Franco Battiato

Album review

Battiato was originally a pop musician, but by the early '70s he was getting into far more avant-garde material. On this one, he goes even further than usual, with something even more minimal than Terry Reilly or Steve Reich. "Za," the whole first side (or first track) of the CD, is just a single repetitive piano chord over and over and over again, almost unvarying. It might be a good piece to fall asleep to with its hypnotic qualities, but otherwise Battiato's concept seems to have gotten the better of him on this one. Fortunately, the other piece, "Café-Table-Musik," is far more interesting. It begins with some operatic female vocals and starts to get loopy really fast, as bits of piano are cut short and a woman talks and laughs. At times there are long interludes of flowing piano notes that are slightly less minimal than the early track, and then suddenly there's a sound of commotion, gunshots, and people yelling in the middle of the piece. This is followed by repeated descending piano notes; some more dialogue; and finally more piano, some weird background noises, and some high-pitched vocal trilling. It's a strange conceptual theater piece that is far more interesting than the first track.

© Rolf Semprebon /TiVo