Stormy Six – Cliché + Pinocchio Bazaar (1976; 1997)

Stormy Six did a couple of straight up masterpieces, always with a political edge (one of them (Al Volo) even as they operated what could at first seem like a sellout move, adopting a new-wave 1980's sound profile, only to twist it around and confront the mores of mass society using its own aesthetic tools), but some of their other records get dragged down a bit by how much it feels like every moment was the object of collective discussions and doctrinal calculations (that on occasion even spilled textually onto the record sleeves, in the form of didaskaliai to the songs, to ensure the listener was clearly getting at their intentions and not interpreting them willy-nilly like some clueless bourgeois), which could make some of the material feel like arid, theoretically functional expressions of political struggle, where any whim, pleasurable frivolity, or spur of the moment thing had no place to be. 

This, on the other hand, is them doing music for theatre; politicized theatre of course (Titus Andronicus, one of those gory Shakespeare plays prone to trigger the conditioned reflex of later day stage directors to try and instantly modernize them by reaching for the nazi costumes in the company's wardrobe (ah, the trans-historicity of evil, I see), though I can't tell if that was the route taken here; 1789 by Ariane Mnouchkine, evoking the 'trading places' days of the French Revolution; and, in the cd reissue, also some of the music done for Pinocchio Bazaar, adapting Carlo Collodi); but that still allowed them to take a step back, pass the major ideological duties over to the troupe taking centre stage, and enjoy some music making in their own time, which they do well, and with a levity that could have benefited some of their more serious efforts (perhaps none more so than Macchina Maccheronica, despite the playfulness of the alliterative title). 

There's nothing wrong with entering the fray for a good cause; but lest fanaticism or sanctimoniousness take over your good intentions, you should also know when to take a break.