CONCERTO ALL'ELFO

This is minimal art, experimental and unlistenable. So why is it so highly rated? It's because it's a journey through the possibilities of the voice. Demetrio sings a long note and you can hear all the harmonics. I don't think any other human being has ever been able to do the same with his throat.

It's essential to understand that this is the live recording of a performance of minimal art. Each single note is an adventure. As he says in the introduction, you have to listen to the sounds produced by his throat and decompose them in two or three different parts.

Which pleasure can you receive from an album like this? You have to give up to the idea of listening to music. There are only sounds. This is not an exhibition of vocal virtuosism, even if Demetrio Stratos was a virtuose. It is not music in the common meaning of it, but it's incredible how it can capture one's attention. It's a psychedelic mantra.

I was surprised myself to be able to listen to about 18 minutes (including the italian explanation of what he's about to do) without having the temptation to quit and put on some Prog-metal to compensate...

More than RPI, I suggest this album to psychedelia or zeuhl fans. It's neither psychedelia or zeuhl, but you need a particular openness of mind to start listening to it.

Progressing with the tracks, the journey becomes even more attractive. In Flautologia his voice sounds like a flute, sometimes an arab trumpet or an ocarine.

O Tzitzeras O mitzeras is a story made of 21 words (I think it's Greek), repeated very quickly. The effect is weird. It's a sort of mantra. An allucination....

"Tema Popolare" is a sort of blues made of vocalisms. Probably what most close to the concept of music that can be found here, or this may be just an impression because at this point if you are still listening to this performance, you are probably addicted to what Demetrio is doing.

"Canto dei Pastori" (of Epiro, Greece) He says that when the shepherds of Epiro (Albania) sing this kind of sounds, the sheep make a circle and sleep....I don't know if it's true, but if an enchanter can hypnotize a cobra, why not?

The last short track, "Cowboys and Indians" is just a vocal excersize invented for the theathre by a soprano.

How can this be rated? Is it a masterpiece of progressive music? It's progressive but it's not music. Is an excellent addiction to prog collections? Yes, but not for "any". Neo-prog fans would ask me the money back. Fans only? It's minimal art. You can like it or not, but it's what it is.

It's an album so different that it should have a different kind of rating: instead of stars, fishes, gasoline pumps or anything else. I give it 4 stars but with this warning. I'm giving stars because there are no fishes.