Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock.progressive
Titolo: JULIAN COPE recensisce FETUS di BATTIATO.... !!!

BATTIATO - FETUS reviewed by Julian Cope
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/
Side One 
1. Energia (Energy) 
2. Fetus (Foetus) 
3. Una Cellula (A Cell) 
4. Cariocinesi (Karyokinesis) 
5. Fenomenologia (Phenomenology) 
Side Two 
1. Meccanica (Mechanics) 
2. Anafase (Anaphase) 
3. Mutazione (Mutation) 
Note: Back in the 70s, this record was originally released on the
influential Italian label Bla-bla. While most of Franco
Battiato’s output was released under his own name, the albums
Fetus and Pollution were released by just ‘Battiato’, in the
heavy rock-style of that period. If you enjoy Fetus, you really
should make an effort to get a hold of Pollution, too. This
second album of 1972 has a far more spaced-out quality, in places
sounding like the Walter Wegmuller’s epic double-LP Tarot. 
Throughout my early-90s re-appraisal of Krautrock, umpteen
records were pushed my way, accompanied by the comment: "If you
like so-and-so, you’ll love this lot." It was the manner in which
I discovered the ambient genius of Russia’s Mikhail Chekalin, the
rush and roar of Gunter Schickert’s G.A.M., Italy’s Warholian
freakouts via Le Stelle di Mario Schifano, the monochrome
psychedelia of the lost Czech refusenik ‘ensemble’ M.C.H., plus a
whole other raft of strange European bands. I even rediscovered
the middle-period genius of Magma’s Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh
and Kontakosz, both of which I had loved during my pre-punk teens
but never thought to re-visit. But my dedication to defining the
lost art of Krautrock meant that many of these other non-German
pioneers got lost in the shuffle, as their albums slipped out of
pole position and back into the racks marked ‘undefinable’. 
It was only when this amazing 1972 record by Franco Battiato was
recently issued in its English language version that I dusted off
my copy of the original and realised how much I’d once played it.
Bloody hell, I knew every note on the album; and I knew it’s near
neighbour, 1972’s sister album Pollution, almost as well. 
With the added excitement of this new English version, I decided
to turn Fetus into an Album of the Month. It is a stunningly
catchy but impossibly strange record which inhabits that nether
world of pop music, electronics, politics and experimental rock;
a 70s nether world which I grew up with, yet one which takes so
many chances that it makes the whole work sound quite timeless. 
Fetus is an album beyond all definition. It’s a masterpiece of
daring and almost stupid risks that work every single time. Some
of my forthcoming descriptions of these songs will appal you – no
way can it sound good with the elements he’s describing. But it
doesn’t sound good; it sounds great. In little more than
half-an-hour, Battiato takes us through eight uniquely
super-detailed songs that tug at the heart strings as no other
experimental record ever could. 
Fetus is an entirely studio album, audaciously psychedelic and
sonically estranged in the manner of Kalakackra’s mysterious
Voyage to Llasa LP, Witthuser & Westrupp’s Trips und Traume, and
the first album by Dalek I Love You. Out of nowhere, acoustic
guitar songs reduce themselves to unaccompanied solo piano licks,
horde nations of backing vocals rush to agree with the lead
vocalist, whilst even the most hoary classical tunes will be
commandeered to accompany famous events. Its mystery is in its
unashamed use of clichés juxtaposed with thee most un-obvious
elements. The best example is surely the Stephan Grapelli-style
"Georgia Brown" violin which is used to orchestrate a
drum-machine driven psychological song. 
From his use of such wide-ranging musical influences, Franco
Battiato, is a real mystery, too. Indeed, from the sheer volume
and wide range of his output from the late 1960s onwards into the
1990s, Battiato most reminds me of myself. Beginning as an
Italian pop singer, Franco Battiato moved into the 70s on the
crest of the progressive rock wave, which is where we find him
for the recording of both Fetus and Pollution. Battiato was
briefly signed to Island Records, and it was during this period
that the English language version of Fetus was made. Franco
Battiato had plans to make it big in Britain, and played two
fairly high profile shows at London’s Roundhouse, supporting
first Magma and later Ash Ra Tempel. And it was at this time that
Frank Zappa, on hearing Pollution, famously called Battiato’s
work ‘genius’. 
Unfortunately for us all, the British period of his trip was
brief and unsuccessful, probably because of the car crash, which
forced Battiato to return to Italy for hospital care. Further
British shows with the Japanese artist Stomu Yamash’ta had to be
cancelled, as did a proposed tour with John Cage. Indeed, the car
crash so affected Battiato’s career that the English language
Fetus was shelved indefinitely and he was forced to return to
Italy full time. 
In the light of Battiato’s subsequent change of musical
direction, whether this temporary relocation to Britain could
ever have worked with a little more success is a moot point. In
the long run, Battiato was far too excited by the musical
possibilities thrown up by Stockhausen and the Krautrock scene to
stay in song mode for very long, and he soon submerged himself in
electronic works such as the more experimental sound of the
instrumental LP Clic. Several other such releases saw him in this
guise, until he appears to have rejected this method entirely and
returned to his first love – the role of pop singer. 
Taking a look on his website recently, I was impressed to see
that Franco Battiato has sustained a huge output, which has
latterly extended into classical releases and even an opera! But
the Franco Battiato whom I know and love occupies a narrow seam
of early 70s experimental rock, and it is to this period which we
must now return. 
Fetus begins super-dramatically with "Energia (Energy)", in which
multiple recordings of babies crying and goo-goo-speaking fade in
stereo through the murk, as a backwards toy room music fades in,
reminiscent of Sparky’s Magic Piano meets Sammla Mammas Manna’s
classic "Astrids Vision." Then a synthesised and pulsating
electric piano announces Franco, who sings to us about all the
women he’s bedded and all the babies who have been lost down the
drains of Europe in his quest for a good life. Sounds desperate
but it’s melancholy in a tragic and uplifting way. Like
"Wilhelmina", Peter Hammill’s embarrassingly frank and frankly
absurd-to-the-point-of-being-laughable lullaby to his growing
daughter, "Energia" employs a chord sequence so obvious that it’s
like the first thing you would play as a 16-year old, then
probably dismiss immediately. Tom-toms and electric rhythm
guitars are accompanied by brassy and out-of-tune polyphonic
synthesizers in a mawkishly emotional blitz. Indeed, being
out-of-tune elevates the whole fucking thing. 
Next comes the short title track. An unaccompanied and heavily
reverbed heartbeat introduces "Fetus (Foetus)", as Battiato’s
lonely melancholy voice sings, in a single verse, a heart-rending
story from the point of view of the unwanted unborn child: 
"I wasn’t yet born, and I felt the heartbeat, 
And that my life was born in hate, 
I drag myself slowly through the human body, 
Down through the veins, going to my faith."
As the verse unfolds, understated wa-wa guitar chords and plucked
piano strings shudder in the stereo distance. A brutal edit into
incredibly beautiful music cuts us short. It’s another lost
child’s toy room, this time with a mind manifesting sound akin to
that of the Residents’ "Edwina", from their definitive LP Not
Available. The music builds quicker and quicker until it is
frightening and overpowering, as wailing and howling monophonic
synthesizers annex the mix and kidnap it screaming and
blindfolded into the mystic night. In two and a half minutes,
Battiato takes us from silence to slack-jawed incomprehension.
It’s incredible. 
Next up comes the cliché of clichés. "Una Cellula (A Cell)" is a
Mediterranean sob-fest of mawkish sub-chicken-in-a-basket chords
unfit to be outtakes on a Demis Rousos LP.
Forever-and-ever-and-ever-and ever-I’ll-beeee-with-you! Or is it?
No, it fucking is not. This time in under three minutes,
Battiato, rapes our sensibilities with his unholy combinations.
He takes a chord sequence reminiscent of true drivel and lends it
dignity by playing it in the manner of the truly experimental.
It’s here that Battiato enters that shameless Dalek-I-Love-You
territory located in outlands so far beyond twee that only the
most confident truth seeker may go. By now, he’s the Igneous
Fatuus, the Foolish Fire, a Morris dancer who cares not one jot
that he appears to the outside world to be line dancing in a
stone circle. 
"Cariocinesi (Karyokinesis)" is the crazy Stephan Grapelli-styled
violin & drumbox-propelled I told you about earlier. What could
be more incongruous than a two-minute Gypsy jazz song with
staccato Beatles piano about a nucleus splitting itself sung with
by a singer who sounds as though he’s saluting the sunrise? Nuff
Said. In either English or Italian, this song is unlikely. That
it works probably has more to do with its novelty than its being
great art, but I ain’t never got bored of it yet because it says
its piece then sods off. And pronto, Tonto. 
Side one then concludes with the longest song so far, and even
this is less than five minutes in duration. "Fenomenologia
(Phenomenology)" is a dramatic epic in multiple parts, beginning
with portentous minor chorded acoustic and Spanish guitars over
which Battiato hums wordless ‘da-da-das’. His voice tells us that
he’s living lost and in a fog, until the guitars drop away to
reveal a tragic reverbed lonely-mountain-top solo piano and fuzz
bass accompanying Battiato’s admission: 
"I’ve already forgotten my dimension, 
And I have no power standing away from myself."
But Battiato’s fog is clearer than most people’s sunny day. He’s
on Carn Ingli living with the angels of the Preseli Mountains,
and a squall of Enochean synthesizers comes down from the heavens
to meet him. Then more acoustic guitars and plainsong vocals
mourn some dreadful recent event and the angels of Carn Ingli
wordlessly lament him in a harmony of rhythmless and touchingly
formless beauty. Like the deeply felt themes of Acid Mothers
Temple’s La Novia, the stereo mix is awash with different voices
squeezing deep meanings from ‘da-da-da-da-das’ until the mystery
of the mix consumes the human sounds and wrings them out through
a sonic mangle like your old grandma use to have in the kitchen. 
Similar to the rest of this mystical LP, time has no place in
this song. In under five minutes, Battiato has sent us on to the
moors where the Triple Goddesses weave and spell. In under five
minutes, he has created a timelessness that lesser artists would
claim needs a double-LP. In these fifteen minutes of side one,
Fetus has greedily gorged itself on more emotions than many
modern guitar bands approach in a career. Fuck ‘em all, I say.
Fuck their self-pitying inexperienced asses. But then compassion
kicks in and I can only wish that every musician could glimpse
the moments that Franco Battiato captures here. 
Side two opens with the hugely stereo FX pianos of "Meccanica
(Mechanics)", in which a ludicrous instrumental piano theme is
hammered out with fuzz guitars, screaming synthesizers and high
pitched wordless voices all singing the same moronic tune. Until,
that is, fast strummed 12-string guitars, more Gypsy violin and
obvious/dumb bass propelled by pitter-patter drumbox shoot out
over the horizon. This new theme continues at a real pace until
dropping right down to 5 miles per hour in order to allow a dryly
recorded and claustrophobic Franco to have his say: 
"My eyes are mechanical – my heart is made of plastic 
My brain is mechanical – the taste is synthetic 
My fingers are mechanical – made of Moon dust 
In a laboratory – the genes of love."
Perhaps I’m just more moved than most by translated lyrics, but I
do find the extreme brevity of these one verse Battiato songs
truly moving. His economy of sound and lyrics is stunning, and
the way he juxtaposes moods is breathtaking. 
In a move reminiscent of the Moody Blues, this whole shebang
fades into a banshee choir of female voices which themselves give
way into the voices of Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
at their most childlike and excited. As they delightedly scoot
around the Moon’s surface, they speak aloud whatever comes into
their minds through telephone quality microphones. Over this
moving exchange, Battiato audaciously fades in J.S. Bach’s most
famous musical piece, here put through delays and given an
otherworldly quality possibly through being passed through (I
would guess) a VCS3 synthesizer, or something very similar. I
know what you’re all thinking, punks. Sounds like cliched
doggy-do on paper, don’t it? Well, babies, believe me it’s a
truly moving thang! 
"Anafase (Anaphase)" begins as a Latin-Bowie-by-numbers exercise,
again with the now typical Battiato one-verse’ll-do-me approach
to lyrics. Over lonely acoustic guitars, he sings a tune
reminiscent of the Bach piece which has so recently faded: 
"I will go far away beyond the limits of the air, 
Towards the immensity… 
Above the astronauts – towards the interstellar stations."
"Space Oddity" meets "Starman" for a few moments, fades out, then
fades back in accompanied by military clatter-drums which bring
us to a huge piano/explosion. Then we’re catapulted into that
low-hum Music-concrete ambient world which Battiato is clearly so
fond of. Juddernaut synthesizers stereo trip across the speakers
looking for the Clangers, who are staying in their holes, thank
you very much. A space ship captained by Pacman lands and brings
us the mastertapes of Florian Fricke’s most brief church organ
piece ever! Battiato kicks him clean into touch with more
ponderous ‘da-da-das’ over pensive acoustic guitars and he’s
going going gone. 
Fetus finishes with all the hope of a Utopian priest, as the
three minutes of the four-chord "Mutazione (Mutation)" build
gently around deadly obvious strummed acoustic guitars. Again
he’s a Latin Ziggy hovering above planet Earth waiting for his
moment. It’s a post-Christian and Von Danikenised still-Christian
worldview. But just because that’s ultimately the same as viewing
a Picasso from behind a garden fence with a peephole drilled in
it, this doesn’t stop a truly visionary artist such Franco
Battiato from striking chest-beatingly uplifting possibilities in
all but the most cynical of us. I rarely print lyrics in album
reviews because they rarely have anything to say outside the
music. But, once again, the translated words of "Mutazione" are
indisputably poet and true: 
"Thousands of years of sleep have blocked me in my cradle, 
And now I return. 
Something changed. 
I’m not aware of signals of life, and yet I’m aware of
vibrations. 
What will my eyes see next" 
There will be stone bodies… 
I hear them coming 
I hear them coming 
I hear them coming 
I hear them coming…
It’s the classic Lost Daddy of the Universe-story which has
permeated our Patriarchal consciousness for so long. Of course it
would be nice to discover that all the world’s problems were just
caused by Dad fucking off, and of course it’s highly romantic and
unbelievable. But just ‘cause it ain’t true don’t mean Battiato
hasn’t given it the kind of poetic truth which allows even this
Heathen to, at least temporarily, accept his metaphor and sigh
along with everyone else.

Grazie stanz... spettacolare... :o)

Grazie stanz... spettacolare... :o)
E' spettacolare tutto l'insieme delle recensioni fatte da Cope al
suo sito. Sembra proprio che quest'uomo sia una enciclopedia
vivente di dischi, dati, sensazioni, a 360 gradi.
Le opinioni di Julian Cope non sono opinioni qualsiasi.
ciao stanz