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Nicola Randone - Morte di un Amore
But while the overall picture is ‘progressive’, other styles are cleverly woven in such as reggae, soft and hard rock, and even a bit of pop.
The opening bars of La Giostra (The Roundabout) sound vaguely familiar to me – maybe I’m thinking of Home’s The Alchemist? The last track which happens to be the title track ends with a reflective eerie heartbeat and thunder leading to a ghostly melody and vocal played backwards – is there a message in there? To appreciate this album it should be listened to in its entirety, as I am sure it is meant to be. The compositions are more complex than they initially seem and the changing textures and styles are very interesting. Morte di un Amore is distributed by BTF and, in the USA by Kinesis (links below) and sound samples are available via Nicola’s website. Un lavoro di merito artistico, Nicola! (Which I hope means ‘a work of artistic merit, Nicola!) Jem Jedrzejewski Online CD Purchase at: http://www.btf.it/ita/index.htm#randone
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Morte
di un Amore is the debut solo album by Italian musician Nicola Randone.
Italian musicians are well known for their progressive output and some are more
innovative than others. Morte di un Amore (a Love’s Death) is something
quite different again. The best way I can describe the style is to call it
‘progressive opera’ but even that is not entirely accurate. However, Nicola’s
strong vocals are definitely operatic/theatrical in nature and feature
prominently in the mix. I suspect he is a fan of Pink Floyd purely because I
detect a number of sounds here and there that are similar to those used by Floyd
for their Wish You Were Here and Animals albums. Keyboards (Enrico
Boncoraglio – also plays bass) vary from general symphonic orchestration to
piano to typical Wakemanesque sounds and a lot in between. Electric guitar (Enrico
Boncoraglio) sounds vary enormously too including a touch of Nick May’s Enid
style. Nicola Randone also plays guitars, which I guess may include some of the
electric guitar work as well as the acoustic elements. Riccardo Cascone (drums,
percussion) holds the whole thing together with ease and contributes admirably
to the sound effect elements on the album.
The theme for
the album, conceptually speaking, is as stated by the title ‘A Love’s Death’
and each track seems to cover a different aspect or story. Although the lyrics
are printed in the CD booklet in Italian an English translation is provided on
Nicola’s website (link at foot of page – once in, click just below the album
cover). From the lyrics I can see that there is a lot of depth of feeling from
anger to sorrow and perhaps regret and how one’s view of love can alter
depending on situations and past experience. Now and then, wartime recordings
of speeches are used along with the searching of a radio waveband that is
perhaps overdone these days but it does add a hint of spookiness and doom. Often
vocalists sing in English, but this is often a mistake where English is clearly
not there mother tongue. Nicola has wisely chosen to sing in Italian that in no
way detracts from the non-Italian speaking listener (such as me). On the
contrary, it can be quite enjoyable following the printed Italian lyrics as they
are sung.