TUTTO IL TEMPO DEL MONDO - 1.ÒIKOS

Silver Linings

Here is progressive music writ large! Each track on the EP "Tutto il Tempo del Mundo1.òikos" ("All the Time in the World" was released in turn as it was developed, played, and recorded.

Starting in April 2020, as COVID-19 repercussions became vividly apparent, and with each succeeding track until September 2020, the resulting seven titles represent the 'first half' of an album Italian progressive band Métronhomme is in the thick of producing.

I Mention 'Tabernacle'

The ancient Greek term òikos translates the basic unit of Greek society as 'home' and 'family', and in Biblical literature refers to the dwelling of the Divine- human, human groups, or building.

I suspect the cerebral members of Métronhomme utilize the 'thicker' meanings of these titles and terms, so I'm playing a bit of improvisation myself, based on that suspicion.

Silver Linings

During the enormous, global, and intensely personal events of the ongoing pandemic (as I write this), scarcely nothing feels 'normal'; nearly everything seems 'different'.

Members of Métronhomme, no less than any other grouping of individuals, were often homebound with selves and family members- their own òikos, as it were.

And decided to honor their personal 'tabernacles' of creativity, of love and respect for music and for each other, by continuing to write, collaborate, play, utilize what's possible rather than pine for what is NOT, to record, and to be forward-looking rather than bitterly or wistfully gazing in the past.

Silver Linings, part 2

"Tutto il Tempo del Mundo1.òikos" then represents a 'progression' - after all this is a progressive rock website and a progressive rock outfit being reviewed! The silver lining is that Métronhomme found within themselves the permission granted by these extraordinary times to write and to play and to collaborate in quite new, yet somehow perhaps more elemental ways.

More gently. More subtly. More minimalistically, and whimsically, and repetitiously- in ways that challenged them, and challenge us to not only listen, but to HEAR what a pandemic sounds like to creative souls who are nonetheless still humans in an ongoing world-shaking event.

So, Make the Best of Things

Between 'found' objects to recreate drum sounds, and keyboard sounds many of which are synthesized, through the screens of computers and via the internet, with children, and perhaps a spouse or lover, with all the normal everyday things that require time and attention, these songs were assembled, added to and subtracted from, recorded, mixed, and then released into the multiverse.

No face-to-face rehearsals, no in-person arranging and developing of themes and passages- but making the best of things. 'Quarantine'. 'Like the Snow'. 'Supermarket'. And so on.

Métronhomme members kindly provided me with some of their thinking and translating (me here in the USA, them in Italy, via the internet and through the screens, etc), and of course these 'simple' tunes, these piano-based lines and compositions and ideas, with gentle exposition and development, with little of the epic RPI flourishes and drama, become real, and rooted, and profound.

The meaning of Arkè, for instance- that elemental fear and anxiety that small children feel sleeping in a darkened room, wind blowing- are there monsters under the bed?

The lyrics to 'Il Rumore del Mare' (The Sound of the Sea)- "the sound of the sea/it's an old fan/it is scrap metal abandoned on the street"...

Remember, progressive music does not necessarily mean loud flourishes and wild tempo changes.

So, Reset

Reset your expectations! Calm down, and go beyond the act of listening to actually hear what is being given to you and to us all. Being forced into the òikos in which you find yourself, do you and I and everyone not need to explore the new reality, the new terrain, the new facts as they reveal themselves?

For me, that's what Métronhomme does with this EP- and it's quite a feat. I give it 3.75/5 stars.

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