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Zauber - Zauber [Aka: Il sogno] CD (album) cover

ZAUBER [AKA: IL SOGNO]

Zauber

 

Prog Folk

3.42 | 35 ratings

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ClemofNazareth
Special Collaborator
Prog Folk Researcher
3 stars Zauber claim five studio albums in their discography, but this is the only one released back when they were first formed in the seventies. Three others are made up of demos, rarities and other material that was unreleased until the band reformed in the nineties. The group supposedly closed out their career for good with a 2001 studio recording titled ‘Profondo Blu’, but resurfaced once again five years later with ‘Draghi e Vampiri’. As far as I know they’re probably still at the task of making music today.

I’ve heard some of the nineties reissued stuff, and most is a bit on the weak side so it’s understandable why it was never released when it was originally recorded in the seventies. The arrangements aren’t particularly progressive and the tempo of most tracks is closer to lounge-act music than to either prog or folk.

This album is striking in its differences though. First, most of the songs here are unhurried, with intricate piano and what sounds like a clavinet making a beautiful sound that the percussion and synths just sort of play in and around. I think the clavinet-sounding thing might be a xylophone or glockenspiel. Both of these are credited in the liner notes, so it must be one of them. And also the few songs like the title track where the tempo does pick up still manage to retain that folksy feel instead of lapsing into a weird form of easy-listening music like ‘Phoenix’ and ‘Est’.

“Dietro la Collina” is the most charming piece, with its light and airy piano accented by the xylospiel (or whatever it is) and an almost humorous oddly-timed stark snare drum beat that at times seems completely unassociated with the rest of the music, but the whole thing works somehow.

Vocalist Liliana Bodini isn’t as prominent as she would be on the records released in the nineties, and in fact even when she does sing on tracks like “Riflessione Spleen” the instruments dominate and she plays only a fleeting and secondary role. That works quite well actually, and I like the sound more than on ‘Phoenix’ where she seems to be trying too hard to carry the band (and doesn’t need to). By the way, I don’t speak or read Italian but any song whose title translates to roughly ‘Reflections on a spleen’ must have some really interesting lyrics.

I’m not sure if this is a concept album or even one with a common theme, but with a title like ‘Il Sogno’ (the Dream) one could reasonable make that assumption.

In any case, “Id” is short but is a beautiful acoustic guitar instrumental with more of the xylospiel and I think maybe a cello (or the synthesized equivalent of one), while “Deimos” (moon) is more strident with stilted organ riffs and soft but almost martial-sounding percussion. This track definitely has a xylophone and it seems to be dueting with the piano through most of the song. Very pleasant if not overly complex.

Zauber are another largely forgotten seventies act that has had a few minor resurgences over the subsequent thirty years or so since their original breakup. The sound is easy to listen to but not overly stunning or ground-breaking. I like it as background music, and have this one on the stack of CDs that are appropriate enough to play in my office without headphones. Not quite Muzak, but mellow and classical enough to not offend anyone who might happen to walk by. That in itself is good for three stars I suppose, but no more.

peace

ClemofNazareth | 3/5 |

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