FETUS

Certainly one of the more controversial artiste of the peninsula (or should I say the peninsula ;o), Battiato owes a good deal of his early career to controversial issues such as abortion (this one) or pollution (his next). Whether the man was really having aesthetics and political issues or whether he was just looking for fame and glory through controversial public exposition, the first part of his career would be leaning for the first choice, while his post 70's career would meake you think the second supposition would be more accurate, for the man has literally touched almost every single music genre or style. But coming back to Fetus (and its super- tasteless "artwork", let alone the gigantic vagina entrance on the inner gatefold sleeve), this album has every right to be claimed as a unique record for the music on it, but the previous releases (all singles I believe) hinted at a light pop artistes.

So whether this album is indeed voluntarily experimental (and very clumsy) or the resulting (equally clumsy) work of a "poseur", while unclear as it may be, this Fetus album has every right to perk up proghead's interest. The group (we're talking of a septet, including Franco) is rather clumsy for most of their atonal or dissonance sound more accidental, rather than carefully planned, therefore hinting a lack of depth in the department, but clearly compared to future albums, it is clear that they were still learning their craft. In either case, the album seems to float on a solid layer of naiveté that ruins it for this listener. From the three part-opening track to the middle tracks that perspires un-programmed musical adventures (at least, let's hope they are un-programmed), the album probably makes sense to those that are close friends of the band. Not helping is the production of such an album, but the following one holds many more imperfections than Fetus.

Agreeing much more with my young Ricochet colleague than the calm Andrea, I tend to think that this music is too strident and astringent to really be natural and even honest. I remember hearing once the English version of this album and as you'd guess, the original Italian version simply rules.. But only compared to that one album. Not exactly recommendable, the Battiato album is only for those confirmed fans, that you'll easily guess I'm not a part of.

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