FRANCO BATTIATO

What a surprise! More than 20 years after his last very experimental work Battiato is back to tapes, loops and electronic. It caused him to be dropped off from the Recordi labelat the end of the 70s, after releasing albums like "L'Egitto Prima delle Sabbie" and "M.mlle Le Gladiatour".

Respect to the 70s, he now have more electronics available and it's not strange if he uses drones and sounds typical of techno-trance or whatever is called music.

"In Trance" starts ambient and spacey, but suddenly it's like he is an ecstasy doped DJ running after a rave party. I think Senmuth may like this droning with some ethnics behind. Only the keyboard chords are clearly Battiato's stuff for who doesn't know his experimental period. The outcome is chillout electronics for the first minutes, then sequences of noises, recordings and fragments of classical music introduce a section with a speaker, the poet Mario Sgalambro saying something whose meaning he only knows. Other fragments: indian or north-african music? all mixed with drone drums and a weird choir which seems coming from a catholic church. Very trippy.

"Corpi in movimento" (moving solids) is opened by a reversed tape, then a subtle keyboard and piano layout and poetry again. Well, more than poetry it seems a lesson of physics (Campi Magnetici means "Magnetic Fields"). The voice volume is below the piano so it's not easy to understand even for an Italian. After two minutes borderline with krautrock it starts a section featuring keyboard and operatic vocals. It's repetitive but melodic even if the main instrument is a tape played reverse. Two more minutes and suddenly the tape leaves room to piano and keys, then opera again....it doesn't have much sense continuing to describe the music. The relevant thing is that even if the instruments and the technique used change every two minbutes, the general mood of the track doesn't change.

"Fulmini Globulari" (Globular Lightings) is more difficult to follow. It starts like a patchwork of sounds and noises, very similar to the albums for which he was laid off. We can hear some electric guitar chords, tapes, then silence, then God knows what. Behind the noise there's a dark ambient background, but the central part of the track is very noisy and chaotic. The chaos is alternated with pieces of classical music, or opera.

"La Corrente Delle Stelle" (The Star's Stream) is a progressive electronic piece of beauty. Who likes spacey soundscapes and relaxing ambient music, like Alio DIe or Richard Rich will surely like this as well.

"The Age Of Ermaphrodites" is another patchwork of tapes with drones and a percussive bass note throughout the whole piece. Not bad if you are in the right mood, but it smoothly degradates into a cacophony of disconnected sounds. Exactly the kind of things he was experimenting in the late 70s.

"L'Ignoto" (The Unknown) mixes opera, tapes and the speaker. I think it's a recording from a real opera but I'm not an expert and I can't tell it for sure. After a short speech we are back to the chaos of the previous track. Tapes and a disc scratched plus some background opera emerging from the background here and there.

"Suoni Primordiali"(Primeval Sounds) is the longest track. Ten minutes of dark ambient and silence. Minimalistic.

"La Mer"("The Sea" in French) is the only proper song. I don't know if it's really a French song of the 50s or a parody. Quite nice and totally outplaced, it doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the album. Seems borrowed from his previous album, Fleurs.

Now rating this album is very difficult. I have the temptation of giving it a high rating because of the originality and also because Battiato has demonstrated to have not forgotten his experimental side and has reprised a "fil rouge" abandoned in the 80s when he went to make pop hits. This is an avantgarde album, difficult to classify and very uneasy that I can strongly suggest to the true fans of Battiato as a whole,not only to those who liked his more commercial period. Translated into the site's rules it's a fans only item. Sorry but it fits in the two stars.

This album starts a series of cover albums in which Battiato revisits and reinterprets classics from his youth with particular attention to the French chansonniers like Richard Anthony and Charles Aznavour and Italian singers strongly influenced by them like Fabrizio de Andre. Fleurs is the French word for "Flowers".

"La Canzone Dell'Amore Perduto" is one of the early successes of Fabrizio de Andre' and it's probably because I'm too used to hear it from him, but I don't think Battiato has added anything to this song, also the arrangements are very similar to the original. I can understand the artist's pleasure in singing songs which may have had a meaning for him, but it's not always the same pleasure for the listeners.

It's not the first time that Ruby Tuesday appears in a Battiato album, the first time it was only a mention at the end of his 80s hit "Cuccuruccuccu Paloma". Now it's a full cover, slowered down, no drums and a voice very different from Mick Jagger with the addition of some operatic vocals and a background singer. A classic rock song transformed into prog. Not bad.

Long before David Gilmour, Battiato started digging into classic French songs of the early 60s. "J'Entends Siffler Le Train" is a song from the mentioned Richard Anthony. It shows a folk influence, not so Briton to remind of Alan Stivell, but there's a bit of celtic. I don't know the original so I can't compare it with this version, but it's not bad and Battiato sings better in French than in English.

"Aria Di Neve" is from another Italian "chansonnier", Sergio Endrigo, known for his connection with Brasilian authors like Vinicious de Moraes, but also known for having been considered one of the most boring Italian singers of the 60s, with a sad expression always stamped on his face. An underestimated artist IMO....but this song is very boring.

"Ed Io Fra Di Voi" has been a big success of Charles Aznavour. He sung the Italian version which I think has sold more copies in Italy than in France. I must admit that I like this song, I had it recorded on a tape when I was a child and I still remember the lyrics.

Again Sergio Endrigo, as author this time. "Te Lo Leggo Negli Occhi" was a hit single of some "Dino", a singer who released some singles in the early 60s. This song even if released in 1964 can still be heard on vintage radios, but it's very dated.

The first true "Chansonnier" arrives with "La Canzone Dei Vecchi Amanti" which is the Italian version of "La chanson des vieux amants" by Jacques Brel. Not a bad song with poetic lyrics, but no prog at all.

"Era De Maggio" is a poetry written in 1885 by a neapolitan poet and put into music by a guy whose name I don't remember. It became a classic of the neapolitan traditional music thanks to Roberto Murolo. Not for this site.

"Che Cosa Resta" is another French song (Que reste-t-il de nos amour). I don't know anything about the original, but I find it very boring, especially after all those sequences of minor chords. The only remarkable thing is the vocal effect on the first part of the song which sounds 30s, like "One More Kiss" from the Blade Runner soundtrack.

"Amore Che Vieni Amore Che Vai" is one of the masterpieces of Fabrizio de Andre'. It's inspired to the French chansonniers as well as the others, it's based on minor chords but you can hear the difference. Differently from the other De Andre' song, on this one Battiato's voice doesn't sound bad (I mean less good than the original).

"Medievale" is a full Battiato song whose lyrics are probably taken from a minor poet of the 13th century. This and the following song are the only valuable thing for who looks for the "normal" Battiato.

"Invito Al Viaggio" (Invite to journey) closes this excursion to France and surroundings. It's a poetry from Charles Baudelaire with music by Battiato and surely the best song of the album. The operatic vocals supporting Battiato's voice and the keyboard layer, the initial speech, belong to the best Battiato. There's a pause after 4 minutes, like a ghost track that is very reminding of the Kraut/Avant period. A track this, which values for the whole album, that means, if you find it on i-tunes or similar, download just this.

There's some good in this album but honestly I find it unecessary and a bit too boring.

At the end of the 90s Battiato finally manages to obtain a fusion of his electro-pop vein and his prog and classical influences. Let me remind of the pyschedelic, electronic, krautrock and experimental albums of the 70s.

The result is a very pleasant album with some appeal for all the kinds of public that he has.

"Shock In My Town" has less hermetic and cryptic lyrics than usual. I like writing of this because Battiato has recently been fired from his political role in his Sicily for having said something "too clear": in an interview he said that the Italian parliament is full of whores, intending people who sells himself, abd the sentence has been used as pretest to fire him. Should he have used the language of his songs nobody would have had this opportunity for firing him. Back to music, this song has a background of classically arranged strings and electronics but the mood is dramatic, very far from his light pop of the 80s. There's something in this sing, maybe the repetition of chord passages "A- F" which reminds me to a long invective launched by another Italian artist, Giorgio Gaber, many years before: "Io Se Fossi Dio". Only the chords. The two songs are very different each other.

"Auto De Fe'" features an unusually heavy guitar but the chorus is very electronic instead. It's a song lighter than the first, even in the lyrics but it's surely not a pop song.Something which needs some listens to catch all the instrumental aspects inside it.

"Casta Diva" is the title of a song taken from the Bellini's opera "Norma". In the opera it's a prayer of a druid priestess. This song is very melodic and I don't see in the lyrics a clear reference to the opera, but consider that all I know of opera is based on Zeuhl so I can't really write of Bellini.

"Il Ballo Del Potere" (The Dance of the Power - intended as political power) it's a sarcastic parody of a "rain dance", speaking of moving from right to left then stop a while in the centre... then he speaks of rituals from Africa and Australia, I think to underline the different behaviours. However he confused a ritual from Papua New Guinea with Aussie Aborigens. The song has a lot of editing, loops, recordings and effects. Good song.

"La Preda"(The Prey) is very melodic but the passages are not trivial and I hear remains of the Battiato's krautrock period. Those two coexisting elements make it appealable for both the pop and the prog Battiato listeners. I won't comment the hermetic lyrics.

"Il Mantello e La Spiga"(The Mantle and the Ear) is the most appealing track for proggers, the one closer to the old Battiato. Based on minor chords, dark and with a rhythm that's slow and obsessive at the same time, like the "Rajaz" of Camelistic fame.

"E' Stato Molto Bello"(It has been very good) is another very good track. Slow and bluesy, I don't know why, it makes me think to Pat Metheny, probably for the background guitar in suaturation.

"Quello Che Fu"(Once It Was) Has initially a classical mood but is also a bit experimental. Luckily, his pop period has gained to Battiato a lot of fans who are used with his typical sound so that even a bit of experimentalism can be digested by his mainstream public.

Another lazy song with a rhythm similar to Metheny's Last Train Home is "Vite Parallele" (Parallel Lives).This tempo and the vocals are a Battiato trademark, but if you isolate those two elements, this can sound like a typical italian pop song.

"Shackleton"..I had a colleague with this surname, but I don't think it's dedicated to him...jokes apart, this is the most experimental track, including speeches, and telling a story without any hermetism. It's the southern version of Lord Franklin's story, at least is very similar, as story. Musically it doesn't have anything to do with the traditional(I think) made famous by Pentangle. With this song, understanding Italian helps a lot as you have effectively a story to follow, but I think that even without taking care of the lyrics, the 8 minutes of this song have something to transmit to the listener. This is the Battiato that I like more.

I can'tconsider this album as a prog masterpiece but it surely deserves all the 4 stars that I'm using to rate it. Was it made of "Shackletons" only, it would have been 5.

This is Italian composer Franco Battiato's sixth album, released in 1977. While his first four albums remain the core of his discography as far as progressive rock goes (and even then he was kind of riding around the edges), his next few albums until the end of the decade became increasingly abstract and minimalistic. Primarily known as a vocalist, he had stopped singing on his own albums by the fourth one, preferring instead to showcase tape experiments and repetitive electro-acoustic themes. In a bizarre shift of style, he suddenly became a mainstream pop star come the 1980s, but that's another story.

Battiato will probably be very disconcerting to the first time listener. The first track, the side-long "Za", was his most minimalist piece yet, pretty much a single piano chord repeated for nearly 20 minutes. Yes, that's right. Each chord rings for a variable amount of time, and his attack and release of the piano keys is varied in such a way as to produce some slight reverberation inside the piano, even after the chord has ended. Sure, it's tedious, but so is watching waves roll onto the beach. The trick to this is just to sit and focus on the flow of the chords; like snowflakes (or waves on the beach, to preserve my prior analogy), no two are quite alike.

Still, that's not a lot to hang your hat on. This would be a two-star album if not for the second side-long track, the very seductive "Cafe-Table-Musik". This piece presents a series of lovely repeated figures on the piano (melodies this time, not just chords), usually using the same compositional trick you've heard on King Crimson's "Frame by Frame": in this case two repeated figures laid on top of each other, one in 4/4 and one in 5/4, the effect of which is a phasing effect, and every so often (thanks to mathematics) the two figures "meet" again. It makes for a very pleasant, dreamy effect. There are about four of these in all, and they are interspersed with snippets of conversation, spoken word tapes, I guess meant to convey the feeling of being in a cafe. This track always makes me smile. It's the "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast" of the RPI world, I suppose.

This is more of an experimental, minimalist album, probably not of much interest to most progressive rock fans, and newcomers would be well advised to check out Battiato's first few albums before tackling this one. I enjoy it a lot, though, and feel comfortable with a three star rating.

'Basically we're all holograms'

Before I start, I just want to point out the fact, that 2 stars can convey just about anything on this site. What it actually stands for is "Collectors/fans only", which effectively means that to those enlightened few of us, the music can be anything spanning from superfluous spam to goose bumps inducing sonic manna from the heavens.

Franco Battiato is an eclectic gentleman. As a matter of fact, he just might be one of the few people out there who've tried and succeeded in making progressive electronic, avantguarde RPI, psychedelic folk, micro-tonal piano experiments and easy on the ears 80s pop music with a strong penchant for melody and the radio sphere. He does what he likes, and more than often he gets away with it. With Telesio he has created the world's first holographic opera. What?!?!?! Oh yes, inspired by the great philosopher Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588) and commissioned by the city of Cosenza, Battiato has written a contemporary opera that defies what most of us link together with a theatrical stage performance.

Everything, apart for the Philharmonia Mediterranea Orchestra, is presented on stage as holograms. All of the singers, dancers and performers are elsewhere during the entire show, although still represented up there on a huge holographic screen whilst the booming symphonic sounds roam.

First of all, and perhaps most importantly, I have sadly not seen this riveting spectacle. As much as I'd love to, my financial status denies me of a trip to the wonderful and charismatic country of Italy, but something tells me that this gig indeed would have been something to see - something to experience first hand and subsequently tell one's grandchildren about in half a decade or so.

Battiato has gone on record saying that he found the philosophical writings of Telesio both inspiring and modern. Yet one cannot do a philosophical opera. Telesio is however an opera about his philosophy. That sounds rather straightforward and given, but when you start looking around at some of the progressive rock concept albums being made about lord knows what, it becomes clear just how right this man is - and he is actually being honest about it. Alright he is still slightly artsy about the production and how everything works hand in hand here, but then again, he wouldn't be the one and only Battiato if he didn't say things like 'Basically we're all holograms'. Keeping in mind that this production interweaves classical music, dance, holograms, poetry and projection, and the fact that Franco boy has a deep devotion of Eastern thinkings and quantum physics - one suddenly realises just how much thought and effort he must've put into this venture, and perhaps to a small part of our progressive music community, the notion of being a hologram shot out by some strange metaphysical contraption, maybe nature itself, sounds rather alluring and profound. Now, I am no computer buff, nor am I electronically enlightened (maybe apart for the sonic side of things, but that's another matter altogether), but all of the mechanics surrounding this huge project seem overwhelmingly boring to me, but to those of you with an interest in how the ingenious people created this trailblazing event, I am almost certain that you can find something out there in the Google perimeter fitting the bill. To me however, it's all about the music, and I'll tell you straight off the bat, that putting this mother in the stereo was a very strange experience. I am just about the biggest Battiato fan out there, but I know him from his experimental rock leanings and his later soft rock and pop side, - so when I then heard this gigantic orchestra with huge sweeps of classical music, I needed to sit down for a moment and collect my thoughts.

I don't pretend to know a lot about opera, in fact the only ones I really know and occasionally enjoy are the famous ones by Mozart and Bizet's Carmen. But Battiato's opera about Telesio speaks to me. It's like watching a surrealistic movie about snow - feeling the beautiful cold and serene power of winter flowing over you. It's close and intimate, and even if you've been exposed to the matter before, you can never really know it before it melts away in your hands. Opera is like that. You've heard it in movies and on distant radios - conveying sounds from an ancient world of huge emotions and a time where love was red, but at least to me, the music has become synonymous with childhood dreams, which in itself is quite the feat.

On Telesio the music bears traces of the man behind it, and luckily so I might add. You can hear the distinct piano style of Battiato - the way he's always phrased and stitched music together - sometimes rather clumsily and apart, but with age this man has become velvety like a nob of butter. The characteristics are there in full bloom - even in the singers' vocal melodies - and they exude a natural curiosity about their surrounding world, relegating a thinking man's life like Telesio's quite extraordinarily and beautifully.

So why the 2 stars then? Because Telesio at heart is an opera album. You won't find anything prog rocking about it - no matter how hard you look (oh well maybe except for the bionic cover art that is...), and to those of you who like this sort of music, I wholeheartedly recommend you dive into the music - by all means do so and be quick about it too! But to the casual prog rock fan, this venture will almost certainly disappoint. So 2 stars for this site and its listeners and 4 for myself and any others with a taste for classical music and opera.

A fragmented experimental album which is surprisingly listener friendly. Battiato's voice is really quite nice and the recording is helped a lot by the fact that he sings in his native tongue.

'Pollution' lacks the craziness of it's predecessor 'Fetus'. It begins off with an orchestral waltz then veers off in all sorts of unpredictable directions. From spoken word, tenuous prog leanings, VCS3 usage, some nice acoustic guitar to ambiance in the style of UK band 'Caretaker', all within its feeble 33min 09 sec running time. Phew!

The VCS3 synth, although pretty cool at the time and most famously appearing on 'Dark Side of the Moon' sounds really cheesy in this day and age. Battiato sounds as though he's struggling to get to grips with this new technology and ends up playing what sounds like single line notes.

'Pollution' is like a weird mixture of Faust and Ash Ra Tempel but with better production and more use of electronics.

Not a bad way to spend half an hour if you're out for a walk . At least you're guaranteed of something a bit different.

This, the fourth album from Italian singer/composer Franco Battiato, continues the natural progression established by his first three albums, while pointing towards his future as well. Since discovering this artist a few months ago, I have been continually amazed at how consistently his albums just... resonate. Take any of the first four albums, give them a close listen, and I can almost guarantee you will not have heard anything like them before. As a fan of progressive rock for over 20 years, I really appreciate when I find an artist that genuinely can surprise me like Franco Battiato has.

Whereas the prior album, "Sulle Corde di Aries", was relatively easily identifiable as an electronic music album, "Clic" seems to jump all over the place -- sometimes it's purely electronic, sometimes there's an elaborate string section, sometimes it's tape experiments (e.g. the sped up crowd chanting "Block that kick! Hold That Line" on "Nel Cantiere Di Un'infanzia", reminding me of the end of Pink Floyd's "Fearless") , and sometimes it almost sounds like a relatively normal song. There's even a saxophone thrown in here now and then (e.g on "Propiedad Prohibida"), as there was on the prior album. The result of all this is that while this may be Battiato's most abstract, avant garde album to date, it might also be his most well-rounded and interesting. By not letting the listener jump to conclusions like "ah, so this is an electronic drone piece", or "ah, this is a sound effects piece", it keeps the listener guessing, yet the strange juxtapositions in style serve not to make the pieces more irritating, but rather more organic and human -- he is using his artistic instincts to make transitions and is free-associating in a way that makes sense, and which challenges the listener to take a ride on his wave of dream logic. That, I guess, is why this "Clic"s with me.

The final track, "Ethika fon Ethica", is almost entirely taken up with tape edits and sound effects, providing the listener with a preview of the style he'd explore further on his next album, "M. Elle le Gladiator". But for most prog fans, this album is usually as far off the deep end as they're willing to go. By its very experimental nature, and extreme risk taking, this falls well short of being a perfect album, but consider this a very strong 4/5.

It was since the first commercial successes of the 80s that a Battiato album was not selling like this one. Again, after some experiments Battiato was able to find a balance between his various "souls" and release a tasteful mix of ingredients.

The lyrics written by Sgalambro are still eclectic, sometimes cryptic and full of reminds to literature and historty. The music is based on the electronic pop of the 80s but highly contaminated by his original kraut and psychedelic influences. The electronic intrusions of classical orchestrations, voices, speeches and noises are not invasive so the occasional listener can even ignore them and the tracks can be passed by the commercial radios.

All the songs are averagely good, but a mention is deserved by "La Cura" which was the hit single taken from the album, a heavy dramatic love song with excellent lyrics which is still a classic that in Italy can be find on.the air even today. It's not my favorite song in this album, I prefer things like the closer "Serial Killer" which is more rock or "Splendide Previsioni" which is a good mixture of his various souls.

This album relaunched Battiato to the mainstream public. A lucky coincidence as I don't think that Battiato was looking for the commercial success. It only happened that the album (or better the single "La Cura") was highly appreciated by the mainstream public and critics. In prog terms just a good album, in my opinion a perfect fit in the three stars definition.

I recognize that this is surely not the best Battiato's album and effectively it looks like a missed opportunity of making a synthesis between the "kraut-experimental" and the pop periods of his music..

The album's structure is based on songs and the album is quite short as his pop releases of the 80s, but the music is totally electronic with classical influences and the quite usual presence of a soprano.

On this album Battiato seems to be very concentrated on the lyrics written by Manlio Sgalambro . I mean that it looks like the music has been written after the lyrics and on some tracks, especially on "Genualdo da Venosa" it seems that Battiato has struggled a bit to make the metrics fit in the music.

The title track, but most of all "Moto Browniano" and "Tao" are very high moments, in particular the first, but some songs are not so good to aim for the 4th star, some like "Piccolo Pub" and "Un Vecchio Cameriere" are for me below the third, instead.

My overall impression of this album is that it represents a moment of transition, an attempt of renewal not completely successful, but still good enough for who likes the early albums of Battiato.

The only exception is "L'Esistenza Di Dio" (The existence of God) which has initially a strong middle-eastern ethnic flavor. It's singular that a song which speaks of a philosopher studying theology in Leipzig has an Arabian/North African musical part in the first 3 minutes. Following a German woman speaks of theology over a soft keyboard layout later joined by a choir. In this part I'm reminded to Popol Vuh's "Hosianna Mantra" or to Vangelis of the late 70s.

In the end, highlights and lowlights of this album are balanced so the three stars rating seems to me the most appropriate.

Pushing further into the more fractured, avant-garde and academic styles of 1974's Clic, M.elle Le Gladiator is a difficult album to love. It is a loose-loose collection of what feels a lot more as an assortment of studio ideas and experimentation than proper and working compositions. You cannot really talk about a collective identity - no cohesive whole - when listening to the three tracks here. Instead you are served three rather distinct dishes, none of which is especially palatable taken at face value.

All Battiato's albums up to and including this point come with quite a distinct experimental and esoteric vibe, regardless of the differences between them, but for the first time he drifts a bit too far into a detached, coldly insular and introverted place in music. I am sure the music here has some kind of deeper meaning to Battiato himself, but it is woefully hard to connect to it on an emotional level for me as a listener.

In short: music for the brain, not for the "soul". Bull[&*!#] statement, but you get the point.

The first of the tracks here (Goutez et Comparez) is an erratic, flickering sound collage of what I guess is primarily various radio and television snippets, both musical and simple talk broadcasts, interspersed with small voice clips and mumblings of Battiato himself. Fusing it all together is a selection of short, eerie and slightly foreboding (often electronic) noises and melodies. Twisting and turning sharply in emotional intensity and content, the strange mix of what I imagine is an expression of apparent nostalgia, a form of social commentary and pure effect-seeking clips feels distinctly unpleasant after a while; a bit like randomly browsing through a malfunctioning human memory or delving into a fever dream. It is surprising then that about halfway through it transforms into a shimmering, textural sequence of near crystalline quality. Light and clear with amorphous synthesizer dancing about in the background. It does not last for long though, as it dies off and leaves room for a towering church organ chord blasting on for several minutes, with minor modulations and changes to it along the way, as well as some lovely colouration from background synths and sparse but poignant vocals.

...and out of the blue, just like that, Canto Fermo starts. More church organ meanderings, working its way from humble and rather dark, spacey ominous beginnings (the stereotypical horror sound comes to mind) up to more familiar Classical themes and motifs, albeit a lot less formal and structured. After a few dynamic minutes of this, warm, indistinct synths gently envelops everything in a soothing and rather beautiful ambiance. Cue another abrupt end.

...and it is time for more church organ in the last track Orient Effects. This one can be seen as the marriage of several disparate parts of the album. The dominance, grandeur and vastness of the church organ finds a way to blend with the more discreet, sequenced textures into a surprisingly successful form of ecclesiastical prog electronic/ambient. It is a refreshing mix of low-key, understated finesse and the awe-inspiring, once again working with the simple of idea of the sustained church organ chord with synths (and I would say even more organ) moving about in wondrous way underneath it.

Gently abrasive, grandstanding, epic and always a bit cold and theoretical. Musically, it is an often overpowering affair, yet equally often very minimal in the same compositions.

So how does it make you feel? Well, in some ways it does not. It is somehow just above and beyond that. But at times it still manages to really lift you up into a sort of higher state of being, a sense of leaving the mundane behind and traveling to a clearer, brighter world of...whatever! It is not joyful, not sad, not spiritual or emotional like that. No, it is something altogether more clinical, pure and refreshingly cleansing. Strange stuff.

Getting there is difficult for me, even though it is rewarding when it happens.

Hard to connect, a bit difficult to digest, widely different feelings about it from listening to listening, but occasionally wonderful. Brr.

On average around 2,5 stars. Rounding down this time.

//LinusW