DISTORTIONS

Heh, why has H. Tical (aka Armando Sciascia - a renowned Italian "sexy film" composer) produced such a seriously heavy stuff?

A interesting album indeed, recorded by BLUE PHANTOM, a secret anonymous project with very little information around them. But at the same time, we can understand why psychedelic progressive rock fans can be immersed in this obscure album. Listen to the first track "Diodo" and we can feel something of sinkable depth with a bunch of heavy riffs by rigid bass & drums and an exploded guitar solo, plus quirky, weird keyboard sounds. What a cunningly worked-out musical trap by H. Tical. Also "Metamorphosis" is not simply a bluesy, tragic but a perversely vertiginous song. Unchanged sarcastic keyboard sounds and noises around us. Delightful drumming and cool melodies can be impressive in the following hollow-chaotic track "Microchaos" or the first magma of B-side "Dipnoi". "Compression" has some bubbled guitar, keyboard sounds and heavy progressive elements. "Equilibrium" is characterized with sentimental, unrefined keyboard chandeliers upon extreme noise terror by warping bass playing. Terrifically violent "Violence", with a tragic guitar solo around over. A short but pure psychedelic ballad is the next "Equivalence" in a dark shower of dark guitars, bass, drums ... contrary to "Distillation", a heavy heavy hero song by the (maybe) same instruments. The last "Psycho-Nebulous" is slightly artificial man-made machinery one but enough to spread Tical's powerful catecholamine.

Rock Progressivo Italiano? Forse no. Rock Psichedelico Italiano? ...Si!

High volume guitar, acid organ and a riff that reminds clearly to Iron Butterfly. This is how this album welcomes you. It's a project of Armando Sciascia that was used to write B-movies soundtracks. Diodo has something of the spy-movie, but the organ sounds as it was played by Rick Wright in the 60s.

All the tracks are heavy and jazz-oriented, still good for a thriller movie if you want, but images are not necessary. The pity is that all are limited to 3 or 4 minutes maximum so they have to fade out.

The level is good throughout all the album, including the sound quality. Highlights are tracks like "Compression" (very Floydian), the hard-rock of "Dipnoi", the clues od Syd Barrett on "Distillation" and the most acid track of the album, "Psycho-Nebulous".

Being good for soundtracks means that all the music is evocative of dark or weird situations. Not scary but "alerting".

Not an absolute masterpiece of the genre but a really good album that's one of the few existing documents of Italian psychedelia of early 70s. A period dominated in Italy by the Dylan-folk songs of singers-songwriters and the beginnings of RPI.

You can stop before the last track, that's just a closing filler.