Locanda delle Fate

“Forse le lucciole non si amano più” was released in 1977. And ever since 1977, critics have agreed on three points: it's the swan song of Italian progressive rock, it's well crafted but came out too late, and it's stylistically unoriginal compared to its models (Genesis, Banco, Gentle Giant). Over the years, the record has earned a reputation as a masterpiece among genre devotees, yet those three assessments have remained unchanged. They are indeed reasonable and justified, but they fail to account for the fascination the album still exerts after more than thirty years. To uncover its secrets, it might be worth taking the opposite approach.

First of all, the question of release date. “Forse le lucciole non si amano più” could not have come out any earlier. Partly because the lineup was still incomplete until 1976 (Leonardo Sasso, the singer, had yet to join); and partly — and this is the crucial point — because a mature style like Locanda delle Fate's would simply have been impossible before then. Unlike the other giants of Italian progressive rock, Locanda delle Fate is in fact a “second-generation” band: the group's core didn't form out of beat music, blues-rock, or the sounds of Woodstock, but rather out of the already mature progressive gospel arriving from England. The earliest original tracks by the band from Asti were from the start modelled on what were already genre classics: King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Yes.

This brings us to the second point: originality. It would be a mistake to dismiss Locanda delle Fate as a “clone”. Their greatness lies precisely in having squared the circle of a new musical style, a kind of “prog mannerism” that, in emulating the classics, subtly but substantially revises their canons. If the engine driving the progressive “renaissance” was new sound technology and the exploration of schemes unheard of in pop music, Locanda delle Fate's playing field is the recombination of what had already been tried and tested. Their skill lies in refining it, in fusing other people's ideas into an artifice that doesn't feel like one.

Crucial in this respect was the role of Michele Conta, a young pianist fresh out of the conservatory who, together with drummer Giorgio Gardino, worked out the backbone of almost every track. From Michele's hands flowed a singular river of melodic ideas, worlds away from rock's rhythmic cages (even the most ostentatiously “odd-metered” ones), and Giorgio brought great inventiveness to highlighting now one metrical element, now another, underscoring their mutability without weighing them down or forcing them into more rigid schemes. The mannerism of Locanda delle Fate's pieces is thus built on the fluidity of a kind of movement that can't be found in their reference models, which are oriented instead towards the tightly interlocking, clearly marked-out “about-turns” of their suites.

In the pieces that make up the record, everything moves and transforms, nothing ever returns unchanged. Piano, synthesizer, flute and electric guitar climb through elusive flourishes that vanish in a flash yet leave an indelible mark on the mind. And as the shape-shifting flow of melodic themes proceeds, those few seconds of perfection keep echoing in the memory, steeping the atmosphere in nostalgia.

There it is: nostalgia. That's the key to the record, what makes it unique within Italian progressive rock, to the point of earning it the reputation of being the “swan song” of the entire scene. “Forse le lucciole non si amano più” is not, in fact, the last progressive album ever released in Italy (they're still coming out today!), nor the last to be thrilling and personal. It is, however, the one that best embodies the feeling of “the end of an era”, thanks to its musical form, its atmospheres, its words.

Let's start from the end: written mostly by singer Leonardo Sasso, the lyrics are overtly lofty, cryptic and naive. Yet behind much of the grandiloquence lies a deeply melancholy mood: the title track is steeped in the memory of a golden age that is no more, “Profumo di colla bianca” is a Proustian pretext for recalling the irretrievable magic of childhood, and even “Vendesi saggezza” seems to focus on the loss of innocence brought about by reason and society. “Sogno di Estunno”, on the other hand, brings out the central element of dreaming: the utopianism of the early 1970s is by now in irreversible decline, but in “Forse le lucciole non si amano più” the dream dimension offers one last refuge to keep it from disappearing entirely. Indeed, all the lyrics, rather than telling stories or delivering messages, use ornate language and elaborate imagery to conjure an elusive illusion that words cannot pin down with precision.

The same chimera towards which the pieces' atmospheres converge, undoubtedly close to much romantic, dreamlike progressive rock (from Camel to early Pierrot Lunaire), but here tinged with an irrepressible sense of disillusionment. It is the awareness — underscored by the same play of nostalgia already noted in the music — that an entire era has by now come to an end.

As if the music itself sensed the ultimate nature of progressive rock: a daydream, beautiful but unrepeatable.

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19/03/2011