MACCHINA MACCHERONICA

Stormy Six are the Italian group that participated in the foundation of Rock In Opposition. Initially they were an anomalous beat group, with folk, melodic and hard rock inflections, Evolving, they have become a mainly folk group committed to the political left, alternating acoustic and electric arrangements. But Stormy Six folk has always been erratic and with ambitions that transcended the genre. Its peak was reached with Stalingrado, included on "Un Biglietto del tram", a song that will always be an emblem of their music but which will represent a dead weight, a chain that binds to the past because few in Italy will understand that with the next album, "L'Apprendista", Stormy Six become in effect a prog group, ready to enter the Rock In Opposition with the subsequent Macchina Maccheronica, which sees the participation of Georgie Born (Henry Cow) on the cello. The album, which recycles some of the music featured on Cliche, will be snubbed in Italy, but it will win an award in Germany and today demonstrates even more its greatness and vitality.

1. Macaronic Machine (5:39) With a goliardic tone, suitable for a Milanese cabaret, Umberto Fiori presents the Maccheronica Machine: "I come to this square / But I don't have real stories to sing / I have a repertoire of words / Signs, grimaces, scraps of the Variety / And the crooked sounds of this orchestra / ........ The Maccheronica Machine / It is a chewing press / He has a bite that is treacherous / But his innocent heart loves people / People take the sounds / If not, a nice nativity scene - why not? / With lots of violins / With mandolins and lamé drums / Call it music or literature / It doesn't make a lot of fear. "

The arrangement based on the clarinet (Leonardo Schiavone) and the trombone (Franco Fabbri) makes this music appear like a piece from a village band, as if it were the song of a group of barkers singing in front of a village festival where people sitting at outdoor tables drink and eat homemade food. The music changes rhythm and pitch, while remaining anchored to the folk dances (around 1-2 minutes it looks like a valzer but with a march step). The text, however, is anything but simple, and has continuous metaphor and symbolism. The music slows down towards three minutes and Fiori performs in Latin phrases with a solemn, liturgical tone (Repetita iuvant: repeating helps), after which a progression led by brasses with a Slavic accent starts, perhaps a polka, which reaches a climax almost dissonant clos to kletzmer music. Fiori's vocals, apparently like a street barker, has a grotesque and sarcastic tone. Is this sound, are these arrangements avant-garde or rearguard? Great piece. Rating 8+.

2. The Fireflies (7:37) Dissonant piece where the guitar of Fabbri, the group's ideologue, plays acid phrases that intersperse with the dissonant sounds of the cello and the clarinet. Fiori sings a psalm citing the tenants of public housing and the fireflies. In the lyric book there are notes explaining the lyrics - otherwise very hermetic. In this case, Stormy Six recall Pasolini from the "Writings Corsari" who speaks of the time of the fireflies, when people lived in the countryside, and of the modern consumerist time, whose pollution made the fireflies disappear. After 4 and a half minutes the violin (Tommaso Leddi) and the clarinet draw a neoclassical chamber music melody, but shortly after comes Fiori's bitter singing and the distorted guitars of Fabbri. This is followed by abrasive phrasing of guitar and plucked strings, with a completely new and unique sound. At about 5 minutes the piece almost takes the form of a song, then fades towards 6 minutes but finally the music returns with a long and wonderful instrumental ending. Masterpiece, Rating 9.

3. Madonina (0:51) + 5. Madonina (0:39) + 11. Madonina (0:55) + 13. Madonina (0:14) The 4 fragments entitled Madonina are a deformed quotation from a traditional Milanese song. To understand this quote, it is necessary to know that the Duomo of Milan, one of the finest examples of European Gothic art, has a very high spire on the roof on which a golden statue of the Madonna (Virgin Mary) rests. The traditional song, sung in the Milanese dialect, says in the first verse: "O my beautiful Madonnina who dominates Milan". These fragments take up the melody of the traditional song, written by Giovanni D'Anzi, and deform it (thanks to the arrangements by Franco Fabbri). In the first fragment, the song becomes a very fast, very pleasant dance, perhaps a "twist"; in the second, the song is slower and the group sings a phrase in the Milanese dialect; in the third fragment the song takes on a very enjoyable circus arrangement; in the fourth fragment, which concludes the album, Stormy Six try for few seconds to transform the song into an a cappella choir, but immediately after the first verse the song ends with laughter: the message is clear: we are not too seriously.

4. Megaphone (5:52) Fiori with the metaphor of the megaphone sings the voice, the lack of personality, the anonymity that gives the megaphone. The beginning is a march that then changes rhythm and stops at the sound of Leddi's violin, which plays very acute and dissonant notes. We find ourselves in an imaginative, atonal vision where you can hear the acid sounds of Fabbri's guitar, Garau's drums sound jazzy, and Martini's bass gives chills. This atonal music has an obsessive paranoid crescendo worthy of King Crimson, which unfortunately does not last long, then Fiori's vocals return around 4 minutes. The last minute is again atonal, almost noisy, until there is a sketch of an electric guitar solo with which the song ends. This is another masterpiece. Rating 8.5.

16. Bank (2:39) It is Introduced by a female voice with a German accent who takes the part of the listener and, aware of the listening difficulty maintained up to now, promises a moment of leisure. But this almost instrumental piece, very percussive, based on bass and drums, is certainly not easy to listen, it isn't funny: at most it has a paradoxical or paroxysmal joking streak. The only annoying sound is that of the battery. Minor piece which, however, retains the sound and intonation of the album. Rating 7+.

The sequence Le Lucciole - Megapono - Banca has radically changed the music of the incipit: from a village band to music that is increasingly cerebral, dissonant and finally also atonal, testing the listener's resistance. The intervals represented by the 4 pieces of Madonina therefore serve to relax the listener for a moment, like the lemon sorbet which serves to rinse the taste of the food eaten out of the mouth.

With Banca, the first side of the album closes and the listener, with a little fear, gets ready to the second side, which immediately reserves another very difficult song to digest.

7. Planet (5:40) It starts at a marching pace marked by the electric guitar, it almost seems like Zeuhl. Here, however, the dissonant sound does not seem to have an intriguing effect, on the contrary, it tends towards noisy, for the continuous stop- and-go. The text seems almost a casual set of words, syllogisms, juxtapositions, as Franco Battiato was doing at the time. Cities and subway stations are mentioned but no sense can be found and this in my opinion is a limitation of the lyrics of this album, which renounce, compared to the past, to any meaning and social message, even implicit. The piece is less difficult than the previous ones, smoother, but also less pleasant to listen to. Around 3 and a half minutes an instrumental piece starts with the drums playing jazz, the violins a neoclassical music and then the clarinet plays a very beautiful melody - the musical quality rises. This music is a continuous surprise - At the end the usual grotesque voice of Fiori returns, rising above the crooked geometry of the music. Rating 7.5 / 8

8. Rumba On Trees (2:56) Piece played live, I guess. The trombone and the sax mark the beginning of this short song with a metaliterary text that begins monotonous and linear and then develops a very interesting cacophony, one of the most avant-garde points of the disc, with a bass played a la Chris Squire. Again a big surprise. I would almost say that the sung beginning is the least useful part of this piece. Rating 8+.

9. Enzo (Live *) (2:16) It's a crazy joke, a play a la Frank Zappa - Stormy Six have fun. These are onomatopoeic sounds that start from the name of Enzo and say ... nothing, they are sounds without meaning, except in some cases where they say meaningless words. It was recorded the 28th April 1979 at Teatro Dell'Elfo, Milan. I don't know if it was appropriate to include it on the album, perhaps it is too self-indulgent a concession. Luckily it lasts 2 minutes. In terms of tone, it does not differ much from the playful parts of the rest of the record but here the game is really discovered, it is not masked by the refined and dissonant music. Difficult to rate this divertissement..... Hmmm. Rating 6.5. His function is similar to that of the Madonina: to give a little sugar before swallowing the bitter tablet of the heaviest piece on the album.

10. Minutes (8:38) The longest piece of the album has a hermetic text with endless quotes of limbs of bodies and pieces of arms and fingers. It is not clear whether it refers to torture developed by the police. The sound is dissonant and Fiori's singing is asynchronous respect to the rhythm of the music. The result is an almost surreal piece, always punctuated by the omnipresent clarinet by Leonardo Schiavone who plays a beautiful central solo. It is wonderful to listen in the background (so to speak, since it is very much in evidence) the great work that Pino Martini does on bass, truly spectacular. Fabbri's guitar, never intrusive and always at the service of the overall sound of the band, does a distorting work that can be heard together with the cello pieces. At about 6 minutes the vibraphone (Fabbri, again) also arrives, which together with the clarinet and the distorted guitar creates another wonderful piece of music. We are at the highest quality levels. Is it vanguard or rearguard? Now we can answer: it is avant-garde, and what an avant-garde! It is an absolute masterpiece. Rating 9+.

12. Somario (3:55) Somario (distortion of the word Sommario (summary) and somaro (donkey) that takes on a humorous connotation) reproduces a sound similar to that of the first song, very similar to a village band with a folkloristic march. The instrumental interlude elevates the quality of the music and Umberto Fiori's low opera singing is very enjoyable. A polyphonic piece sung in choir follows, after which Fiori introduces the band, as if it were the conclusion of a concert. The Frank Zappa of the heyday is around the corner. Throughout the album Fiori's vocals were never natural and spontaneous but always warped, from ironic to sarcastic, from grotesque to arrogant, making some pieces look like theater soundtracks of the absurd. The closing seems to be that of a live concert. (Shortly after comes the last fragment of La Madonina, very short, sketching a doo-wop.) It is difficult to rate this song because it is in the service of the live theatrical show it tries to simulate. But before the final piece the music is enjoyable. Rating 7.5.

Total Time: 47:51

I imagine that for many prog lovers this record will be indigestible due to its dissonant-atonal sounds and due to his arrangements which has nothing modern or electronic at all and which, in fact, is very old-fashioned. This arrangement based on drumming marches worthy of a village bands, clarinet, cello and trombone creates a sound worthy of a farce, popular but dissonant. The singing of Fiori, a singer not particularly gifted in terms of voice beauty and vocal range, is modulated on theatrical frequencies, but an expressionist theater, extreme, close to the theater of the absurd and, in my opinion, in this way it manages to find the dimension where he excells, in which he moves with mastery. With this album Stormy Six have managed to churn out an avant-garde work of absolute greatness, creative, hybrid, unclassifiable, a work that acts tremendously seriously but tries not to take itself too seriously. It is a late work, published when the golden era of prog was already over, a unique work also within the Rock in Opposition for its sound and eccentric arrangements. An absolute masterpiece.

Rating 9.5 / 10. Five stars.