Here we have the debut solo album from Italian guitarist Marco Mattei, which has guests including Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel), Fabio Trentini (Le Orme, Markus Reuter), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel, Hall & Oates), Pat Mastelotto (King Crimson, XTC), Chad Wackerman (Frank Zappa, Allan Holdsworth), Clive Deamer (Portishead, Radiohead, Robert Plant). Musically it covers many different bases, from prog-rock, dream-pop, folk and world music, and this is both its charm and its problem. If I were to liken this to another artist then it would probably be to Peter Gabriel, and having two of his musicians in here has not hurt, but he has also used quite a few singers and that combined with the myriad styles means this feels less like a complete album but more like a project.
Many of the songs are a delight, and the psychedelic folk of “I’ll Be Born” is nothing short of beautiful, but this is a difficult album to enjoy as a whole, as it meanders through its course. One wonders if the album title is as meaningful as it seems, as it appears that his songs moved in a different directions and he has no idea of how to make them feel as if they were all part of a great entity as opposed to being quite disparate. Individually there are some wonderful pieces to find here, while the musicianship is of course of the very highest quality. Whether I want to listen to it again is unfortunately another matter altogether.
