MUSHROOM'S PATIENCE

The strong Italian accent of Dieter Craf sounds a bit weird when he sings in English, like on the title track, but it's not worse than the accent of Eloy's Frank Bornemann, just yo give an example, so it shouldn't be a problem for a Krautrock listener. A weird accent fits well with weird music.

There's also a female vocalist, not that weird, with a very nice voice and a good extension, able also of quite bass notes. Her work on the short "Tractor Train Orchestra" is remarkable. This song is a sort of blues accompanied by a banjo but ending with an unusual superposition of vocals, all backed by a train noise. This is not the only song with blues connections enhanced by the banjo. "Memoria Sonica", despite the German speech is a proper blues, and one of the tracks that I personally like more.

The use of instruments like accordion, the mentioned banjo, melodica, is distinctive of this album. Other than adding recorded sounds like some unidentified (by me) device as in the final part of the title track.

I don't know if this can be considered a concept album. The song titles are almost all about stations and trains, and trains can be heard in the backgrund of many tracks.

I want also to underline the acoustic guitar on "The Waltz of The Road To Nowhere" which accompanies what apparently sounds like a Theremin but is a human voice.

This is an album full of atmosphere. Some say it's the best ever released by Mushroom Patience. I haven't listened to the whole discography, but I agree that this is the best between those that I own.

WATER is considered one of the best things produced by the band, even if at this point it was mainly a one- man project with some guest musicians. It's made of 13 untitled hypnotic tracks, all equally enjoyable if you are in the right mood. Track 4 is remarkable as it's short and grotesque, but the influence of the classic krautrock like that of CAN and AMON DUUL II is clear. During our conversation Raffaele has told me that he has jammed several times with Damo SUZUKI.

The trumpet of Fabio RIVABELLI, even if credited only as guest musician, is present throughout the whole album, and together with the distorted vocals and the noise in the background creates a particular soundscape, like "Holger Czukay meets Mark Isham". As usual, the longest track (track 5) is the album's best. It's based on a repetitive slow guitar harping, that the trumpet makes obsessive except in the last 2 minutes when it takes a different, almost horrorific, path. A very dark moment mainly made of bass and keys.

Paying more attention, the background noises are all related to "water": thunderstorms, rain, ocean waves. They aren't recorded sounds and the electroincs which produce them don't try to be realistic, just to give the listener the idea. The album becomes more and more dark while proceeding. Instead of the trippy craziness typical of CAN, it looks like we are in a very bad trip. It's that kind of nightmares where nothing happens, but your sleeping is uncomfortable.

There's also a couple of very short tracks, just "intermissions", which are more crazy and less dark. Another unusual thing is that I'm unable to identify the spoken languages. I think I've heard some English, German and some Italian but it could be even Spanish. Taking into account that Italian is my home language and I speak a bit of Spanish, not being able to recognize the language means that this is very trippy...

The longest tracks have similr structures: some percussion, repetitive sequences of notes, guitar, bass, piano, whatever the instrument is, it's repetitive. Then mainly trumpet and electric guitar provide the variations.

Trying to describe this album with a single sentence, I'd define it "a journey into the darkness". Krautrock lovers won't be disappointed by it.