, only slowing down momentarily for the briefest of meditative thoughtful breaks in the middle before finally rising in rapturous glory. `Mud' initially reminds of the early Deuter albums, faraway psych flute wisps flitting about over a gentle rumbling of tabla and thrumming acoustic guitars laced with a dusty mystery, before morphing into a wild outburst of horns and sax jazziness and culminating in a searing bow crescendo that reminds of the dirty violin peppered throughout the early Amon Duul discs. Side B's `Sar' opens as a dreamy wash of swirling harp and twirling flute before carefully building into a breathless experimental Popul Vuh-esque energetic ethnic acoustic drone with ripples of spiralling ringing percussion. The title track `La Terra', the longest piece here at over ten minutes, concocts a lethargic sunny air of groaning sitar and a tinkling of chimes that gradually lurches to life with clipping tabla, floating sax drifts, unwinding harp and world-weary chants twisting into overwhelming mantra-like themes.

The recent GDR CD reissue from 2013 adds a bonus track in the form of `Dagli Etruschi a Picasso', taken from a 2003 solo album by flautist Walter Maioli. It would probably be better if these unrelated pieces weren't added on simply to pad out the shorter original running time of these sort of albums, but thankfully it's a lovely droning Etruscan flute piece that perfectly compliments the vintage material and doesn't sound out of place at all. The CD comes with a lavish Italian language booklet that includes rare photos, as well as highlighting poster art of the Villa Pamphili festival that ran between the 20-24th September 1974, where Aktuala got to perform alongside other many notable Italian acts such as Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Murple, Il Volo, Biglietto per L'Inferno, Ibis, Jumbo, Semiramis, Perigeo, Samadhi, Sensations' Fix and others - some fine company right there!

`La Terra' is usually considered Aktuala's defining musical statement, and it's not hard to see why considering how it has a stronger sense of direction and purpose. Perhaps the debut has slightly stronger psychedelic passages, a few more delicious hints of danger and longer sparse moments without as many instruments playing in unison, but this follow-up still manages occasional welcome unhinged bursts and maintains the evocative spiritual and meditative traits of the first work. Fans of bands such as Embryo, the Third Ear Band and Oregon will be excited by much of what this group does, so too those that love the early albums of Agitation Free and Deuter. Listeners of world music, ethnic-flavoured psychedelic sounds and even the more meditative moments of Krautrock should absolutely explore this obscure little Italian collective, whose small but precious and eclectic discography are well overdue for some renewed exposure.

Four stars

`When The Light Began' gently unwinds over 12 minutes, an ever-evolving flowing stream of acoustic guitar, sitar, flute and violin around a collage of ambient nature. It's sedate and softly hypnotic with spontaneous bursts of positive whirling energy. The repetitive African tribal beats of `Mammoth B.C' are suffocating and imposing, sounding like an impending apocalypse, with the haunting flute your only respite. Without warning, a mind-shattering explosion of horn-driven splintering noise shatters your sanity, exploding your mind with hidden revelations and now untapped ancient secret knowledge. `Altamira' is a nightmarish dreamscape of rising cymbal crashes that take on a serrated electronic harshness with ethereal wailing voices and frantic horns, creating a deeply psychedelic unease.

The lengthy drone `Sarah'Ngweha' and the trace-inducing `Alef's Dance' spice ancient middle-eastern market place excitement with dark jazz, brought on by trilling flute, rising and falling echoing percussion, a relentless maddening beat that takes on a lustful trance- like quality, culminating in a joyous searing violin whirling jig. Album closer `Dejanira' is an impossibly lovely summer drowse. A pleasing and gentle strummed acoustic guitar, almost in the manner of the lazy acid-fried Pink Floyd folk numbers from the late 60's, it floats around an intoxicating concoction of harmonica, sax, rising cymbals and chiming triangle - this is absolute musical bliss. The bonus track on the latest CD reissue, `Flauti', is unsurprisingly a flute based piece, but quite experimental in that it weaves different types of flutes into an extended mysterious drone that washes over the listener. Despite dating from 1991, it perfectly compliments the vintage material and doesn't sound out of place at all.

`Aktuala' can be enjoyed as an evocative background listen, or a spiritually stirring meditative experience as well. It may instil a sense of peace and contemplation, other parts an uneasy tension and excitement for the unknown. But it's never short of being completely fascinating, and it's a thoughtful collection of ancient styled music. Psychedelic, world and new-age music fans will likely respond most to this, but lovers of the more chilled out ethnic flavoured Krautrock bands like Agitation Free and Popul Vuh will likely also welcome this beautiful collection.

Four stars.

When you've past that invisible line that separates the big bands of the Italian 1970s scene and the lesser known - then crossing over into the unknown, you quickly come to realise just how broad the sonic spectrum was. I've said this time and again, and will keep on doing so until people have tattooed this fact onto their eye membranes. Keep on digging good people - you're almost guaranteed to find something to your liking.

Aktuala are what I'd call indefinable. Their style, or whatever one wishes to call it, is soaked through in all kinds of acoustic sprinklings - stretching far across the world to implement strange endemic folk musics into their sound. Indian, Italian, Celtic, African, Middle-Eastern you name 'em - it's in here somewhere. What then unfolds is a somersaulting rhythmic concoction of droning mantraing surfaces that slowly but comfortably plays around with all of the aforementioned influences to create something entirely unique and riveting.

Krautfolk is the best moniker I can come up with. The band itself is rightly placed in folk here on PA, but when you first start diving into this thing, you'll find a sound that twitches and bobs like a slippery tap- dancing eel. The reeds for example are mostly conveyors of a somewhat breezy natured fusion, that, whether expressed through an oboe or saxophone, permits a wonderful jazzy touch to the sound. Not that this album in any way shape or form approaches jazz rock territories - for that it is far too acoustic and folk sage-rated. It's hard pinpointing what makes this venture so unique and special sounding, but I guess it's down to all of the different ingredients, and some highly capable musicians that democratically are able to play all of these exotic instruments, and implement them into a sonic framework that resides far away from their normal playing grounds. Again, a word like unique doesn't even begin to do this band justice.

I'll bet that La Terra would be the perfect fit for those old school music teachers that lived through the 60s - stubbornly trying to infuse that little bit of umph and joy into the current generation of gaming coma patients. You know the types of elderly frivolous men that still wear floral shirts and a big curly beard. They'll put this on in front of the class - hugely inspired and amazed by all the different folk instruments being played:

"Wow, come on people - don't you know that's an Arabian oboe duet-ting with a naj, a maranzano and a tamboura? - Let me get my magic carpet, real quick now, y'hear?!!!"

I'd be over the moon to have someone play this album for me. This is first and foremost a trailblazing record that shows what you can do with percussion instruments. The tracks here may all be carried by slowly strummed guitar patterns and the odd reed section, but what really pushes things forth - lights up the music like a big bonfire that cracks and writhes, is those drums. Xylophones, African, Arabian, Asian drums along with all sorts of strange vibrating echoing percussion features that will have your tongue twisting in no time trying to pronounce their names.

From the opening lethargic yet colourful rhythms to the ending cataclysmic, almost symphonic, stints of the closer, this album's got everything a grown person could ever want out of a mystical sounding percussion lead adventure in music, and I didn't even mention how good the jew-harp of the last cut sounds.... 4.5 stars.

From the start to the end this album gives a strange emotion inside you, something like the sublime... a connection between the beautiful and the inquietude, a perfect union!

i cannot say that i'm a good writer in reviews and this is my first one but i can say that aktuala gives to me lot of sensations when i listen to it, really.

They can be compared to the third ear band but i really think that they are much better and compact.

i like particulary the Alef's Dance! yeahh! 5 stars anyway...

This is pretty much an instrumental album, although there are some barely perceptible spoken-word passages and a bit of chanting. The wide array of African and Eastern instruments present on the first album are here again, and a few new ones to boot. But they mostly appear as showcased ‘solos’, not as integrated arrangements. In some places like “Hare” and “Mediterraneo” the players just seem to be noodling. At other times the sounds are more cohesive (“Echo Raga” in particular), but nearly all the songs appear to be unfinished thoughts that were never fleshed out.

And indeed except for “Ugula Baliuè African Planet” and “Waruna”, none of the thirteen tracks here even reaches four minutes. “Waruna” is quite beautiful however, and recalls the elaborated Eastern sounds of the flute as well as the African and Eastern drums of ”Sarah' Ngwega” from the band’s debut. “Ugula Baliuè African Planet” is more frenzied, almost martial at times, and the flute players actually try too hard and end up sounding rushed and almost impatient.

The rest of the tracks here are pretty conservative, good but not attention-grabbing like the band’s debut was. I still think this is a good record, mostly because the wide array of instruments and broad range of sounds make for an interesting and eclectic sampler of all sorts of world music sounds. But that’s what this really is – a sampler, not a truly cohesive body of carefully arranged compositions.

If you want to hear Aktuala in all their glory theit self-titled debut is the way to go. This one is decent but doesn’t reach the heights of that first record, and as such is worthy only of three stars (barely), and a mild recommendation.

peace

There are no less than three dozen instruments employed on this album, with most of them representing African and Caribbean roots as well as Latin and more traditional sounds. The rhythms are provided via djembe hand drums, Moroccan bongos, koborò and other earthy African drums, while the stringed instruments include The Eastern tambura, zither and hammered dulcimer, as well as a Russian balalaika, violin and of course all manner of six and twelve string guitars. There are also plenty of horns including saxophone, clarinet, oboe, piccolo and various flutes, along with all manner of percussion mostly of the African or Eastern variety.

Like I said this is primitive music in its construction, but the execution shows both a mastery and reverence for ancient musical principles and execution. Third Ear Band comes to mind as a reference for putting this band into some sort of context, and they have also been compared to the experimental jazz outfit Oregon. These are both valid comparisons, but Aktuala go much further than either of those bands in experimenting and mixing sound to form a true world music collage.

The opening “When the Light Began” showcases all these instruments in a rambling, hypnotic swirl of sounds that will leave listeners breathless and also wanting more. The shorter and more brisk “Alef's Dance” is in a similar vein that comes across sounding as if this is meant to be some sort of dance arrangement of undetermined historical and ethnic origin, but with unmistakable Eastern roots.

The most bizarre track is “Mammoth RC” which combines African rhythms and percussion with a frenzied blast of horn-driven cacophony that I guess is supposed to be free-form jazz and which has little perceptible structure or melody. But it comes around at the end and closes with a thudding African drum beat that leaves one with a sense of completion.

“Sarah' Ngwega” is a bit like “Alef’s Dance” in that it is spirited, highly percussive and danceable, while the closing “Dejanira” has a persistent drum beat and jazzy horns mixed with tambura to create an almost spiritual mood.

This is definitely not what one would expect from Italian folk music, and in fact it isn’t. The only things that are really Italian here are most of the musicians. For fans of primitive and world music this is a treat waiting to be discovered, and I highly recommend it. This is about as close to a five star album as I’ve heard in quite a while, and in fact I’m going to give it that in recognition of the fact that it grabbed me right by the ears and held my attention the very first time I heard it. There’s very little music that does that any more, so for those spend an awful lot of time experiencing and delving into different forms of music all the time, this may be an acquired taste but it will likely also be a huge treat.

peace

Personally I find this album more credible and entertaining than their debut, but also more personal (and this is of course primordial for me), because Cavallanti's wind instruments are freer than previously. This is particularly true for Mud (the second and last of side A) with an interesting cello and the side B opener Sar with a harp and again the cello and superb Gurtu tabla drums. The closing and longest title track is more of the same, but does not reach the intensity of the previous tracks.

Their next and last will be still extremely ethnic oriented but this time even more towards Arabian influences (it will be partly recorded in Morocco and a sitar player), and is of the same quality, but hardly more essential than their first two. Still wondering what exactly this type of album brought (except a massive dreamscape to potential living-room hippies of course), but this a much more focused album.

Clearly lead by wind instrumentalist Walter Maioli, the group's opening track (the aptly- named When the Light Began) is a good acetate of Indian music, but no more. Mammoth is a rather strange completely chaotic music, resembling a bit what the Buthan Buddhist monks can do, laced with a bit of free-jazz, but it is little more than doodlings to these ears and it sticks out like a rotten thumb from the rest of the album. Altamira is a short descriptive track that evokes the jungle nights.

As the second side of the vinyl starts in the same calm manner, slowly drifting to an Arabian-sounding Sarah's Ngewha, but retaining an Indian feel caused by the Balalaïka strummings and accompanied with a jazzy sax. Maybe their better track on this album. The next track is close to Morroccan Jujube music, and IMHO only serves them to show that they've around (mentally at least), because it does sound as out of context musically as it is geographically. The closing Dejanira might just be their most personal track Cavallanti's sax providing a welcome jazzy evasion from the ethnic feel, with a surprising harmonica duet in the middle section

One can indeed ask himself the question of what exactly brought this kind of record, because outside the few personal touches of the group, there is not much to separate it from listening to Indian or Morroccan artistes, while not being sure that the natives will not cringe at their (sacred) music being handled in a non-purist manner, even if played as a homage. Nothing essential, I'd rather you either listen to pure ethnic music or that you'd listen to groups like Embryo or Quintessence, for the sake of experimentation.