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Caos Popolare began life in Rome in 2010 on the initiative of Luigi
Ranieri and Nicolas Sabini, two experienced musicians with different
backgrounds. At the very beginning they began playing cover but soon
they turned their attention to the composition of original pieces and
started playing live on the local scene sharing their interests with
other musicians that completed the line up. At the end of 2014 the
band self released an interesting debut album entitled Sendai
Nebula with a line up featuring Luigi Ranieri (guitar, vocals),
Nicolas Sabini (bass, synthesizers, flute), Andrea Aliberti (guitar),
Andrea Di Giovenale (piano, keyboards, synthesizers) and Attilio
Renzetti (vocals). The overall sound of the band is not stuck in the
past and combines neo-prog with other influences such as psychedelia,
hard rock or new wave. The music is accessible but never banal and
every now and again could recall some recent works by Franco Battiato
without being too derivative. According to the official website, the
title of the album refers to the passage from normality to an
emotional, altered state and comes from the combination of two words:
"Sendai", a term taken from a cyberpunk novel by
William Gibson that defines a cyberdeck, a kind of machine
that allows transportation to an electrostatic cloud where the
peripheral nervous system changes, and "Nebula", a
Latin word that defines a vaporous, transitory state. The art work by
Ivan Pedretti in some way depicts this concept dealing with dreams,
emotions and thoughts...
The
opener "Esistenzialista" (Existentialist) starts by a burst
of energy that takes you far away on a cold starry night. A multitude
of thoughts and feelings pass through your mind in a stream of
consciousness as you are wondering about the mysteries of the
universe, trying to discover fragments of your future in the oracles
of an ancient divination text called I Ching... In this
fantastic, galactic ride there's room for relax and reflection as the
rhythm calms down and the atmosphere becomes dreamy. But there's
still a deep sense of uneasiness lingering in the air before the
rhythm takes off again. You have to open your mind to avoid falling
down, you are the maker of your own existence...
The
following "Onde" (Waves) features the guest Roberto Segala
on drums and begins with the sound of the sea in the background and a
delicate piano passage. Then the rhythm rises evoking lively dances
and the far echoes of a summer spent on a solitary beach... The music
and lyrics draw games of light on the water and dreamy, distant
horizons, new sensations and melted dreams. Bright memories
alternates with the dark shadows of remorse and everything is carried
away by the raging waves of destiny...
The
melancholic, introspective "Buio assoluto" (Absolute dark)
is my favourite track on this album. The music and lyrics depict a
heavy silence coming down that begins to freeze a river of dancing
words between smiles and sadness... Well, imagine a man who is
looking at his dying father: asking for a few more words he begins to
fly down into deep memories, between waves and regrets, errors and
fears, joy and tears...
The
folksy "Liverpool" is sung in English and depicts the image
of a lady on a ship in the port of Liverpool. She's got a flower in
her hand. She's ready to set off on her journey and hopes to leave
poverty and famine behind her, maybe she's directed to America...
It's an old, dramatic story of emigration that unfortunately has not
lost its actuality.
The
long, dark instrumental "Abandon" every now and again
reminds me of Pink Floyd and leads to the surreal, dreamy "E la
luna fuma" (And the moon smokes) where the music and lyrics
conjure up the image of a strange moon that comes down from the sky
just to sit in front of a glass of wine, smoking a cigarette like a
black and white diva in an old movie. Maybe you will find her
in a desert coloured of utopia trying to make real what people
believe is nothing but fantasy...
The
notes of Jingle Bells open the last track of the album, the long epic
"Noël"
(Christmas) where the hopes and feelings of a little child on
Christmas Night are compared with the hopes and feelings of an old
man who has not lost all his dreams and hopes. Time and space are
intertwined in a dance of memories... There are sounds to cover the
silences and smiles to smother the screams as Father Christmas comes
on a bolero rhythm just to put another brick in the wall...
On
the whole a very interesting album, full of poetry and dreamy
atmospheres! Have a try and judge by yourselves, you can listen to the complete album HERE.
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