THE VOID AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Atti Pubblici in Luogo Osceno came to life in 2014 in Bagheria, a little town in the province of Palermo, Sicily, on the initiative of Gioacchino D’Amico and Sergio Giuliana. After some personnel changes and a good live activity on the local scene where they played original stuff and some covers of bands such as Queen and Pink Floyd, in 2018 the band self-released an interesting debut album entitled In fondo vedo il nulla assoluto (At the bottom I see the absolute void) with a line up featuring Antonio Tralongo (vocals), Alessandro Siragusa (keyboards, vocals), Gioacchino D'Amico (guitar, vocals), Gabriele Lo Iacono (bass) and Giuseppe D'Amico (drums). In my opinion the hard work of the band to refine their original compositions paid off and the result is a nice mix of vintage sounds, hard rock and melody that is absolutely worth listening to. Although the sound quality might not be perfect it is better than that of many albums recorded in the seventies and the capacity to convey emotions of the musicians is apparent.

The opener “La boutique degli inermi” (The shop of the helpless people) is an introspective track about regret and lost chances. There’s a vein of melancholy in the surreal, dreamy atmosphere as music and words conjure up images of Christmas lights and old books while a pendulum clock beats the time swinging between boredom and agony. A bunch of doubts are your only company as you enter an old shop at the end of the road where a gipsy shows you all the time you lost looking through the window, in search for answers you never found… Standing still, looking at the bricks in the wall we are all the same, dummies and clones adrift on the ocean. At every step you can hear the sound of creaking wood follow the weightless, crumbling body of a lost fool dancing on the shores of Ys... 

The following “Salò” starts with a funky incipit, then in turns the music reminds me of Max Gazzè, Il Balletto di Bronzo and Deep Purple… It’s a sarcastic piece against consumerism and the false ethical values of an obscene world where it doesn’t matter if you steal or commit a crime provided that you do it with class. The title refers to Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, a 1975 Italian-French horror art film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini that is a loose adaptation of the novel The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade reset during WWII. The film explores the themes of political corruption, murder, abuse of power, sadism, perversion, sexuality and fascism and here the band express all their disdain for the lack of moral values in our society...

The bitter-sweet “Quando è già finito” (When it’s already over) is an impressionist piece drenched in melody and nostalgia where music and words have the colours of a Claude Monet’s tableau. It tells of the end of a romance... A girl has left Sicily and his sweetheart for the city of Bologna and the fogs of the Padan Plain...

Atti Pubblici in Luogo Osceno 2018

The long, complex “Venivo da sinistra” (I was coming from the left) ends the album blending hard rock, jazz rock and dreamy melodic passages. The caustic lyrics, interpreted with a strong theatrical approach, tell of defeatism and indifference in of a world on the wane, of crazy dreams melting at dawn and of the loneliness and pain of a man going in the wrong direction who feels lost in a world he can’t accept...

On the whole, a very promising debut work!

You can listen to the complete album HERE

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/apilo.3/

SICILIA

It’s time now to challenge Scylla and Charybdis crossing the Strait of Messina. We begin in this way our visit to SICILIA, an island and an autonomous region of Italy. First we visit the city of MESSINA, where William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing is set. Here we can listen to Addamanera (MySpace), a band that blends folk and psychedelia in an original way, then to the solo project of Antonino Rampulla (MySpace), to the young Moon Fire (MySpace) and to some post rock bands such as Denied Light (MySpace) and The Morning Light (MySpace). Not far from Messina lies the town of Milazzo home to Taberna Mylaensis (MySpace), a band that should be of interest to folk prog lovers and active since 1975.

Then we head south along the coast until we arrive at the small town of Santa Teresa di Riva, near the beautiful ancient town of Taormina, where we can listen to Conqueror (MySpace), an excellent contemporary prog band that in 2010 released a beautiful concept album, Madame Zelle, inspired by the adventurous life of a woman called Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, also known as Mata Hari.

Still heading south, we pass through the town of Acireale, almost at the foot of Mount Etna, where an interesting emerging band called Mechanical Butterfly (Facebook) come from. In another town near the volcano, Belpasso, we can listen to an excellent band called Malibran (MySpace). Malibran began life in 1987 and in 2010 they released a very good new album entitled Trasparenze.

Next stop is CATANIA, the birthplace of opera composer Vincenzo Bellini. This is where prog artists and bands as Franco Battiato (Official Website), Renato Moretti (Bandcamp), the neo prog Edith (MySpace), the psychedelic Alcàntara (Facebook), Time Haven Club (Facebook) and the emerging Bill In The Tea (MySpace) come from. Still heading south we pass through SIRACUSA, a city founded by the ancient Greeks and rich in history. Its most famous character is the inventor Archimedes. Here we can listen to a particular, theatrical “folk metal” band called Fiaba (MySpace), to Anèma (Bandcamp), to Ancient Oak Consort (Facebook), to Ologram (Facebook) and to the promising ArcaMiri (Facebook).

Then, heading south west we reach RAGUSA, the ancient Hybla Heraea, where we can listen to Randone (MySpace), an excellent band that in 2006 released an amazing concept album inspired by the history of this city, Hybla Act I. Our next halt is in the nearby town of Modica, in the Hyblaean Mountains, where we find an interesting folk prog band formed in 1994, Mas-Nada (MySpace) and te jazz rock Ostinàti (Facebook).

We head north west now directed to the heart of Sicily, to CALTANISSETTA, where we find an emerging prog band called Neamatis (MySpace) while in the nearby small town of Mazzarino we can listen to Viola Drunken (MySpace), a band that blends hard rock and psychedelia with Italian “canzone d’autore” and touches of seventies prog. Their second album was released in 2009 and it’s a conceptual one, Di fate e streghe (Of Fairies and Witches).

Then we set our course south west, to AGRIGENTO, best known for an archaeological site, the Valle dei Templi, which inspired an album by prog jazz band Perigeo, La Valle dei Templi, featuring a beautiful art cover. This area, in the imaginary city of Vigata, is the setting for the crime stories of Commissario Montalbano, a character created by the famous Italian writer Andrea Camilleri. This is where a dark and “catacombal” prog project called Ultima Missa (MySpace) come from.

We head north west now, to the seaport town of Marsala, a place usually associated with Giuseppe Garibaldi and his Expedition of the Thousand and best known for its Marsala wine. The town is home to two prog bands, Braindead and Il Castello delle Uova (MySpace), while in the nearby city of TRAPANI we find a prog project called TP Overdrive (MySpace) and Un Certo Jhò (Facebook). Then we head east and conclude our visit to Sicily in its capital, PALERMO. In the seventies the city gave us Era di Acquario while today here we can listen to two very interesting contemporary prog bands, Bright Horizon (Facebook) and Coral Caves (MySpace). Worthy of mention are also the Canterbury inspired Homunuculus Res (Facebook), Chester Gorilla (Facebook), Silver Nightmares (Facebook), The Smuggler Brothers (Facebook) and the young Indicative (MySpace) while the nearby town of Bagheria is home to Atti Pubblici in Luogo Osceno (Facebook).