RIMINI

His music has a touch of American folk and his voice is bass pitched and similar to Leonard Cohen of whom Faber (as he was nicknamed) has made some covers, too. But what makes him very important for the Italian music, both pop and RPI are his lyrics. Faber is first of all a poet, very interested in telling stories of people and sometimes speak of politics.

This album comes after a big disillusion from the political side. The last "movement" is dead not only because of repression. The ideas behind the movement are weakening and Faber decides to concentrate on stories.

The title track is about a girl that aborted a baby and looks to the sea, dreaming of Columbus while people comes and goes in this city, Rimini, that's totally built on summer tourism. From a musical point of view it could be a Leonard Cohen's song.

"Volta La Carta" (Turn the card) is just a sort of nursery rhyme, a "false popular" song full of citations. A folky tune.

"Coda Di Lupo" (Wolf's Tail) is about the political disappointment that I was mentioning before. The young protesters are compared to the native Americans. It's a good ballad with a bit of country-rock inside but I think is one of the album's songs that can fit into the RPI definition, but I know that my opinion is not shared by RPI fans.

"Andrea" is probably the most famous song of this disc, the most popular and the one that I like less. The story is interesting: an omosexual love during the first world war. It's primarily a song against war and militarism, then is against discriminations, too. It's poetry as well. I don't like it from a musical point of view. It's a simple song too repetitive (as many ballads are) so at the end, once you know the story, it's a bit boring.

"Tema di Rimini" is a short acoustic instrumental. First a fiddle then a finger picking guitar. I don't know if it's even prog-related, but it's good. Caravan's Tollington Park Rag is not more prog than this.

"Avventura a Durango" is just a Dylan's cover (Romance to Durango)

"Sally" is interesting from a literary point of view. It starts with the translation of an English nursery rhyme, then there are references to Jodorowsky and Garcia Marquez, but it's a very sad song about heroin and drugs addition. Musically it has French influences. Another ballad.

"Zirichiltaggia" is a joke. It's a country-western song in Sardinian language, about a dispute between two brothers for an inheritance. However is one of the three songs of this album, together with "Andrea" and "Volta La Carta" which are in the live album with the PFM.

"Il Naufragio della London Valour" (The shipwrecking of the London Valour) is IMO the most prog thing of the album. It's a talking poetry over a good instrumental. It's not about a real shipwrecking. It belongs to the most hermetic side of Faber's poetry and contains a lot of things apparently disconnected. A sequence of images.

The album is closed by a melodic instrumental track that I define prog as well.

As I said, this is not a prog album, however Faber has been influencial to all the non-trivial Italian artists, specially for what concerns the songwriting. He's been the first in Italy to use the music to vehiculate poetry. Being influenced by the French "Chansonniers" of the 50s and by artists like Dylan and Cohen his music could be defined as "proto-RPI".

It's a very good album and I think that proggers are open-minded enough to like it even if not properly prog, so it can have a place also in a prog collection.

4 stars.