ESAMERON

Just getting acquainted with this Italian exponent of contemporary Zeuhl prog rock? and loving it!!! Runaway Totem is a band that wears its main influences on its sleeves, yet it doesn't restrict itself to the role of talented clone and takes the assumed standard forward into refurbished sonorities and renewing moods full of stamina and intensity. This album entitled "Esameron" has the peculiarity of being conceived and recorded in a time when the band got reduced to a duo format of Roberto Gottardi and Germano Morghen (or Cahal De Betel and Tipheret, if you will), so it becomes even more impressive that these two performers had to expand themselves beyond their respective guitarist and drummer/percussionist's roles and deliver the keyboard and bass parts - plus some sequenced rhythm patterns occasionally - with grace and skill. This is an amplified merit, indeed. "Esameron" is as a powerful album as Runaway Totem albums ever get, and in fact, the shocking nature of the composition is not as overwhelming as in previous albums: even if it is a peculiar item in RT's history, I recommend it as the starting point for the curious Zeuhl-friendly uninitiated. This album is full of twisted musical elaborations where the kaleidoscopic elaborations and the stylish arrangements create the perfect framework for this catalogue of especially frantic compositions. "Esameron" comprises four pieces, with the first and last ones surpassing the 20 minute mark. 'De Cause Prime' starts very cosmic, in this way anticipating the first main motif's orchestral scheme: a punchy, pulsating dynamics is disseminated through every sonic pore of the musical structure in a sort of hybrid of "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh"-Magma and "Heresie"-Univers Zero. Some highly impressive guitar leads intrude into the overall framework so the dramatic atmosphere can be madly enhanced. Around the 10 ½ minute mark, a symphonic bolero section settles in and instills an unexpected warmth into the sonic landscape, but it won't be too long before a chaotic section twists the overall thing up and down and draws a nightmarish storm onto the landscape. Later on, a calmer section brings images of soft grey clouds in an autumn afternoon, a chamber moment around which the RT guys first build a jazzy wrapping and secondly create a powerful crescendo. The last section is a solid exercise on avant-prog over a blues- like tempo, going all the way toward a pompous climax. This is an extraordinary opener: I just feel so lucky that this way the first RT track I ever heard. Track no. 2 is the 8+ minute long 'Ombra Alata'. It starts with tympani beats and ceremonious keyboard textures, almost like the background to some pagan chanting (I am reminded of Shub-Niggurath at this point). Some piano-driven passages state some slight jazz-fusion allusions, but mostly they are momentary ornaments among the hyper- neurotic frenzy that makes the most of this piece. 'Lux (L'Albero del Sole)' starts on a quieter note, but you can notice that something sinister is lying behind the veil of mystery that surrounds this not-so- deceitful tranquility. In fact, I find this mood even more terrifying than many passages comprised in the preceding two tracks, something that Ken Russell would have gladly used in his most Gothic movies (especially that great movie involving heretic sexual fantasies, erotically demented nurses and lunatic power-hungry priests). Just when the instrumental development is assuming its central shape, the dynamics created by the triangle of drum kit, bass and piano is completed by tortured guitar solos that create a colorful exorcism and the digital choral arrangements. A few second before the 10 minute mark, the band shifts to a spacey venture that comprises aleatory effects and minimalistic layers. Finally, the main body is retaken for a spectacular coda. The album ends with the other ultra-epic piece, the 24- minute long '0 Infinito 1'. This monster track starts with a sublime, mysterious orchestration that seems to flow all the way up into the valleys of the Purgatory itself, it is that creepy indeed, but also exalted, as if providing the mind with a vision of what lies beyond the pale. At the 3 minute mark, a choral sequence emerges in full Goliard style, craftily completing the tense atmosphere that never ceases to grow in a controlled fashion. At 4'55", the tension is totally established and the guitar takes center stage with its cathartic solos to make it even clearer that the fog of torment has come down to fill the surroundings of the mind. After the 10 minute mark, some caustic piano cadences make the transition toward a calmer pace, in this way giving room to the elaboration of an eerie atmosphere. It is not so usual that RT gets this warm, but when it does, it works beautifully. The digital imitations of woodwinds, cellos and violas work very well: the resulting scheme sounds to me like a reconsideration of the Zeuhl pattern through the eyes of electronic krautrock (77-77 Tangerine Dream, more precisely). Right after the 16 minute mark, some atonal figures emerge in order to construct a new creepy landscape. It isn't overwhelmingly strident really, but definitely it bears a patent amount of sinister darkness, especially when a martial rhythm settles in among the pairing of two pianos, one rhythmic and the other free-form. The sung portion and bell tolls that end this epic complete the whole unearthly concept. Now I'll be level with the reader - this is a Zeuhl masterpiece!! You can still have some of those in the international progressive scene that keeps developing in the new millennium.