Pholas Dactylus - The concert of minds

Pholas Dactylus are one of

the most interesting and convincing episodes on the "minor" Italian progressive rock scene

of the 1970s. Their only album, Concerto delle

menti, released in 1973 on the Genoese label Magma, is split into two

tracks due to the technical limits of vinyl, and stands as a gem within

the music of that era. It is certainly a highly accomplished experimental work,

free of the baroque flourishes that progressive rock often indulges in. More than a suite,

it feels like a theatrical "piece", in which the text, recited rather than sung, carries

the same emotional force, if not more, than the

music itself.

"Soon you will board a

tram.” With these words suspended in the instrumental void, the album opens with an

unsettling recitation. Unsettling and visionary like the rest of the lyrics,

which project the listener into a perceptual and

imaginative scenario.

Paolo Carelli's voice is

controlled, hypnotic, that of a deranged prophet with a menacing tone, who

drags you into a lysergic, hallucinated world. The lyrics are punctuated by breaks and

tempo changes, underpinned by the music which in some cases becomes

driving and compelling, in others stretches out and repeats in a kind of

understated psychedelia.

Galbusera and Pancotti's keyboards

intertwine in a 50-minute tapestry with Colledet's guitar on

a jazz foundation that serves as the backbone.

There are

moments of calm, where the voice relaxes into wide-open passages

breath.

It's a work that orbits around

the mind as an alternative to a world one doesn't want to belong to, around its

journeys, around the power of imagination that gives life to a series of allegories and

symbolism. It's a forge of alchemies.

The fragmentary text recalls

the pages of the most visionary Henry Miller or Baudelaire's lines steeped in

absinthe, but with a delirious apocalyptic sense that lays out decadent

scenarios, journeys backward through time in a circular vision where the first

day feeds the last. Naked, faceless human beings, toads with gem eyes,

floating buildings, an executioner, six steel angels, a colossus with feet of

clay, a solar trumpet, a child of stone are among the figures we

encounter along the narrative's path.

The second part of the album

opens relentlessly, and in some passages recalls certain albums by the

Jethro Tull. Musically it's more

engaging than the first part, where the lyrics were far more

prominent.

“Time and space no longer

exist” and so we arrive at the dissolution of the reference points,

man loses himself, left floating, suspended until we reach

the epilogue, recited over a choral carpet of warbling vocals, which carries the weight and

tone of a warning; it's dramatic until, driven on by the guitar, it takes on

vigor, and leaves us with a question mark.

The work, which

may seem tough going on first listen, proves well rounded over time, even if

it's not without a certain pretentiousness, not always free of disillusion. Suspended between

the avant-garde of Christian Vander and more conventional progressive rock with

jazz influences, it's a work that, unlike much progressive

rock, has intrinsic value: it has the merit of the freshness of an idea

new.

Ride the wave of great music

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