Franco Battiato - M.elle Le "Gladiator" (1975)

To follow on from Sulle Corde Di Aries a few weeks back, here's the album that Battiato released on the other side of Clic.  With the release of M.elle Le "Gladiator", the final traces of Battiato's early 70s prog era vanished, and he forged ahead with the most avant-garde music of his career.

The first side of this half-hour long album is taken up by Goutez Et Comparez, in which eight minutes of relentless collage eventually settle down into a couple of minutes of synth patterns, sounding as if recorded on a wonky tape machine.  After a fadeout, the track ends with a three-minute church organ blast (of which there's much more to come in the remainder of the album) and manipulated voice.

Canto Fermo is next, with six minutes of organ stabs and smears that prefigure Keith Jarrett's notorious Hymns/Spheres from the following year.  After that comes to a relatively melodic end, the 12-minute Orient Effects cranks up the organ drones for an epic finale - albeit one that keeps deliberately derailing itself with odd fadeouts before fading back in.  This occurs two minutes in, eight minutes in, then a hell of a lot in the closing minutes, becoming a strange but effective experiment in contrasting maximal drone and pregnant silence.  A memorable end to a fascinating album.

link
pw: sgtg

Franco Battiato - Sulle Corde Di Aries (1973)

Third album in Italian legend Franco Battiato's 1970s journey from avant-prog to straight up avant-garde, and the one that came before Clic.  Dominating Sulle Corde Di Aries is the 16-minute opener Sequenze E Frequenze, in which a drifting opening soon gets tightened up into a juddering pulse of synths and kalimba.  Battiato's definitely been listening to Terry Riley on this one.

Three shorter tracks follow, with the spacey Aries first, the synths gradually joined by guitar, wordless vocals and finally a sax solo.  Aria Di Rivoluzione has Battiato attempting a raga-style vocal, singing about war and revolution whilst a spoken female voice recites lines by East German dissident/poet and songwriter Wolf Biermann over synth, drumming and sax.  The closing Oriente Ad Occidente starts out electronic, but gradually becomes dominated by oboe and mandolin.  A mind-boggling variety of sounds packed into 33 minutes then, and a must-hear all round.

link
pw: sgtg

Franco Battiato - Clic (1974)

Franco Battiato is an adult-pop legend in his native Italy, where he's been hugely successful since the 80s whilst still keeping his music varied and daring.  Before that though, he spent the 70s releasing albums of electronic prog and just sheer avant-garde experimentation.  Bit of a 'reverse Scott Walker' in career terms, then.  This one is from '74, and bore a dedication to Karlheinz Stockhausen - don't worry if this would ordinarily put you off, Clic is infinitely more accessible than that suggests.

That cover made me think of early 80s Conrad Schnitzler, but the first half of Clic is more in the prime Tangerine Dream zone, with VCS3 aplenty.  Album opener I Cancelli Della Memoria starts with gentle synth and piano (and an odd sax squall), before a repetitive bass riff starts to propel it forward, overlaid with a Froeselike lead guitar line.  No U Turn is introduced with odd little voice snippets before swathes of TD synth dominate and Battiato sings over the top, half of the vocal recorded backwards.  Then there's a gentle instrumental piece with more piano.

The second side of the original album (it's important to be aware that the UK Island Records release was a different album entirely, consisting of outtakes from this album and its predecessor) is bookended by the oddest material on the record.  Both Rien Ne Va Plus: Andante and Ethika Fon Ethica are cut-up experiments using bits of classical music, the Italian national anthem, and lots of strange sounds.  In between are a more uptempo synth piece with a harsher sound, plus some sax and strings (Propiedad Prohibida) and the more atmospheric Nel Cantiere Di Un'infanza.  Clic certainly packs a lot in to just half an hour, and it's an ideal snapshot of Battiato's mid-70s genius.

link