HAERMEA (LA CAMERA INCANTATA)

And so it is, Riccardo Zappa that great and well recognized acoustic guitarist from Italy, continued a very delightful career with the release of his 4th effort, after that masterpiece called "Celestion" in 1977, the beautiful "Chatka" in 1978 and the no less good "Trasparenze" in 1980, "Haermea (La Camara Incantata)" was released in 1982 in the beginning of the 80s, time that is mostly known for its punk, glam, disco and pop movement in general, and time that prog had its re-birht with the Neo scene, Riccardo Zappa didn`t change his style nor changed the sound and musical orientation.

If you are not familiar with his music, then i assure you are missing something amazing, he is really a monster of acoustic guitar, his superb playing and arrangements are beautiful and everyone could be aware of that by listening to any of his songs. In this album you will find 8 songs and a lenght of 40 minutes when besides Riccardo, we will note the work of Pietro Pellegrini who was member of Alphataurus, on keyboards and Walter Calloni on drums.

The first song is entitled "440 Hertz" and it is a very promising opener song, a bit "strong" to be a Zappa song, i mean the playing is faster and with a happiest mood. "La Camera Incantata" is the second song of the album and one of the longest songs, with excellent arrangements making an extraorninary composition when we can appreciate the super work of Riccardo on guitars, there are some moments that i imagine him playing his guitar with a deep knowledge of it, i mean, he knows every single detail of his guitar and that makes his playing better, this song is magnific with some mood changes which seem to be progressive, at the middle of the song the drums enter again with a very nice playing going together with guitars.

"4311 B" is a shorter song but no less good, it has a more delicated sound and mood, sometimes being a bit jazzy with a very soft bass playing which was also played by Riccardo, it is a very nice moment, so enjoyable. "Serenata in Do Maggiore" reminds me at first bit to those Rick Wakeman`s new age moments, but then it returns to the soft Zappa`s style, this is one of my less favorite songs here, but it is also good, that is why i love his albums.

"Haermea" is another very relaxing song at first and actually a bit boring, but suddenly it changes to a fast tempo song with excellent atmospheres, and then it becomes even faster with a stronger feeling, nice song. "Torniamo a Salonicco" continues with the soft and calm mood but this time with an excellent percussion work which makes the song very tasty and enjoyable as well, not his best of course.

"Serenata in Mi Maggiore" is another highlight of this album which shows again his superb guitar playing very well accompanied with the atmospheres created by keyboards, it has some effects trhough the song, something different of what he has shown in his previous works. "Ursa Major" is the last song of this great album and reminds me to some moments of Celestion, this track is in my opinion a great last song for a great album, the mood is happier again with guitar-drums-keys excellent played.

This album has been the less easy to review for me, my love for his 3 previous efforts grew up immediatelly, this time i had to listen to Haermea at least 10 times to even feel the need of reviewing it and of course giving support to this extraordinary musician, i dont really know what happened to me, i might have found it less interesting or pretty similar to the other ones, i dont really know, but luckily i found the way to love it as well.

My eternal thanks to Andrea Cortese for the introduction of this virtuoso, and for you people, please listen to his music, his early albums might shock you! Again, 4 stars for this!

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