PER UN AMICO

In the early nineties, one friend, called Pepe, who still plays the contrabass in the "Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional" (the "National Symphony Orchestra", based in Mexico City), who of course is a very good Classical Music trained musician (and a very good electric bass player in some Prog Rock bands too), invited me and other friends to see a concert in one of the Goverment`s Professional Classical Music schools. That day, we heard a very strange concert played by a little orchestra (no more than 6 members) which included violins, a contrabass, horns, etc. They played original compositions which consisted of strange noises played in their instruments, in the dark, without lights in the little auditorium. We heard elephants crying, etc. ( a real "horror movie soundtrack music", for my taste). When the concert was finally over, I said a bit sarcastically to Pepe, without really trying to be offensive to him: "Do you really think that it is worth to study Classical music for several years to play noises, very well done technically, in very good instruments? Is not really a waste of time and energy to write noises in scores and play them?" He wasn`t angry. He simply told me that it really was very interesting for him to see this little orchestra. After all, he also likes Adrian Belew`s King Crimson, so I really thought that I wasn`t going to convince him after all! Four or five years ago I also went to a "Jazz Festival" in another Goverment`s Professional Classical music school. I expected to see and to listen to very good music done by a very good band. The band was/is called "Cráneo de Jade". They initially played a 45 minutes "Avant Garde-Jazz" "musical" piece, also full of noises, done with very good technique in each instrument, and after this I left the open air auditorium. What a waste of time! They continued playing the same kind of "music"! (Sorry if there are some Fans of this kind of music, but I don`t like it!).

Why I start this review with this? Well, because I think that, in my opinion, if I was going to study to be trained as a Classical Music musician I could really make very good melodical music, with feeling, really using all the musical knowledge to create something musically good. Well, the musicians in this band P.F.M., as I wrote in other reviews for their albums, are clearly for me Classical Music trained musicians (I could be wrong), and they really used all the musical knowledge they have to create an excellent album, full of songs with melodies, with good use of musical landscapes, emotions, etc. This album is a mind trip for me, very enyojable from start to finish. The album caughts one`s attention from the first song to the last. It could be a bit unfair to said who in the band is more important than the others, but in my opinion, in this very melodic album the keyboards are the most important thing for me, because they create the musical atmospheres on which the guitars and the wind instruments / violin play very good melodies and arrangements. The bass and the drums sound very well, too. There are still some influences from the early KING CRIMSON`s albums, with the use of the mellotron, and the drums sound very influenced by Michael Giles`s playing. But of course, P.F.M. is a very original band in sound and in compositions.It is really difficult to review an album like this and said which songs are the best, but I can say that I liked ver much "Appena un Pó" and "Per un Amico". "Geranio" has a very good finale. There are a lot of influences from Italian Folk music, I think, of course because they are Italian!

In my opinion, P.F.M. is the best Italian Prog Rock band that I have listened until now, and this is their best album that I have listened from them (but I still have not yet listened to all their albums!). I think that this album and "Cook" are their best albums from the seventies. Very recommendable.