TOWER - TALES FROM A BOOK OF YESTERMORROW
Tower are a trio formed by Beppe Crovella, singer Paola Mei and drummer Elio
Rivagli. The idea behind this album is to expand song ideas into progressive
compositions, like for example Yes did with Simon and Garfunkel's America,
that in fact was a kind of folk song, that they re-arranged to make a
complete prog compositions.
Sometimes songs comes out naturally into a prog composition, other times
they are or can be the starting point to build a new composition around this
main song, other examples in this sense were 'Take a Pebble' or ' Lucky
man'.
So, focusing this relationship between song and prog composition was the
main idea with lot of variations, that's the basic starting point for this
project.
ABOUT THE TUNES
THERE IS MUSIC LEFT TO BE...WRITE! starts with an intense 5/4 rhythm driven
by Elio Rivagli (one of the most appreciated italian drummer, with a lof of
collaborations in the italian top pop names, like Fabrizio de Andre', Eros
Ramazzotti, Francesco De Gregori, Fiorella Mannoia, Elisa, Claudio Baglioni,
Renato Zero, Loredana Barte', Mia Martini and son on, not forgettin Moody
Blues' Justin Hayward), after that we have a very melodic line sang by Paola
Mei, a talented italian singer and 2 long instumental phases that lead to a
reprise of the main melody.
An heartful finale theme complete the tune!
The lyrics aa re about pushing composers to compose despite all the negative
things that can happen around them:
...."no maatter how dark is the night
There is music left to be....write!"
ANN is about lonely people, she's a 'child in time', apparently looser, but
song says that sometimes people in these moods can have more chances of
finding, through solitude, melanchony, reflection, a deeper truth that in a
certain way balances their suffering and sadness.
A sublte melanchonic piano arpeggio introduce the main melody, with Elio
Rivagli playing a kind of suspended 'a la Giles' rhythm,
After a simple but capturing chorus alternates with instrumental lines,
That retains that subtle character, in the Hammond lines and in an expansion
of the original piano arpeggio, that evolves harmonically, becoming darker
at a certain point and leading to a an heartful 'a la Keith Bush' bridge
that brings in a 'maestoso but always delicate' finale.
THE BOX - this song is dedicated to the box, that's present in all our
homes, the TV!, and the intro with 'short TV pieces coming form all the
world gives an idea of the mood of the piece (and of the mind of a '
captured TV's watcher).
TV is seen it like a 'snake' that wraps out our attention and our will, and
the singer's melody with the Hammond in the background portaits this
'snake' state, becoming more dramatic in the middle of the song.
Rossellini said, in the first years of television, that TV could make a
positive cultural revolution in the world, bringing distant and unreachable
cultural beauty in every house, all over the world, and that's true, but all
we know that this original beautiful target has been sadly forgetten alogn
last decades, and beauty, culture, Art has been left out of the box, most of
the time and ,,,one voice at the end of the "multi-televisions-spot" intro,
said that ...'you'll be homeless!" (instead of being in the most beautiful
places in the world!)
SAILING TOO LONG - this song talks about the 'bad politic men' that have
been 'sailing too long' on many seas, playing with people's life with hidden
intentions, hiding their real targets. The main melody sounds like an ideal
'Goodbye, forever!" to this kind of people. The end is the only solo that
appears ont he album, a long one on the Hammond Organ.
FOR A MOMENT OF LOVE - this is one of the best melody in a song that Beppe
ever wrote, sang beautifully by Paola, when the chorus comes is really
"...opening the windows to the farest horizon,,, and fly away!"
The lyrics are portraiting the deep mood of a man that at a certain point of
his life, when suffering and unhappiness are becoming the trademark of life
iself, would simply experience again the 'vibration' of falling in love
again,
IN MY LIFE - portraits a person who acknowledge that life has won
(life makes him instead of....being able to make his life) but at the same
time not forgetting and aware that dreams are 'always there!" ready to be
picked up!
The long melodic interlude, lead by Hammond Organ emphatizes a certain
aspect of this album that's intentionally is close to the Progressive idea
that's behind the music of Procol Harum or "Moody Blues" in the sense of
Progressive music, innovative music, as it was at the time, sith some
'classical music' elememnts introduced in it, some unusual evolutions, but
not forgetting the spirit of the original 'song' that's in the composition
itself, and 'the power of simplicity', as Prog rock don't necessarily has to
be complicated.
Another aspect of this song is explained by Beppe himself:"On an interview on 'Melody Maker' in the Seventies, Keith Emerson said
that he would have liked sometimes to have Greg Lake singing a little more
bluesy,and by finding it interesting, expecially in this song I asked Paola
Mei to add this color to the song!".
RONDO' (WE COME BACK) - This instrumental is built around one of the more
known theme in instrumental Progressive Rock music, "Rondo'" that became
quite famous in Keith Emerson' version, before with "Nice" and later with"ELP",In straight 4/4 time version (with extend arrangemente and the famous
'knives on Hammond L 100" show by Keith).
This famous Dave Brubeck's theme appears here in his original 9/8 theme,
built upon an interesting rhythm by the "impeccable" Elio Rivagli, followed
by a middle section in which Beppe evolves "progressively" the original
theme.
LINE UP
PAOLA MEI - vocals
ELIO RIVAGLI - drums
BEPPE CROVELLA - Hammond, Piano, Minimoog, Mellotron, Wurlitzer, Roland
JD800, Prophet T8, EMU 3 XP, Vintage Keys
| TRACK LISTING |
1. There Is Music Left To Be .....Write! |
  |