INCIDENTI - LO SCHIANTO

After seven long years, Claudio Milano has returned to give us another excellent collaborative album. Where before he simply unified his two long running projects NichelOdeon and InSonar, here he and his fellow musicians - now 44 total! - represent four groups, each with a unique take on RIO style prog that still forms together into a cohesive and powerful whole. The musicianship on display is some of the finest of the year, creating ever evolving songs that at once develop and obscure melody through twists and turns. The standout for me was This Order's cover of Peter Hammill's "Jargon King", with the industrial original profoundly updated to heavy, often guitar driven heights.

Most impressive of all, though, are the vocalists. Milano makes room across the record for a variety of other singers, such as the soprano Laura Catrani who opens the album with Not Me and the thousand voices of Coucou Salavy on the latter two parts of "Fabrizio Corona". As for Milano himself he has truly outdone himself both vocally and lyrically. Witness his reinterpretations of "Jargon King", compounding the nightmarishness of the original through his range and self-harmonizing, rendering the lyrics at once opaque and extra chilling. NichelOdeon's "L'ultima Sigaretta" is haunted by two of the other vocalists who perform voices from the past, as Milano paints a grim portrait of loss and devastation. And then there is what I believe to be the LP's centerpiece, the "Fabrizio Corona" sequence, which reads as a sort of rumination on art, and perhaps also parenting, the sea, and criticism. Milano leads in the first part, disgusted that his son (some of his music?) is not like the infamous titular paparazzo and 'did not know how to tell himself, only to exhibit[...] didn't know reality'. 'I threw my son off a cliff, or maybe he fell, I certainly felt like it?' The effect is compounded by creepy sampling of the Smurfs theme song. Salavy takes over from there, cheating death before reading "The chorus of critics on the last shore of the farewell", namely several reviews of "Ukiyoe" including PAers such as yours truly, in the process achieving surreal vocal heights to match some of Milano's.

Put simply, "Incidenti" is one of the most exciting and groundbreaking records to come out of avant-prog for years, a rich sonic tapestry that is all too human.