SULLE CORDE DI ARIES

Abandoning his early disguises of electronic wizard ("Fetus") and progressive artiste (in "Pollution"), Franco Battiato creates his first masterpiece using the mask of a serious avant garde composer. Assisted by musicians from Don Cherry's School of New Music and opera singer Juri Camisasca, he lays before us a landscape of bell- like sequenced sounds and lush wind instruments that reminds equally sicilian folk music and Steve Reich's minimalist drones. Producer Pino Massara is here as brilliant as usual, drowning all sounds under layers and layers of reberveration, creating a peculliar "wall of sound" feeling. It also gives vocals a certain "warm but ethereal" quality close to Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren". A Siren swimming in the Mediterranean Sea rather than in the waters of Frisco Bay, however. Battiato had yet to reach his highest point with his ice- cold record "Clic!", buth this is a "must have" if you want to really enjoy his music.