1000 AUTUNNI

1000 AUTUNNI is the brilliant work of Italian keyboardist Paolo "SKE" Botta who is in the band Yugen and also appeared on French TV's "This Is What We Do. This album is simply outstanding! If you are even remotely interested in sophisticated and complex eclectic prog then you can not go wrong with this. Everything about this just evokes musical ecstasy like few others can. What we have here is an amalgamation of many influences seamlessly fused together to create some strange yet beautiful sonic bliss.

The influences range from Hatfield and the North's take on Canterbury including the operatic siren Roberta Pagani doing her best Amanda Parsons by nailing it and exceeding it. Every track takes you on a different journey so at times you'll hear some National Health, symphonic Anglagard, sometimes Gentle Giant, Henry Cow, Yugen, French TV as well as RIO style chamber music that feels more like avant-classical with some jazz thrown in for good measure. The instruments and guest musicians involved is quite large even though this is a solo project. There are violins, flutes, saxophones, harps, clarinets and a ton more and at times you will even hear strange things like a ping pong ball bouncing off a table providing an additional layer of percussion.

There is not really too much that words can convey about this since it is so unique and amazingly successful at its melding of disparate influences and making them a cohesive whole. This is one of those albums where you can tell that the flames of passion and the love of music melded every placement of every note and arrangement until the heavenly gates opened and beamed that extra touched-by-God oompf to it giving it that other-wordly spark of magic that we all crave and rarely receive. This has to be one of the best debut albums i've heard in a long time and am sorry that it has taken me this long to finally hear it. I very much look forward to hearing more from SKE as well as his main band Yugen and anything else he has his hands in for that matter. Masterpiece! Masterpiece! M-mmmmmasterpiece!