Hi Micky,

 

well  exams have gone very well, I think.

 

The three-days-tour-de-force has not impressed me very much, after all, despite only the headache at the ending of the third day.

 

Other colleagues who were on their second or third try had painted me a more dramatic scenario...let's hope it will be my first and only experience...

 

BTW, 2 thousand people that completely fill the Padua fair pavillion isn't a common experience, after all.

 

Civil law's cases I've chosen: hereditary law (the old father dies and disposes for his entire patrimony in favour of his youuuung girlfriend... one of the sons asks for the revoke or the invalidation of part of the will...but we had to defend the yooouuung girfriend...and she was right!).

 

Land law (problems of qualification of contractual based or erga omnes actions...).

 

Penal law (we had to defend a forger of money).

 

The official results will follow (from Bologna) within 6 months (no response until may or june 2008...unfortunately!!).

 

 

BTW, Mezquita and Man's Slow Motion arrived yesterday and so today I'm on with the (necessary) listening sessions.

Maybe this third album would qualify as my fave Battiato album, clearly by now the group has really learned what minimalism is all about… taking much lessons from Terry Riley’s albums ranging from In C to Rainbow In A Curved Air. Gone are the usual rock instrumentations and Aries does truly delve into an indescribable molten lava of sound melting folk, classical, avant-garde, modern,

Only four track on this monster of album (all too short if you ask me), but everyone of these are pure a gems that glitters on its own. Starting on the sidelong (but just 16-mins) Sequenze, long dronal synth sounds mixed with a duo of unusual wind instruments for rock (clarinet and oboe) and reminiscent of the Third Ear Band, are slowly guiding us towards a heavenly or celestial almost liturgical singing. The rest of the track hovers between TEB, Tangerine Dream, Terry Riley, Moondog andc some Umma-Saucerful era Floyd. The track ends slowly by fading out the industrial chopper sounds and gets an extension of African instruments.

The flipside starts out even colder with the synths freezing Schulze or Froese’s fingers on the keys, but the track soon evolves through a series of prog passages, including more celestial sc at vocals, to end in a superb sax outro (it sounds like Wyatt’s incredible scat vocals on Rock Bottom). A delicious treat. Rivoluzione is probably the weaker track on this album, with Battiato’s vocals going one over the top, but a superb cello catches the pieces and glue them back together. Again the tracks seems to veer towards early post-Syd Floyd. The closing Oriente has an even folkier and more medieval feel than Third Ear Band and sending this writer flying around his planet.

Definitely in my top 10 from Italy (but soooo unlike from what the usual production is of that land), this album is by far Battiato’s best and his only masterpiece. Although I speal highly of this album, I find it hard to recommend it to someone wishing to discover Italy’s progressive scene, but it is bloody outstanding.

FRANCO BATTIATO

Sulle corde di Aries

1973 Studio Album

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Review | Album details | All reviews | Buy Music Review by Ricochet ("Philip Desmond Halloway")
[Special Collaborator Electronic Prog & Art Rock Specialist]
Posted 1:20:21 AM EST, 7/31/2007

Out of sync and out of robustness within a general movement and shine, Battiato's music, at least by his most splendid creations, have the rhythm of a fascinating expression, a pretty decent art and...a progressive fling, questionable only by its burst of excitement and over-grown sensation. It's reckon that the most surprising things in his way and joy of music also mean something more suitable, conventionally, than you can imagine. Otherwise, the trick is simple: as much blend as possible, but also a clearness (owning almost to the artist's pure heart and golden creator's peels) in all shapes and sizes, moments and fractures.

Sulle corde di Aries is mostly in line with Battiato's sweet on surprising classic progressive taste, though, just like hit bit more unfocused inventiveness belongs to more abstract colors of the genre, this sort of an album could also expand or entice a music's completely different harmony: just to be safe, it seems this one relates to more artistic albums and more restless brinks of imagination, like Clic or Foetus are also composed. In style, opinions are also broken in many ways, but don't harm the music itself: classic and affectionate rock, minimal conceptual lyricism, rich or acoustic instrumentality, eclectic beginnings of some free music, riddles and chants of peculiar tones and attracted sense, a debuting swing into avant-garde and esoteric orientation, experimentalism by the pound and artistry by some you can't feel more close and more absorbing. To not forget, the songwriting is an impediment to easy music, there are folk atmospheres personalizing the lack of fluidity and mesmerism, and there is an entire feeling of very simple electronics, synths and analogies, part of a full vision, but of a blackout of strength and intelligent uniqueness.

The album, short in its pedantic compositions, has four roots of creativeness and long appasionata animations. Aria di rivoluzione isn't spectacular, but has such a suave mirth of harmony vocals, mixing a more weird and dramatic German narration. The piece is of pure simplicity, but forgets nothing in its dolce grave contrast. Da Oriente Ad Occidente is also suggestive, the piece is again short, but the blossomed music goes on folk guitar patient improvisation, ethnic sensible language and figurative, though tad cemented, transcendence. Sequenze e frequenze" is my favorite, a long, juicy but also artistic-dissolving dark piece, eccentric on experimentalism, synth sequence and minimal atmospheric conception; the middle-part has a shrill, through a sort of glass-sound play tune, on astral or harsh-vibrating pulses. The piece, so steamy yet contemplative, seems of a very pleasing and intense satisfaction. Mellow on the art (though is it really inartistic?), ravishing on the sound, one almost independent and circulant. The last piece, Aries, is finally neither vociferating (notice the "voice" inflexion), nor ambient and not even close to elegantly experimental, it has a passionate symphonic sound and it is more like a tranquil deep blend of instrumental influence on shady onirical slow rock moves. Dripping percussion, caramelized guitar, synth-ethic keyboards and a chorus line of typical sostenuto. But, wow, a quirk sax-jam right at the very end of the piece.

The album, primarily insatiable, difficult, progressively unaccommodating and pluri-artistic, is yet enjoyable and full of a brightness that settles its gifted eccentricity in milder acceptations. For this being my first RPI album...ever!, I was impressed and melted away with the best moments. After deeper listens, the style pales from being referential, but that doesn't happen to the beauty inside.