ALAN SORRENTI-COME UN VECCHIO IN INCENSIERE ALL'ALBA DI UN VILLAGIO DESERTO, LP, 1973, ITALY

Transcendent and phantasmagorical work from one of the premier visionaries of the Italian cosmic rock continuum that includes the likes of Franco Battiato, Pierrot Lunaire, Franco Leprino and Arturo Stalteri (to name check just a few), and his work here on "Comme Un Vecchio...", while absent some of the blasted rockist momentum of his debut LP "Aria" ripples and shudders across your consciousness with such palpable psychotropic force, a contact high is almost a forgone conclusion. The deeply folk-inflected material that comprises side A beckons with a profound warmth and humanity to it that compares favorably to Lucio Battisti's sublime mid 70's work on Anima Latina; Sorrenti's wildly keening vocals soaring over these components to completely throat-lump-inducing effect, but it's the side-long title track spread across side B that truly renders this album a holy grail of the scene. Beginning with ecstatic wordless caterwauling appended to atonal piano maneuvers, scything electronics and ritualistic percussion roiling and tumbling across the stereo spectrum like some mediterranean cousin of Igor Wakhevitch, these hair raising elements gradually coalesce at the half-way mark into a round of deliriously emotive acoustic guitar driven rock hysteria wrenching enough to drop you to your knees. I for one am humbled in it's presence.

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