Libretto Blaster
This month’s sublime rediscovery: Tim Buckleycharged Italian prog-folk-jazz.
“IN THOSE TIMES, creativity was top of the line,” says Alan Sorrenti, casting his mind back five decades. “We were so strong in Italy that record companies were forced to follow us, which is the opposite of now. I was just 21… we could do so much, in ever y sense. And from that period comes Aria.”
Italian progressive rock remains somewhat underappreciated internationally, with only PFM (via ELP’s patronage) and Goblin (via director Dario Argento’s soundtracks) crossing over to UK culthood. Whither Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, Area, Museo Rosenbach and (fronted by Sorrenti’s sister Jenny) Saint Just? But even in this progressive company, Sorrenti was an outlier, with Aria an enthralling, intense 40 minutes eschewing the genre’s core instrumental dexterity for the rapture and fluidity of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks with aspects of Italian favourites Van Der Graaf Generator. Most important were Sorrenti’s ecstatic vocal incantations reminiscent of Tim Buckley’s jazz period, as forged in the crucible of space rock and the classical folk of southern Europe.
Sorrenti thinks he was “lucky for two reasons.” Firstly, through his Welsh mother, he spent time in Aberystwyth and, in the later ’60s, London (his cousins owned a fish and chip shop in Acton). “An unbelievable time,” he sighs. “I saw Canned Heat, Cream… to watch King Crimson in a theatre was special.” Second, home was the bustling hilltop district of Vomero, “the London of Naples. A record shop imported lots of records, and my friend Umberto Telesco [who shot Aria’s cover] also introduced me to rock, progressive, alternative folk. That’s how I discovered Tim Buckley. He became an incredible teacher to me, to push my voice to the limit.” (Sorrenti’s exultations inspired one commentator to liken the singer to, “one who has eaten a mellotron”).
With his parents both (non-professional) singers, the young Alan had “inherited their gift,” but expanded his creativity by writing songs. Encouraged by drummer Antonio Esposito, Sorrenti sent a tape to the national TV/ radio broadcaster RAI, which subsequently led to the Italian wing of EMI, whose progressive offshoot Harvest would release Aria.
Produced in various studios in Italy and France, Aria boldly begins with the side-long title track, an interlinked suite where Sorrenti’s wordless arabesques unfurl over glistening folk-jazz colours before the opening lyrics, roughly translating as, “In every corner of my room, I am looking for you/In the labyrinths of my mind, I’m chasing you…”
“I was writing about visions,” he says. “It was the time of LSD, which told me that reality was bigger than the life I could see. In Aria, I imagine I’m flying over, like some kind of gothic vision by Ken Russell. I find something, then I lose it, that’s the process. I explain it better in [side two opener] Vorrei Incontrarti [in English, I Would Like To Meet You]; I’m looking for you, but you are submerged in the people. It’s like a Homeric dream. For a moment, I have this love, and then it’s out of reach. It’s a reality we all experience.”
Closer Un Fiume Tranquillo [AKA A Tranquil River] expressed his hopes for spiritual peace. “My sub-conscious was telling me something about what I might become,” he says. “In 1988 I became a Buddhist. Aria was my connection to the universe. Someone described it as a cosmic orgasm!”
To support his orgasmic quest, he was fortunate to call on the pioneering jazz-rock violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, whose manager was a friend of Aria’s producer Corrado Bacchelli, for a solo that echoed the singer’s vocals. In 1973, Van Der Graaf saxophonist David Jackson and Curved Air were guests on Sorrenti’s second album Come Un Vecchio Incensiere All’Alba Di Un Villaggio Deserto, but neither album was released in the UK or US. It turns out that Sorrenti did re-record Vorrei Incontrarti in English, but he says he forgot until Universal released a bunch of rarities on 2018’s The Prog Years Box.
Afterwards, he reoriented as a folk singer-songwriter, and it’s hard to quantify the star-sailing mystic of Aria with the later incarnation, who charted at home in 1974 with a cover of the classical ballad Dicitencello Vuje before moving to the US in 1976 and progressing into danceable yacht rock, Europop and representing Italy in 1980’s Eurovision Song Content (he came sixth). In 2022, he released his second album since 1992, the Afro-tinged Oltre La Zona
Sicura, AKA Beyond The
Comfort Zone. He concedes that it might be where he is heading next.
“I feel I am back where I started,” Sorrenti concludes. “I’m independent, and my audience is not mainstream. I’m now moving towards making a new suite, but more punky and tribal, and my voice like it was before, more explosive. Before I went to America and learnt to technically sing, something inside me was shining. I’m glad I had that time in my life.”
“Someone described Aria as a cosmic orgasm!” ALAN SORRENTI