MACCHINA MACCHERONICA

An amazing band with amazing ideas. I found a concert of theirs on Dime a dozen, and was absolutely floored by the precision they brought to what can only be described as "challenging" music. I was told that their catalogue was in the process of being remastered and re-released. I seriously hope this is true, because music this thoughtful and provocative deserves to be heard over and over again.

If you form opinions of bands based only on the opening track of one album, you would be forgiven for assuming Stormy Six were a reed and brass cigányzene assemble, as there are many more elements to their music, touching on theatrical chamber music, romantic balladry, demented surf-rock and the exuberant ridiculousness of the barbershop quartet. Macchina Maccheronica even has time for a little heaviness. Note that this is not a mix-and-match album composed by a "hey, we're avant-garde!" style band - this is a cohesive and eclectic work featuring the necessary transitions between moods.

This folky, jazzy album is divided into several parts by short skit-like pieces all called "Madonina", which although enjoyable mostly just serve to place more focus on the longer compositions. There's nothing of "epic" length but then there's no reason for that term to apply to this sort of music. If you've enjoyed music by Alamailmaan Vasarat or Samla Mammas Manna then there's no reason why you shouldn't look into picking up "Macchina Maccheronica."

Quite a big change in their sound from the last one "L'Apprendista". This one is much more avant-garde with a lot of humour. I can't help but think that when they played at the first ever Rock In Opposition festival the year before(1978) bands like SAMLA MAMMAS MANNA and ETRON FOU LELOUBLAN must have had a big influence on them. Georgie Born(HENRY COW) has been added to the lineup on cello and Leonardo Schiavone(MAXAPHONE) has also been added on clarinet and sax.

"Macchina Maccheronica" is led by horns and vocals before bass and drums add to the sound.This is silly. It calms down 3 minutes in with spoken words that last less then a minute before the frivolity returns. "Le Lucciole" features violin, drums, horns and guitar coming and going quickly. The outbursts then last a little longer. This is really good. Vocals after 2 minutes(they come and go). An element of darkness arrives, as well as some angular melodies. This is my favourite song on here. "Madonina" is the first of a 4 part suite all titled "Madonina". They are all under a minute, and are fun. This first one has a swinging melody that is repeated a second time but at a faster pace. "Megafonio" opens with a horn, vocal, string and drum melody. It stops as different intricate sounds come and go quickly. A better melody than the intro arrives 3 1/2 minutes in but it's brief. Vocals and more intricate sounds jump in and out to end it. Nice.

"Madonina" is a short, uptempo, fun track. "Banca" opens with spoken female words that are replaced by a haunting soundscape, although it's hard to take this too serious considering what has gone on before. Male vocals 2 minutes in. "Pianeta" is ok. It features theatrical vocals at first (they do come back) until 1 1/2 minutes in when they sound better. Violin or cello 3 1/2 minutes in followed by horns, guitar and drums. "Rumba Sugli Alberi" opens with dual horns as vocals come in followed by bass and drums 1 1/2 minutes in. Dissonant sax sounds later. "Enzo" is just over 2 minutes long, but in concerts they would expand it to 30 minutes sometimes. This one is live as you can hear the audience laughing at times to the insane vocals and harmonies. "Verbale" is my second favourite song on here. Not really a melody to open, but clarinet and different sounds are coming and going. Vocals a minute in. Violin after 4 minutes followed by some heaviness. Nice. Violin is back 5 1/2 minutes in. Guitar, horns and vibraphone follow. Good song. "Madonina" has an island flavour to it. "Somario" is almost 4 minutes of silliness. "Madonina" is short and crazy.

There's not enough on here that I really like for me to give it 4 stars. I could see why many would rate this as their best though. It depends on your tastes I guess. My favourite from them is still "L'Apprendista". 3.5 stars.

With MM, Stormy Six reaches the depth of their musical madness and again fully justify their RIO adherence. Indeed they might even go a bit far with this album from 79, their music often being modern contemporary classical music along with weird and frequent vocals (maybe not as evident than Etronfou) and dissonant but without being shocking. With MM, SS is proposing more wind instruments than ever, plus a full-time cellist, but the music remains mostly acoustic, even if there is an electric guitar and bass, the latter is actually quite interesting throughout the album.

As I said, their music is now reaching a complete madness, but coupled with a certain kind of goofiness and a tad of circus-like atmospheres, plus the more experimental music, this makes the mostly-acoustic (there is some electric guitars) music even more inaccessible than it needed to be. I just never had the patience to actually understand what SS's music was about in this album, but sometimes they're quite impressive and at their proggiest, they're soundacular, the almost 6-mins Megafono being the highlight of the album. While there are many fine moments on MM, there are a few glitches and difficult passages, making its progress on your lazer beam a bit more arduous, I'm thinking of the a capella Enzo, and the following (and album longest) Verbale.

Definitely of SS's better (and certainly their most personal from their later discography) albums, MM could easily be in your first wave of SS acquisition or be part of the second batch, if you've enjoyed the more "conventional" albums. A good one, but maybe over the top , even in the RIO realm.

To me, Macchina Maccheronica is the perfect culmination of all that has gone before in the world of Stormy Six. A perfect blending of RIO (which in itself is a blend) and the accurate, passionate Italian rock music of the time. This must have been something to see live!

The music has that overall, loose yet tight, progressive feel to it. The vocals are stunning to me, and although I don't understand Italian, the signing is a story within its telling. All the musicians are wonderful in their interpretation of the music, but especially the percussion department. The bass is just that nice melding of the avant, with straight ahead solid rock playing, against very difficult passages that it shares with the drums. Both are performed with that beautifully typical European approach to music - complex, yet not egotistical.

This album could be put out today, right along side the new Italian avant-guard/RIO releases, and not only fit in, but take over the heart and mind of the contemporary listener. Usually I recommend going out and getting this - and of course I do now - BUT first, work your way to this masterpiece of release, starting with "Cliche" and working up to this. That's not to say that what comes before and after that time period isn't good, it's just that the three releases (Cliche, L'Apprendista, and Macchina Maccheronica) represent a mature growth within the RIO concept.

It appears that this Macchina Maccheronica is now released with a new remaster in mini LP format. For me, this is 5 star perfection.

Stormy Six took an instrumental from Cliche, added to it lyrics, made some arrangements and named all the album after it. This is "Macchina Maccheronica" (Macaronic Machine). This song is a grotesque tango for the first 3 minutes, then turns into waltz then polka...almost all the popular dancing rhythms of the old Europe, like a precursor on Weird Al Yankovic.

The intro of "Le Lucciole" is enough to make ckear thatthe first track is just a joke. The album is made of something different. If you have an idea of how an experimental band has to sound, this gives exactly this idea. The first RIO festival is an old story and this album is a follow-up, more experimental than anything else previously released by this band, with a fusion between folk and classic contemporary that can remind also to Zeuhl. The lyrics are experimental, too. The clear political statements that were still present on the previous album are now hidden if not disappeared behind words that sound well with the music but not necessarily meaningful. On "Le Lucciole" the role of main instrument that's usually played by the violin is now given to the clarinet. it's only after 6 minutes that the ensemble plays more orchestral making the track less challenging. Following there's another joke. A sort of "shake" version of "Madonina". This song, written in the 30s by Giovanni D'Anzi has become the anthem of the city of Milan where Stormy Six are from. Played in this way in just 50 seconds can be irritating for some of their most traditionalists-right-winged citizens. The "Madonina" is the statue of the Virgin Mary on the top of Milan's Cathedral.

"Megafono" (Megaphone) is a grotesque and very 'avant' song. A Megaphone is an essential device for protesters, and the joke is about the fact that the way it distorces a voice makes the speaker anonymous. There's a long "eclectic" interlude made of disconnected sounds, passages between violin, clarinet, bass and drums. At minute 3:40 there's a short rock section leading to another part with vocals. If you read the definition of this subgenre on PA, this song fits perfectly there.

30 more seconds of irriverent "Madonina" then a female speaker with an Eastern Europe accent introduces what she calls "a moment of relax". "Banca" (Bank) is an instrumental crazyness "Since when you're gone my life is empty...I can't live anymore, what will be of me? I have close this feeling in the bank!".

"Pianeta" (Planet) is even more challenging. If I think to what this band was doing just five years before... The lyrics are as hermetic as the music. A very challenging album that the Madonina interludes try to make a little lighter but it's very difficult and totally non-suitable for the Italian market of 1980. The clarinet makes a great work.

"Rumba Sugli Alberi" (Rumba over the trees) is a brasses and clarinet thing with vocals. two minutes of the most "melodic" stuff that can be found on the album even including the second half when bass and drums make it very chaotic.

I'm now thinking that what I'm writing can be interpreted as "very good and artistic music" by fans of Rio and Avant, and like an "Avoid it absolutely" by fans of more melodic and strustured things like symphonic prog.....

"Enzo" is a vocal choir totally out of what we can call "song" or "melody". It's an experiment about voice, not too dissimilar from what Demetrio Stratos made in his "Concerto all'Elfo". It appears to be recorded live but the applauses may be just added, I don't know.

"Verbale" (Report, intended in legal or bureaucratic sense) is in some way reminding of the political/social period of the band, but the lyrics are very hermetic. The good is that even if one can sometimes catch a sort of melody, this track is totally unstructured and unpredictable both in terms of notes and rhythm. Who makes a great work here is the bass that keeps a jazzy profile.

Another interpratation of "Madonina" and the last "regular" track of the album: "Somario". As Macchina Maccheronica also this track is taken from Cliche'/Pinocchio suite and "Somario" is a joke between "Sommario" (summary) and "Somaro" (donkey), so it's clearly related to Pinocchio. The track is recorded live.

The last 15 seconds of "Madonina" closes the album.

A challenging listen but also rewarding for the listener. Of course it's not an album to be listened while driving by car. Take your time and the right moment to dig into the various moments. A must have for the fans of the genre also because it's the first Stormy Six album of the RIO era.

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.