PORTABLE MADNESS

This quite unique outfit in the italian field because of its "Krautrock attitude" was formed by Franco Falsini (guitar, keyboards, vocals), italo-american bass player Richard Ursillo and american drummer Keith Edwards. Maybe it's worth mentioning that they were living near Florence on a farm and recorded their albums with poor quality in their own studio. Their sound reminds very much to german cosmic bands from the 70's and especially on this album quite a lot to TANGERINE DREAM (ca. Cyclone-era) just more complex in a way.

This album is more a band effort than the previous one which was mainly a project of Franco Falsini. All tracks segue in to each other so one gets the impression to listen to one long track for each side exactly like it was the case for almost all TANGERINE DREAM albums. The opening one Smooth and Round has bass and Eminent, which is a string organ that sounds like a string synth played by Falsini in a very mindblowing and spacy way. It segues in to Fullglast starting with Falsini on guitar, continueing with a section one could call almost bluesy and finishing with Eminent and Minimoog. Phase One and Phase Two is again dominated by guitar and Eminent, sounds a bit like a more heavy version of TANGERINE DREAM. Last track on side one Underwater starts spacy with the Eminent, then getting into a more Floyd-ish atmospheric vein and finishes with the theme of Smooth and Round played in reverse.

Side two opens up with The Next Place of Nobody, which is a purely electronic and atmospheric one that segues smoothly into Pasty Day Resistance with a music that becomes more and more intense, from the basic again rather similar to TANGERINE DREAM, but with a higher variability and energy. Next two songs were re-recorded for their album Finest Finger with vocals added. The original of Leave My Chemistry Alone which became the title track on "Finest Finger" later consists only of guitars, synths and drums, but is nevertheless very effective. Strange About The Hands is even better in its instrumental version on here, since it has added-on spacy synths which doesn't have the re-recorded version. The album ends with the all-electronic track With Relative Jump Into Water with great playing on the Eminent and Moog.

SUMMARY

Their second output is a bit more dificult to get into and unlike their debut all instrumental. Most probably their best one and good recommendation for all lovers of spacy progressive rock.4 stars without hesitation!