Between is the fifth studio album by Mad Puppet and was self-released in 2020 in a 300 copies limited vinyl edition and in 2021 in digital version. It was recorded with a line up featuring Manfred Kaufmann (keyboards), Christoph Senoner (guitars), Thomas Pichler (bass, clarinet), Michael Mock (drums, percussion) and Manfred Schweigkofler (vocals) and marks a come back to the neo-prog origins of the band, twenty years after the disappointing, pop-oriented Cube. According to an interview with the band (link), the key is in the title: all the songs deal with something that is in-between, between one thing and another. Even with irony towards restarting...
The aggressive, nervous “New Start” sets the atmosphere evoking the need of a new beginning, the desire to re-start every day to make life better, cooler, more glamorous. Anyway, the results are not always successful... Then the rhythm slackens for the dreamy “Black Swan” that adds a touch of nostalgia for old songs and old friends and leads to the search for a way out from darkness, following the flight of a bold black swan...
The soft, mysterious “Foggy Day” tells of a day where empty clouds fill the space and you get lost, but the hope to recover your old brilliant sound remains intact as the hope to see the colours of the rainbow again... Then it’s the turn of the sarcastic, disquieting “Mote Of Dust” that conjures up the image of a human race lost in the cosmic darkness, in an endless nowhere in the middle of the universe where men kill each other and destroy their world like in a video game...
“Won’t Lose My Way” starts softly and tells of a difficult come back from a long journey where there’s always a burning light showing the way home. It’s a long piece with some changes in atmosphere that along the way blends elements of blues and hard rock with darker, dramatic passages... Next comes “You And I”, a short, melancholic piece describing a long waiting under a broken, falling sky on the banks of a river that looks like an ocean to cross...
The theatrical “Fail Again” blends prog and blues with a sense of madness crawling underneath the surface of a life that it’s more than it seems, a basket full of wonders that not everyone can appreciate... Then comes the ironic optimism of “Tomorrow” with its prediction of an impending change and its promises for the future, a piece that features a guest brass section and ends the album with a touch of jazz and soul.
Butterfly System come from Trento and were formed in 2015 by Michele D'Alberto (keyboards, vocals), Claudio Granatiero (bass, guitar, lead vocals, Taurus – former vocalist of Phaedra) and Claudio Cassol (drums, keyboards) with the aim of performing live progressive rock covers of bands such as Le Orme or EL&P and some original stuff. After a good live activity on the local scene and a hard work in their rehearsal room, in 2020 they self-released an interesting debut EP entitled Presagi (Omens), a mini concept album about child abuse featuring three original pieces for a total of more than 22 minutes.
The tense opener “Cenni di tempesta” (Signs of a storm) introduces the subject matter. The music and lyrics conjure up the image of a careless eight year old child laying on a meadow looking at the white clouds running in the sky, than this image melts like in a distant dream. Now the child is an adult who has lost his innocence, he can see nothing but the signs of a storm in the sky of his life and the clouds seem just dark omens about his future...
The disquieting “Stai con me” (Stay with me) deals with the painful memories of an abused child, wounds that time won’t heal. The music and lyrics evoke old fears and the wish for revenge of the child once grown up. There is a strong link between the physical, sexual or psychological maltreatment of children and the development of psychiatric problems and in some way you can feel it listening to the music that every now and again could recall the dark atmosphere of Goblin’s album Profondo Rosso...
Butterfly System 2020
“La fortezza” (The fortress) depicts a gloomy inner shelter where self-isolation is the last refuge against a world crowded with evil people and full of every kind of danger. High pitched vocals on the border of hysteria evoke the refusal to accept reality by building up an imaginary world that can drive you on the brink of madness. Now the abused child is a man who won’t let the world in on the secrets of his heart. Anger, shame and despair can lead to depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies or other and the child’s adaptive or protective mechanisms have become self-defeating leaving a wounded child within the adult but the music and lyrics try just to describe a state of mind: the conclusions are up to you...
On the whole, excellent music and a challenging conceptual work. A very promising debut!
Mad Puppet began life in Bolzano in 1980 with a line up featuring Mauro Rossi (drums), Michael Seberich (bass), Manfred Kaufmann (keyboards), Manfred Schweigkofler (vocals), Christoph Senoner (guitar) and Arthur Frei (guitar). In 1982 they released “Masque”, a self-produced album that sounds very different from the mainstream albums of that period. In the early eighties progressive rock was completely out of fashion but the young musicians involved in this project went against the tide and managed to shape a nice mix of seventies influences with a personal touch. Of course the album is not flawless nor particularly original but it's really worth listening to.
Mad Puppet 2010
The opener “Wild Rushing Waters” begins softly. It deals with a religious theme and draws from... Genesis! The following “Look Out” recalls The Doors and evokes the shadow of Jim Morrison passing by, sailing across the grey night. “The Masque Of The Red Death” is a long, complex track introduced by a charming medieval atmosphere and inspired by a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a masquerade ball and a dangerous, uninvited guest. “Icarus” is another long, complex track, a suite in two parts with lyrics inspired by the ancient myth of the Greek hero. Here the music flows away with gentle giants smiling in the background and “steppen-wolves” running wild all around. The bitter-sweet, nervous “Wheels Of Time” concludes this good work with a pungent reflection about the changes that time provokes on our lives and our sense of freedom and security. The album was re-released on CD in 1992 on the independent label WMMS Music and now you can listen to it on the official website of the band. Click HERE
After the promising debut album released in 1982 Mad Puppet went through some line up changes and many problems. Their sophomore album, “Not Only Mad”, wasn't released until 1991 with a line up featuring the veterans Manfred Kaufmann (keyboards), Manfred Schweigkofler (vocals), Christoph Senoner (guitar) along with the new members Günter Falser (drums, percussion) and Thomas Pichler (bass, clarinet). During the recording sessions the band was helped by two guest musicians as well, Hans Tutzer (sax) and Ray S. Rasp (vocals). This time Mas Puppet tried to shape a more conventional, mainstream sound and prog lovers could find highly disappointing their stylistic choice. On the album you can find some good ideas and some tracks, such as “Suicide Of Waterfall”, “Gonzalo” or “You”, are pleasant but sometimes the overall sound really seems closer to a kind of dark, synthetic pop than to progressive rock. Well, listening to this album you will set off on musical trip that will take you closer to Roxy Music's Avalon than to the court of the crimson king. All in all this work rarely strikes the right chords and it is “neither hot nor cold”... but maybe my criticism is too harsh! You can listen to the complete album and legally download it for free from the official website of the band and judge by yourselves. Click HERE
In 1994 Mad Puppet released what can be considered their best album so far, “King Laurin And His Rosegarden”. This work features a slightly renewed line up with Manfred Kaufmann (keyboards), Manfred Schweigkofler (vocals), Christoph Senoner (guitars, vocals), Thomas Pichler (bass) and Georg Lang (drums, percussion). During the recording sessions they were helped by many guest musicians who contributed to enrich the sound adding many musical colours. The result of all this hard work is a complex concept album inspired by local folklore with an amazing synthesis of modern and vintage sounds.
The Rosengarten
All the the tracks are linked together in a long suite that tells the lore of King Laurin and of his mythical garden of roses. In fact, the Rosengarten or Catinaccio is the name of a spectacular spot in the Dolomites and Laurin was the king of the dwarfs who lived up there. The music is less derivative than on the debut album and the song-writing here in my opinion is rather good. Some passages could recall Pink Floyd or Genesis or Marillion, but this influences are just reference points. There are some narrative parts that help to follow the development of the story but, in my opinion, it's a pity that the band chose to sing in English rather than in Italian, German or Ladin since this choice put some limits in the lyrical expression. Anyway, listen to the album and judge by yourselves! You can listen to the complete work and read the lyrics on the official website of the band. Don't miss it! Click HERE
Mad Puppet in concert
After the release of the excellent “King Laurin And His Rosegarden” Mad Puppet had good live activity and in 1997 released a live album, Live at Carambolage. Some line up problems followed and in 2000 with a renewed line up featuring Manfred Kaufmann (keyboards), Christoph Senoner (guitars), Thomas Pichler (bass), Michael “Gadget” Gadner (vocals), Bernd Andergassen (drums) and Annalisa Pasqualotto (vocals) Mad Puppet released what is their last album so far, the disappointing “Cube”. Six years after their previous album the band decided another change in their musical direction veering to pop-rock again. I don't know the reasons for this decision, but as a prog lover I find that this album is nothing but a collection of songs with influences ranging from U2 to Duran Duran. Of course, the musicianship is good and there are even some good melodies but here there's almost no trace of progressive rock! The bonus track features even dance influences and recalls Blondie! Anyway, if you are in the mood of listening to some good pop-rock songs you can listen to the complete album for free on their official website. Click HERE
By the way, the band is still active and luckily their last concerts have been more focused on the excellent album released in 1994.
Outopsya began life in Trento in 2003 on the initiative of Luca Vianini and Evan Mazzucchi and other musicians helped them along the years. The name of the band is an acronym for OUT Of PSYchical Activity and the aim of the musicians involved in this project is to blend jazz, classical music, metal and progressive rock with electronic sounds.
Outopsya
After a debut album titled “Sum” (Videoradio, 2009), in 2011 they released a double album on the independent label Lizard Records, “Fake”, a complex work that was conceived as a soundtrack for an old American silent horror film directed in 1925 by Rupert Julian, The Phantom of the Opera, based on a famous novel by Gaston Leroux and starring, among others, Lon Chaney. On account of copyright issues, the band couldn’t release the album with a packaging featuring a DVD with the film to combine music and images, so the they turned it into something different, adding some vocal parts with English lyrics to make it more acceptable as an autonomous work.
Outopsya’s current line up features only Luca Vianini (guitars, vocals, synthesizers, drums) who wrote the music and lyrics and Evan Mazzucchi (bass, cello) who took charge of the art-work and design: the only “guest musician” here is a computer. According to an interview with the duo, they chose the title “Fake” to underline the dichotomy between what is false and what is true in the real life. The falsity here is evoked by the electronic sounds of the computers and contrasts with the sounds of the real instruments. The album was conceived as a single long track of more than 90 minutes but to be released on CD it had to be split in two parts. The two parts are characterized by two different colours, violet for the CD1, the most challenging, experimental one and black for CD2 featuring more accessible passages.
To be honest, I have to say that without the images some passages lose their evocative strength and risk to seem redundant, boring and to dilute the many brilliant ideas that you can find in this work. Moreover there are no liner notes and the booklet doesn’t contain the lyrics (that are almost incomprehensible since the vocal parts are frequently filtered through sound effects und used as an instrument). What to do then? Well, I’ve found the film on Youtube and I watched it with the music of this album in the background. In this way even the most experimental parts make sense. It did work and I enjoyed both the film and the music!
Phaedra is an Italian prog band from Trento that began life in 1993. After many troubles, line up changes and a lot of work in studio, in 2010 the band released a self produced album with a line up featuring founder member Claudio Bonvecchio (bass, guitars, backing vocals) along with Stefano Gasperetti (keyboards, electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin), Stefano Dalcanale (drums), Davide Tabarelli (keyboards, theremin), Fabrizio Crivellari (flute), Elisabetta Wolf (violin), Antonio Floris (violin, viola) and Claudio Granatiero (lead vocals). This work, titled Ptah, is a concept album telling a science-fiction story written by the vocalist Claudio Granatiero whose atmosphere reminds me of some novels by the French writer René Barjavel as “La nuit des temps” (The Ice People) and “Le grand secret” (The Immortals) or the sci-fi TV series “Space: 1999”. The music flows in a long suite where calm acoustic passages alternates with more aggressive parts. The overall sound could recall some historic Italian bands such as Locanda delle Fate or Maxophone and features a very good use of flute and violin...
The excellent instrumental “Overture” set the atmosphere and draws some melodic lines that will be developed later... “They say that once upon a time the sky was blue / They say that the sun was shining / There were green lawns over there and there was a river as well... They say, but for me it’s just a dream... They say that there were many children... And now I’m alone...”. On “Dicono” (They say) the very particular voice of Claudio Granatiero interprets a lonely child on a dying planet, victim of the human ambition. What happened to the Earth?
The next track “Sotto un cielo stellato” (Under a starry sky) takes us far back in time, on another planet where some people are leaving their advanced civilization to seek for another world where they can live and start again. The people of that planet had defeated maladies and aging but they couldn’t survive to a sudden natural catastrophe provoked by their endless quest for knowledge. The vocals are broken, almost out of tune, when depicting a sad farewell and the nostalgia for what was left behind while the music in the middle section describes a journey through the space.
Next comes “Il reietto” (The outcast) that describes in music and words a strange character, one of the people who left the doomed planet when he was just a child... “We escaped from Death / We tricked our fate / We wondered through the space looking for a better day / Nobody run after us / Nobody regretted us / But fear has not left us since then...”.
“Un mondo nuovo” (A new world) is a beautiful instrumental track featuring nice flute passages. The music here tries to describe the feelings of joy and relief that the space-traveling survivors prove while they’re getting closer to the Earth. Then they go down from their starship to explore the new planet and realize that they are finally ready for a new start...
“Come un bambino” (As a child) describes the meeting with a primitive form of life whose strength is the brain: man. The survivors don’t get old but they are not immortal and they are not able to breed anymore. They “adopt” men as children, they start to manipulate their DNA to accelerate their evolution to build up a new civilization... “Life is growing up, new hope / Offspring of the Earth and of an ancient science / Here men will live their innocence / They will grow up strong, they will be mighty / Our leadership will make them wise / We will be free again...”.
“La costruzione di Atlantide” (The construction of Atlantis) is another instrumental track which begins with a nice marching beat, then soaring melodies played by flute, violin and synthesizers interact painting a busy scene with “Renaissance colours”. The music tries to depict a scene where the survivors and their new “children” build up a new city and a new civilization.
On “Uomo!” (Man!) the tension rises. Something goes wrong between teachers and pupils. Men get old and die while their masters are always young, immutable and strict. Seeds of rebellion are spreading... “How many years have passed by? I still remember my defeat... It’s sad when you see the work of a whole life destroyed by a son who can’t understand / That all what you were doing was necessary to give him a better world and a happy life...”.
Ptah: album cover
“La distruzione di Atlantide” (The destruction of Atlantis) begins with an acoustic guitar arpeggio. It’s a dark, sad instrumental track that marks the end of the new civilization. All the masters but one are killed, dreams explode and Atlantis crumbles... The men escaped from Atlantis go back to their nomadic primitive life and the knowledge of the masters gets lost in a few generations. The memory of Atlantis survives just as a myth...
“Dilemma interiore” (Inner dilemma) describes the pain of the only master escaped, Ptah. For many centuries he shunned men. His feelings were contradictory: hope, fear, disappointment, love. But eventually despair gives way to hope... “Leave the past behind you / Dream again / Don’t let fear rule over you / You will find all the strength you need inside you...”.
“Il saggio errante” (The wondering wise man) is a nice instrumental that describes the peregrinations of Ptah while he tries to transmit his knowledge and help humankind undercover. From the Egyptian city of Qena to Benares in India, to the dark sea of the coast of Norway...
The next track “Preghiera” (Prayer) deals with the issue of Faith. It begins with organ chords and a church like choir, then from a strummed acoustic guitar pattern heartfelt vocals soar... When Ptah came back seeking contacts with men, after centuries of solitude, he realized that humankind had developed the faith in God. Of course, God was just a distorted memory of the old masters, but he started to think about it for the first time... “I don’t know if you can hear me, if you exist or you’re nothing but a dream / Many people believes in you / No one can know if you are real / But listen to the pain which is destroying me / It doesn’t give me any hope... Give me hope... Knowledge has always been my only faith, my only God / But when everything falls down and time bestows on you the gift of eternity/ There’s no reason to go on living and fighting / Please, give me a sign...”.
Phaedra 2010
“Il peso del rimorso” (The burden of remorse) describes a spiritual struggle. No sign came from God and Ptah wonders whether is it better to give up trying to transmit his knowledge to humankind or not... Ptah can’t bear the burden of the remorse, he feels that he must help what he still consider his children, he has to help men...
“La decisione” (The decision) concludes the album. Thanks to the hidden help of Ptah, men were able to build up a new advanced civilization that could even compete with the one of the old masters. When Ptah reveals himself nobody believes him and a new destructive war is going to begin. The impending doom closes the circle and you can now imagine Ptah talking to the wind clod in a crimson cape while beside him a child dreams of a better world with green lawns and rivers and other children to play with...
Well, on the whole this is a very good album although the vocal parts are not flawless. Claudio Granatiero wrote the lyrics and the liner notes in the booklet that contribute to explain the plot but in my opinion he should have shared the vocal parts with other singers since he had to interpret too many characters and passages in this “rock-opera” and the result is not always convincing...
Phaedra: Ptah (2010). Other opinions
Chris “Seventhsojourn”: “Ptah” is certainly an ambitious and visionary tableau, but with 14 tracks and a running time of 75-minutes it's very long, perhaps too long. I hate to be critical about the album, especially as the band has clearly invested a great deal of time and effort in its creation, but someone really should have separated the sonic chaff from the wheat. It's not all bad news, mind you. The album has moments of calm beauty and an overall atmosphere of quiet intimacy, while my favourite pieces are the intermittent instrumentals that intersperse the longer tracks. Although graceful and well crafted, ''Ptah'' just seems to lack spontaneity and something of an edge. Phaedra is undoubtedly a band with great potential, although if it's a further ten years until the band's second release I'll consider myself lucky if I'm still around to listen to it... (read the complete review HERE)
Read the interview with the band at Progarchives. Click HERE
The nearby town of Arco gave us the jazz rock Electric Circus (Facebook) and the folk rock La Guerrigliera (MySpace) while Rovereto, a few kilometres east, in valley of Adige River, gave us the excellent, particular Universal Totem Orchestra(MySpace), Aviolinee Utopia and the experimental Outopsya(MySpace).
Heading north along the river we reach the capital of the region, Trento, home to multi-instrumentalist and composer Matteo Armellini (Facebook) and to a band called Phaedra(Official Website), who, in 2010, after many years of hard work released a good debut concept album called Ptah.
Still heading north we reach the Province of Bolzano-Bozen, on the border with Austria, where we find the prog-fusion trio Atmosfera Zero (Facebook), from Laives and a “neo-prog” band that have been active since 1980 called Mad Puppet(Official Website).
