IL PAESE DEI BALOCCHI

One of the many criminally overlooked bands by RPI enthusiasts, Il Paese Dei Balocchi is rarely mentioned when people speak of Italian proggers like Orme, Banco, and Osanna. And yet they left us with one of the most delicately beautiful and esoteric titles from the classic period. It is not a typical Italian symphonic album beyond the fact that it is unpredictable and interesting, rather it takes some of the basics of ISP and blends them with both classical music and space-rock influences. The result is like the soundtrack of a daydream with a rolling palette of one little vision after another. Formed in Rome in 1971 from the ashes of a band called Under 2000, PDB featured the talents of Fabio Fabiani (guitar), Marcello Martorelli (bass), Sandro Laudadio (drums, vocals), and Armando Paone (keys, flute, vocals). They convened in 1971 with producer Adriano Fabi and recorded this gem in only two weeks. Orchestral director Claudio Gizzi played a crucial role in the string arrangements, carefully rewritten and adapted to the rock sections of the band. It was released in 1972 on the early side of the classic period. The band played several of the large Italian festivals and TV appearances in '72 and '73 before splitting up. The material for a second album was written and recorded in demo form but tragically never released.

The music of PDB is not easy to describe but imagine taking a bit of something like Rovescio Della Medaglia's "Contaminazione" and mixing in some "Atom Heart Mother" era Pink Floyd. Such comparisons are never adequate but they give one a starting point. PDB's rock element is anchored by dramatic organ runs, disciplined electric guitar riffs and thudding tom-toms as witnessed in the heavy opening section. Soon a harsh break announces this will be no typical rock album as the rock is cut by sudden strings riffing in extreme tension, oozing discomfort. We are treated to some beautifully scored classical music in yet another very good merging with Italian prog. The final main element is found as the rock and classical are rolled out into a dreamy, occasionally verging on ambient space-psych soundscape. Choired and straight vocals given a unique effect by the heavy reverb of St. Euclide's Church where there were recorded, blended with organ and guitar drift into sections of quiet, eerie unease allowing the mind to drift a bit. But the weirdness and experimentation are always grounded by a good sense of fleeting melodies which at different times impart whimsy, nostalgia, sadness, and joy on the listener. Yes this is a feast of sound and indirect emotion, never easy and rarely obvious. The whole thing settles on you like a cloud as you wander through a completely non-linear event. There is a great director from Poland called Kieslowski whose films often leave the viewer confused, searching for answers that appear to be around every corner but vanish just as you get there. The mysteries are deep and wrapped in great visual beauty. Such is the experience of this album so you must be willing to enjoy the search more than the concrete answer. Regarding the conceptual themes of the album, guitarist Fabiani would tell Augusto Croce of the ItalianProg.com "Generally speaking our album is a journey of the man into himself...his ego seen here as a Toyland, where we all would like to live in, escaping from a reality that doesn't satisfy us, and where he who pulls the strings is a despotic king that manipulates us as puppets. It's a search for ourselves and our own human identity going through the right and the wrong trying to understand who we are, why we are here and where we are going, until we reach the hope....a vain hope, because at the end of that journey we discover that the bitter reality that we live in, is nothing else than a mirror where we can see the reflection of our soul. All this is contained in our album, with the use of various characters.. always searching for something, probably searching for ourselves or our own place in that society that we didn't feel as our own, and that we thought we could change, especially with our music trying to put each of us in front of his responsibilities toward that society in which we used to live and still we live in."

I'll be completely honest here. While this album is a masterpiece to me personally I have to stop short rating as such: this is highly esoteric and demands a patient listener willing to grow on it over time. It certainly is not an album with the wide appeal most would feel crucial to a 5-star rating. There are few obvious rock grooves to grab onto here. Your first play may be frustrating. Your fifth may still feel like a chore. But if you're like me eventually every play will be a treasure of the true spirit of progressive music-hearing emotions expressed in a unique and interesting way. The Vinyl Magic mini-LP sleeve features liner notes and the albums delightful artwork. I feel this album is a must for Italian aficionados and any others intrigued by the description above. I hope very much that the second album mentioned above emerges someday, a hope born of Fabiani's closing comments in the interview: "We want to release together the second part of our album on CD, but we're still looking for the right musicians to play our music, I'm afraid that I can't find the right musicians here, not that there is no good musicians around here, it's just that all of them interpret our music following their tastes, that are far from what we have in mind. Maybe it's just that I'm too old, don't know, but for sure the music of the past, like progressive rock, played with modern technologies and by modern musicians, technically gifted and real....monsters, seems like a tasteless soup, probably due to the lack of good cooks with the right experience...." Il Paese Dei Balocchi is certainly not a tasteless soup! 9/10

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