You go to Italy for the culture, the food and wine, the architecture, the sunshine, the dramatic hand gestures, the excellent standard of driving, not to buy records. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, record shops are very thin on the ground, and secondly, vinyl (when you can find it) is expensive. Holy shit, is it expensive!
This summer, the Shelf-Stacker clan hit Puglia, deep in Italy's heel. I was resigned to a two week vinyl detox - not a great hardship considering everything else this beautiful country has to offer - but I nevertheless managed to stumble upon two record shops. One (Detroit Rock City in Gallipoli) was closed, the other (Discoshop Detommaso in Monopoli) might as well have been. Not that it isn't a great little shop, but the UK's weak pound, courtesy of the Brexit vote, hasn't exactly taken the edge off the crazy vinyl prices in Italy. Discoshop's owner handed me a delicious stack of under-the-counter vinyl porn including titles by Le Orme, Premiata Forneria Marconi, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Franco Battiato, Claudio Rocchi, New Trolls and Saint Just. Most of these rare LPs - all original pressings - I'd never seen in the flesh before, but with prices ranging from 40 euros to 2,000 euros - ouch! - I had to walk away. However, not before the owner obligingly spun a copy of Il Balletto di Bronzo's Ys LP for me (500 euros if I remember correctly). I knew straight away that I needed to own a copy of the LP. Not that copy, obviously. I've since settled for a 2014 reissue which is sonically stunning and with meticulously reproduced gatefold artwork.
Ignore any reviews you've read comparing Ys to Emerson Lake & Palmer - lazy comparisons like that are as likely to turn people off as steer them towards this classic album. Sure, there is keyboard virtuosity throughout, but Il Balletto di Bronzo's LP is considerably more focused and experimental than anything ELP ever released, avoiding any of the Benny The Bouncer / Are You Ready Eddy?-style knockabouts that sullied many of ELP's albums. If you love challenging progressive rock with a psychedelic twist, this one's for you. What struck me most when I first heard Ys is the intensity and focus. That and the phenomenal musicianship. God knows what the album's about, but whatever it is, the band really means it. From the run-in on side one to the dead wax on side two the listener is treated to eerie female wailing, a smorgasboard of synths and keyboards from squelching Moog to baroque spinetta and haunted dancehall piano, impassioned vocals minus the stagey theatricality that mars some european progressive music, deeply hypnotic bass grooves, urgent snare-fixated drumming, trippy stereo panning, angular guitar lines and searing lead breaks. I love it!
http://www.discoshopmonopoli.com/store/
http://www.discoshopmonopoli.com/store/
You know...I felt inspired enough to track down the CD of this and in my searches found a translation in English of what it is all about... you may be interested so here it is
ReplyDeleteIntroduzione / Introduction
The voice narrated
to the last one who
remained in the World
the true reality
And then it ordered
to go among its people
to say the truth
and the game started.
That voice pushed in the chest
with the pain of understood things
maybe it was in time to say it also to the others
maybe it was in time to say it also to the others
What's the life of a man who cried
like watching a clean sky
like fixing your eyes in the Sun
like seizing a lended hand.
And the voice pushed in the chest
with the pain of understood things
it had to go soon
it had to go soon
The poetry of a windy day
the last leaf of a dead tree
the first sunny day of April
a warm body a close hand
Primo incontro / First encounter
He went beyond the mountains and further
without turning back to see
the way to make is long
but he had to go still to go
A man is there with his face down
and already the ivy embraces his body
black is all the blood he has
on the wounds of torn ears
The voice obliged him to scream
all that was dying inside him
what he screamed the wind took with it
he would not have felt anything anymore.
Secondo incontro / Second encounter
He will see, he will see
even if he can't hear
a bright sky
what can tell him
A face of an old man
close already to death
there wasn't faith
now it is already strong
The gaze of a man
who isn't scared
what is it, if he lacks
a strong voice
He saw the night
the day ending
and women in the dark
ready to betray
The hand lended
the faces emptier
dying the best ones
rejoicing the mighty ones
But he didn't remain to think alone
he had to look for something that is there
and it wasn't night it wasn't day
and the horizon remained there
He didn't surrender
he did never surrender
he didn't ask himself
man where are you going
And what he saw was another man
with those arms spread in cross
without hearing his voice
he moved close to him and talk
But in those lightless eyes
stinging thorns were embedded
he did feel those wounds like his
and then the light wasn't anymore.
Terzo incontro ed epilogo / Third encounter and epilogue
With his arms extended
he seeked his head in the darkness
with the fingers he found a shape
Only the cold
of death
he could feel
in his hands
his true word
from the chest grew up again
But his mouth
tired and immovable it remained
that scream crushed him
deep inside him it crushed him
and the darkness around him
then was inside him
and dark it was
Nick, thanks for taking the time to provide that translation. A reviewer (siLLy_puPPy) over at Rate Your Music http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/il_balletto_di_bronzo/ys/reviews/2/
ReplyDeletedescribed the concept driving Ys as: "about a man who is the sole survivor left on planet Earth who makes a journey and mysteriously disappears. The mythical city YS is not Italian at all and is actually a Celtic creation that supposedly existed off the coast of Brittany in modern day France. The city represents a magnificent and outstandingly beautiful city in Europe and how it went to hell in a hand basket because of the way it was governed." I think it's fair to say that the album is thematically dark! Even without your translation the music makes that much abundantly clear. Hope you're enjoying this album as much as me. Cheers!