QUIGYAT (WITH BORDA)

Found in other reviews and confirmed by an internet search, Quigyat is a Greenland's Innuit word to indicate a particular Aurora borealis which they think is made of the souls of "children died of violent death or in the day of their birthday". If so, I suspect a lot of those auroras should be visible in Palestine nowadays.

Anyway, this new Nichelodeon release features Teo Ravelli, aka "Borda" which is not just a guest as this is a real collaboration. The title track opens the album with a musical crescendo that at a certain point stops and leaves space to the great piano of Francesca Badalini (from I Sincopatici). Here Claudio Milano performs a sort of tragic recital. Knowing what Quigyat means, hearing "Dov'e' la mamma?" (Where is mum?) is a punch in the stomach, and I already know that more punches of this kind will come with the next track, previously published in the studio double CD "Bath Salts". After the vocals, the track proceeds with various soundcapes until a sudden stop when Claudio performs an acappella wordless chant vaguely reminding to a sort of funeral missa.

Then it comes "Alla Statua Dei Martiri Di Gorla". This was one of my personal favorite tracks on Bath Salts and it's again about children's death. It refers to an episode of the WWII, when a storm of English bombardiers was meaning to destroy a factory, but because of an error in the coordinates they destroyed a primary school killing about 200 young children. In this version the intro is a bit more melodic than in the original version, with piano and fretless bass. Or better, the melody is almost the same, but the fretless bass gives it a different colour. Knowing what it's about, would surely help to appreciate it, even for those who don't understand the italian language. I just mention a sentence: "Today let the bombs be only drunken skittles". This song gives me goosebumps everytime, not relevant, but my mother was born in Gorla and I have seen the statue.

Then a sursprise: it was since "Di Meola plays Piazzolla" that I didn't find the Argentinian tango mastermind in a progressive album. It's a slow song and the absence of the usual noisy background that's almos always present in Nichelodeon, shows that they are capable of melodic and not too challenging music...well it doesn't last long. The chorus features the noisy soundscape of Nichelodeon enhanced by the great percussion of Borda. In any case, as I have written years ago about the album "Cinemanemico", if they would ever try a more commercial approach, I think they have the potential. They are just too artists to be commercial.

"Malamore e la Luna" is my favorite Nichelodeon track ever. Its chorus is fixed in my mind and having discussed about it directly with Claudio, some time ago he has sent me a copy of the original score. My public "thank you" for it. I love this song and as on Gorla, also in this version the fretless bass adds a fantastic layer. The final is more noisy than on the original version, and I can't say which version I prefer. It's like asking which version of the Comfortably Numb solo you like. If you like it, you like all its versions. (just an example, nothing to do with Pink Floyd)

The closer is "Cio' Che Rimane" (What remains) which has already two versions: in Cinemanemico and in Bath Salts. In this version the piano reminds me a bit, maybe only to me, the first Emerson Lake and Palmer. It's a typical Nichelodeon track, with the instruments backing the theatrical vocal performance of Claudio, with piano only or with a complete set of noisy keyboards and percussion coming and going. In a point near the end of the track I think I've caught an echo of Radiata Quintet, another side project by Claudio Milano.

So what to say? Who is already in, can enjoy the new versions of those songs, but this can be a good starting point for whom intends to approach this band for the first time. Challenging but rewarding.