IOSONOUNCANE

Iosonouncane, literally "I am a dog", is the result of a mispelling of his real name, Jacopo Incani. IRA is his third album and marks a drastic change of musical direction. While the first two were mainly incentrated on lyrics, often satiric and vaguely on politics and social stuff, this long double CD is about muical experiments, with lyrics almost uncomprehensible, with a mixture of different languages even inside the same song: Italian, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic are what I've been able to catch.

It's highly experimental, there is electronic but also ethnic acoustic instruments typical of Sardinia, his home land. In some parts it's very dark and the lyrics work mainly as an added instrument giving some rhythm and sometimes adding extra darkness.

The tracks score from 4 to 12 minutes, and as often happens in the prog world, the longer are the best. The track that conquered my attention at the first listen is "Prison", with a 3 minutes dark intro before the lyrics, part in French, part in English, part in Spanish enter the song like a monotone chant, but after a while keyboard chords trasnform it into melodic. The way the chords are adapted to the monotone chant is pure genius, and this is only the first half of the song. In the second half an obsessive sequence of four notes baked by percussion and a sort of screamed vocals repeat the same sentences while the chaos increases. It's a mesmerizing song, and only one of 17 equally intense and genial.

I won't enter in details about the other songs, as this is representative enough of the album. Strongly recommended if you are looking for something really unique and different from anything else.