RA ME NIVAR

Formed in Sapri in 2005, RPI band Möbius Project finally delivered their debut album in 2014, and what an unexpected little gem it's turned out to be! "Ra Me Nivar" takes its name from an expression from an African dialect used by Italian author Alessandro Baricco in his 1993 novel "Ocean Sea" that refers to a `flying man', which the band use within the music on this album as a `metaphor for contemplative and imaginative events'. In many ways more than just an RPI album with fiery acoustic/electric guitar interplay, colourful keyboards and ardent voices, the band include gentle folk and ethnic elements, as well as offering a few sections in English to present a very cultured and worldly album. But not only does it hold a rich selection of musical sounds, this may be one of the most vocally rich and layered of recent RPI albums, with a subtle production that enhances the warmth of the performances.

The opening title track unexpectedly begins with a chilly synth drone before biting electric guitars and Francesco Magaldi's driving drums enter around Lucio Filizola's raspy charismatic voice. The piece reveals itself to be a gutsy catchy vocal tune, but the band still finds time for grooving jazzy breaks, fiery little bass eruptions, trickles of delicate early A.M hours piano and plenty of twisting time-changes! With its dusty atmosphere and scorched droning sitar strains, `Scorci di Vita su Nastro di Mobius' reminds of the first track from RPI band Raccomandata son Ricevuta di Ritorno's ethnic/middle-eastern flavoured comeback album `Il Pittore Volante', and is initially a dreamy ballad with ravishing acoustic guitar, Gino d'Ignazio's drifting flute, murmuring bass and a sweetly passionate vocal with warm group harmonies. But the electric guitars kick in with a slow-burn smoulder, keyboards dazzle and the vocals snarl with force, revealing that unpredictable edge of danger that permeates all the best RPI albums!

`Entanglementalistically Speaking' somewhat controversially for an RPI album utilizes English vocals (which makes the track kind of sound like a different band altogether!), and despite a partly annoying repetitive chorus and a slightly grating seemingly comical element throughout, the constant eerie piano and ambitious Gentle Giant-inspired male/female group vocal arrangement is incredible! Massimiliano Amato takes over the lead vocals from this fourth track, (back to Italian too) and `In Fuga dal Destino' is short and sweet at just over three minutes, the verses a melancholic ballad with Hammond organ shimmering softly in the background before a tougher chorus, and again the group harmonies throughout are sublime. But most ambitious of all is the nine minute, three part suite `L' equilibrista', where Tony Guerrieri's bass, constantly thick and upfront in the mix, really breaks through and takes flight. It opens as a mellow psychedelic rocker with sweetly chiming guitars behind drifting group harmonies, the middle breaks into loopy synth outbursts behind noisy guitar twists, floats into a sighing reflective male/female mantra (Brunella Gianni's voice sounding especially lovely here) and then closes on a scorching electric guitar solo.

Despite probably performing the few English passages more convincingly that some other Italian groups have managed, the group would perhaps be wise to stick to their native language overall, as it's such an important element of proper RPI music, and the current musical environment won't really allow for groups like this to gain larger worldwide exposure. But on the strength of the material on this disc, 'Ra Me Nivar' holds strong tunes with colourful instrumental qualities yet ditches overly-polished and slick production for a sparse, simpler sound that warmly allows all the musicians and especially their wonderful voices to truly shine. It's a superb start for the group, and their debut is a most welcome and very surprising RPI highlight of the last year!

Four stars.

Mobius Project come from Sapri, a town in the province of Salerno, and began life in 2005 under the name Sphera drawing inspiration from bands such as King Crimson, Yes, The Beatles, Focus, Camel, Weather Report, Balletto di Bronzo, Area or Osanna just to name but a few. The current name of the band reflects the common interest of the members for astronomy and mathematics and refers to August Ferdinand Mobius, a German mathematician and theoretical astronomer who is best known for his discovery of the M'bius strip, a non-orientable two-dimensional surface with only one side when embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space.

In 2014, after many years of work, the band self-released an interesting debut album entitled Ra Me Nivar with a line up featuring Massimiliano Amato (guitars, vocals), Lucio Filizola (guitars, vocals, keyboards, sitar), Tony Guerrieri (bass) and Francesco Magaldi (drums, percussion) plus the guests Brunella Gianni (vocals) and Gino d'Ignazio (flute). On the beautiful three folds art cover by Ennio Lanzo you can recognize M'bius and his strip in the character in the foreground and in the strange spectacles he wears, along with other elements that in some way try to describe the album content: a kind of magician's box filled with strangeness, irony and a pinch of madness, a mirror, an Oriental carpet, mathematical formulas on the wall...

The opener "Ra Me Nivar" starts softly, with spacey ambient sounds. Then the rhythm takes off and the music swings from hard rock and funky to a soft, jazzy finale while the lyrics conjure up images and colours from the outer space such as stardust falling upon silent altars, strange spectral synthesis based upon celestial mechanics, threatening black holes devouring everything around them, colliding worlds breaking through the doors of perception... By the way, the title is taken from the pages of Oceano Mare, a novel by Italian writer Alessandro Baricco, and is a word in an imaginary African dialect that means "man who can fly".

"Scorci di vita su nastro di Mobius" (Glimpses of life on Mobius strip) features Oriental influences and sitar passages. Here the music and lyrics describe with a funny sense of irony a journey to India where vanity and richness contrast with honesty and poverty and where the horizon ends up to swallow your identity between false perceptions and mirages.

The following "Entanglementallistically Speaking" recalls the Beatles and Pink Floyd. It's sung in English and here you can find particles riding through the time, masses colliding one against each other in the space, Maxwell's equations broken with a silver hammer and Tesla's war of currents in a huge and creepy world that's almost impossible to decipher.

The beautiful, introspective "In fuga dal destino" (Running away from destiny) features dark vintage sounds and evocative atmospheres. The poetical lyrics describe a man running away from war and fear, trying to savour life in its multiple aspects, writing intense pages in the book of his life. It leads to the conclusive "L'equilibrista" (Tightrope walker), a complex track divided into three parts that depicts a dreamer strolling in a city, blas'. He's metaphorically walking on a tightrope above the void of a cruel reality, actor of his soul, breathing freedom, his spirit flying into his inner space... A great track!

On the whole, a good album from a very promising band!

By the way, now you can listen to the complete album on bandcamp: have a try!

Formed in the southern coastal city of Sapri, Italy, MOBIUS PROJECT began as far back as 2005 with the consistent lineup of Massimiliano Amato (guitar, vocals), Lucio Filizola (guitar, sitar, keyboards, vocals), Tony Guerrieri (bass) and Francesco Magaldi (drums, percussion) but in its near two decade existence has thus far only released this one rather short album titled RA ME NIVAR in 2014. While the album features five tracks including the three-piece closer "L'equilibrista," the album only barely exceeds the 32 minute mark which for a modern Italian progressive rock album is more like a mere EP than a proper album's worth of material.

Nevertheless MOBIUS PROJECT named after the famous Möbius strip in mathematics, delivered a rather authentic modern release of Italian prog coming a long way from their humble origins of covering classics from bands like Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Deep Purple. The band explains on its Bandcamp site that the title RA ME NIVAR comes from a fictional African language that was presented in the book "Oceano Mare" and means "flying man," so it seems the theme of the album is to overcome challenges perhaps so one can earn their wings? Only a guess since the concept is nebulous at best and lyrics are totally in Italian. The exception is the track "Entanglementalistically Speaking" which is presented in English.

While the title track starts off as a fairly standard sounding rock song with focus on guitar, bass and drums, the album is filled with interesting keyboard work, eerie atmospheres, intricate percussive drive and non-standard compositional flow. The band exhibits a fair amount of creativity in how it ties everything together and offers exotic sounds in the form of the occasional sitar appearance. The album is actually quite eclectic with rock guitars commingling with virtuoso piano runs and the occasional excursion into a jazzy sequence.

Essentially the sound of MOBIUS PROJECT is based on the classic symphonic Italian prog sounds of the decades prior with a bit more license to explore. This is an album i would love to like more but to my ears it seems pretty substandard and even amateurish in too many ways. Guitar riffs are basic, melodies while pleasant never go the extra mile to really suck you in and although there are two lead vocalists, Lucio Filizola and Massimiliano Amato sharing the lyrical delivery, neither one really has a fantastic range which this sort of epic music requires. In short there are many great ideas presented on RA ME NIVAR but not executed in a way that takes things to that next level that blow me away.

Considering this is a debut it's not a bad start but the band seems to have disappeared from the scene after this one release that has become somewhat of a rarity and most easily attained digitally. While i admire the dedication into making the album sound different than the average Italian prog of the 21st century, in the end it just doesn't seem adequately performed and a little haphazardly pieced together. A band that shows great promise but it seems after nearly a decade that perhaps this was a one-off never to be repeated. Whatever the case, an interesting modern take on RPI from a region of Italy where very little in terms of progressive rock has emerged.