Prati bagnati del monte Analogo from composers Raul Lovisoni and Francesco Messina was released on the Italian label Cramps in 1979. The title is a reference to a surreal French novel about a mountain whose inaccessible peak represents the unexplored, the untouchable. “The climb must start somewhere,” Messina wrote in the liner notes. Both sides of the record are explorations in different modes: the piano and synth of side A’s 24 minute title track, and side B’s melange of harp, voice, and whiskey glasses.
While nominally a part of the Italian minimalism genre, the music bears more in common with Brian Eno’s Music for Airports, released a year earlier. It’s minimal even by minimalist standards. Messina and Lovisoni were a part of the fertile avant garde scene in Italy. Disorganized shows were thrown together everywhere from prestigious theaters to “alternative festivals in a deserted valley among wolves in a national park,” Messina says. “I believe it’s best to imagine the repertoire of this album in that climate,” he writes.
Superior Viaduct, the excellent SF-based reissue label, released Prati bagnati in 2018 and its previously unreleased follow-up Reflex in 2022. They’re currently working on bringing Francesco Messina to the U.S. for a long overdue tour. Both the albums are spare, haunting, and totally absorbing. Lost ambient masterworks that lift you to unexplored peaks and alien continents. | j fecile
For heads, by heads. Aquarium Drunkard is powered by its patrons. Keep the servers humming and help us continue doing it by pledging your support via our Patreon page.
