Madrugada - Madrugada (1974)

It took me a while to warm up to Madrugada’s output which, initially, I tended to pair with Saint Just in the Italian prog scene, but not so much anymore. Their sophomore efforts might be somewhat similar in their electrified avant-jazz-prog-folk miscuglio; however, when it comes to their debuts Madrugada certainly wins it for me. It’s rather atypical for that scene, which is giving it increasing credit in my appreciation: no fussiness, no grandiloquence, and vocals that manage to avoid the two polar registers that symptomatically dominated it (high-pitched castrato or gruff latin macho; a fact which I'm sure some gender studies theorist could make something of). 

Instead, we are offered a set of mild-mannered autumnal songs and jazzy digressions, delivered in as accomplished as unassuming fashion by a band of youths struggling with the privilege of having the spare time to entertain existentialist considerations (I share your pain, ragazzi). Even when they try to be a bit more upbeat on a couple of numbers (which was clearly not their forte), they can’t help but distill a melancholic hew, which soaks some of the best tracks here (“sei un uomo blu”, indeed), always dropping "mille forme d'ombra" (love that turn of phrase) with their Fender Rhodes, that made even their collective chants for us to join them happily down the road not such a sappy proposition as it might sound on a first listen. 

Particularly, I may have become a sucker for the right piano chords at the beginning of a song - what with Radiohead’s Pyramid Song and The National’s Fake Empire (weird references in this context, I know, but good music does pop up in the darnedest places, including bands that can fill up arenas) - and sure enough, just as the record begins, that simple piano opening over a windy backdrop immediately gets to me. It feels like an aural translation of how stoics would experience the duality of nature in Antiquity; the bitter-sweetness of enjoying its fruits while anticipating the rot, instead of being blind-sighted by it (as the delusions of modernity, doggedly denying all intimations of mortality, coax us to). 

So, enjoy this while you can, and always choose wisely what (and who) to dedicate your time to next: it, me, and you (unless you're a big tech mogul; who knows what thou, mine beloved overlord, are up these days?), like Seneca, drawing wine from the krater, leaning against an olive tree and writing letters to Lucilius, hoping to bang him at some point (I'm sorry, that's entirely apocryphal; but, I mean, so many letters), aren't bound to be around forever. I know, who would have thought?