One can half imagine at Progressive rock meets they have heateddiscussions about which of Battiato's LPs are the most superior. It'sprobably a toss-up between this from 1973 and Clic (1974) whichgarnered a reissue on Island records, one of the very few feats ofcross-over that Italo Prog achieved. Clic is a little too anti-septicfor my now hoary tastes, and I'm suspicious of anything like BillBruford, Peter Gabriel or Robert Fripp's work which dons a smart suit,tidies up the synth parts and saunters into the post-punk vanguardpretending it was now trendy.

Like those mass classroom scraps you had when you were a kid, thelame thing to do when the teacher showed up was to tuck your shirt in,loiter at the back pretending you were just examining the poster withthe frog-spawn on it, that in no way were you involved in any kind ofdebacle. The stupid kids on the other hand didn't notice the teacherhad come in, might have still been brawling, perhaps one holding adustbin in his hand. Clic is a little bit too clean and thus, eventhough ten years ago we might have applauded it for being prescientlynew-wave, now I sort of despise it for its sleek textures.

My friend, the scholar Jon Dale gets plenty of props from me, so hecan field the occasional catty swipe; he loves it! Jon is something ofan authority on Battiato, indeed he was the first person to play meany, but in some way I suspect this may in some way be to do with thefact that FB survived the blood-letting that was punk and went on to dorecords such as "Cafe-Table-Musik", which Dale incidentally loves. Daleveers away from the unacceptable horror that these Italo Prog recordsrepresent and indeed some of the stuff he recommended I check out wasrather too tasteful for me. Stuff like Prima Materia recordings and theDie Schnatel label. Ah, the meta-critical, nitty-gritty, bitch-festthat is music blogging! Doncha just love it.....

"Sulle corde di Aries" is a masterpiece and an essential purchase.Franco's singing is almost in the style of a Franciscan monk layeredover these harpsichord and hand-drum grooves which are drenched inecho, hand-triggered bass pulses reverberating over freely-pluckedmbira. In many ways it follows the original hairy impulse of minimalmusic as manifested in Terry Riley records like "Persian SurgeryDervishes" but Battiato's feel for melody and harmony is infinitelysuperior, one finding oneself adrift on these organic, divinely lyricaltracks is as though one was drifting down-river on a makeshift raftencircled by swallows.