Posidonian
Fields is the third album by Taproban, a band from Rome formed in
1996. It was released in 2006 on the independent label Mellow Records
with a line up featuring Gianluca
De Rossi (keyboards), Guglielmo Mariotti (bass, guitars, vocals) and
Davide Guidoni (drums, percussion). It's a concept album containing
three long suites that tell about a journey through an imaginary
submarine abyss, a metaphorical one way trip in the subconscious. The
lyrics by Davide Guidoni are loosely based on Altered States, a 1980
American science fiction-horror film directed by Ken Russell and are
based on a novel by the same name by playwright and screenwriter
Paddy Chayefsky about a sensory deprivation research conducted in
isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs. Davide
Guidoni took also charge of the art work that in some way depicts the
content of the album... Anyway here words, images and notes are like
touches of colour used to stir your imagination and you have to fill
the gaps. As for the music, every now and again the overall sound
could recall bands such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer or Le Orme,
with the use of a wide range of vintage instruments such as Hammond
C3 organ or Minimoog, but the song-writing is brilliant the final
result perfectly fits the storyline.
The
first suite, "Chapter One: Immersion", is divided into
three parts and begins softly, with the narrative vocals in Greek and
the mysterious atmosphere of "EvapZis". The second part,
"Immersion", begins by a dreamy acoustic guitar arpeggio
and floating vocals to bid farewell to reality... The one way journey
to the unknown begins while colourful psychedelic images appear and
melt during the long dive into the submarine kingdom of Poseidon...
On the third part, "Caronte’s Ship Imponderability", the
rhythm rises while frenzied keyboards waves and rough, nervous bass
lines take you across the Styx to a kind of blue hell...
The
second suite, "Chapter Two: Suspension", is divided into
four parts and begins by the surreal calm of "Riding in
Posidonian Fields" that depicts in music and lyrics the meeting
with a strange creature. A strummed acoustic guitar pattern reminds
you that the ocean is like a desert with its life underground where
you can find nameless seahorses and other creatures riding into
the blue... The second part is the instrumental "Entwinings"
that conjures up the image of a mysterious dance into the deep and
fades into "Suspension" where you can hear the echoes of a
choir of submerged voices coming from a world that you can't reach.
Then you relax, you get lost in your dreams, among corals and fishes
you become someone or something else in a kind of new Genesis... The
fourth part, "Octopus!", suggest what could be the result
of this metamorphosis...
The
last suite, "Chapter Three: Oblivion", is divided into
three parts and begins by the dark, nightmarish "Uncontrolled
Dreams", where you risk to get trapped behind a series of doors
corroded by time... The rhythm is frenzied and the tension is higher
and higher while you seem unable to climb out from the abyss... Well,
an altered state of consciousness is a condition which is
significantly different from a normal waking beta wave state and the
expression describes induced changes in one's mental state, almost
always temporary... But beware! Sometimes there's no way out and the
following part "No Return" marks a new awareness while you
realize that you can't turn back and that it's too late to escape
from the fog of your subconscious. The mystical final part, "Farewell
(including Rebirth)", marks the beginning of a new journey
towards the eternal mystery of the afterlife while your soul spreads
beyond the infinite...
On
the whole, an interesting concept and a very nice album, although I
think that's a pity that the band did not exploit their mother
language for the lyrics as in their previous works.
You
can listen to the complete album HERE
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