DIALOGHI DEL PRESENTE

This album has such stunningly beautiful, sensitive and vulnerable music on it! I'm reviewing the original 1977 album here, which is very short at about 30 minutes. These 30 minutes are really unlike anything else and are currently my favourite Italian album (and there are quite a few good ones, as you know).

This is very calm music, although it comes with a very rich instrumentation. "Primo Quadro della Conoscenza" is based on acoustic guitar and piano and has some violin and female voices that are used in an instrumental manner. This is quite harmonic but the voices add an experimental feel to it. "Secondo Quadro della Conoscenza" is carried by flute and Tony Esposito's meandering percussion with some oboe. It has some jazz- and contemporary experimental music influences and I'm actually reminded of the approach taken in the last two marvellous Talk Talk albums (minus Talk Talk's straight drums). I wonder whether Mark Hollis knew this album when embarking on Talk Talk's big transformation. The "Terzo Quadro" is a little slow piano piece, played so light as if Cilio had triggered the keys by breathing alone. Tony Esposito's percussion is back on the "Quarto Squadro"; also he touches his instruments very lightly and creates pulsating soundscapes rather than straight rhythms. Later acoustic guitar and oboe join in, and even later the strings, to create a fascinating twilight atmosphere. The last piece is surprisingly called "Interludio". It starts as a guitar piece; later oboe and violin join in again, changing the originally lighter mood to something more mysterious and deep. The guitar ends the album in a more optimistic fashion.

To me the music is an extremely touching expression of the uncertainties of finding ones way in life, and how a very sensitive character perceives it. This is one of these albums in which every single note played by any instrument is important and carries emotion. The songs are mostly of a free form; it is never predictable where they lead. I'd still think they were mostly composed (I can imagine some improvisation here, but overall there is much attention to how things work together). There is a very subtle balance between conventional and more experimental tonality; we are led along familiar paths but suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a strange landscape we have never seen before without knowing the way out. I'm very sad to read on Wikipedia that Luciano Cilio " died in Milan by his own hand at the age of 33", six years after recoding this album. I'd have wished the man who here shows so much of his vulnerable personality without even using words all the best in life, but this comes too late.

In any case, this is something very special and worth 5 stars without a doubt.