Premiata Forneria Marconi- L’isola di niente

We’ve gone from well known to obscure and now back to well known for this Italy month. Premiata Forneria Marconi, commonly referred to as PFM, translates as “Award Winning Marconi Bakery”. The core members spent the second half of the 60’s as session players for many Italian pop stars, and officially formed PFM in Milan during 1970. They were one of the rare Italian bands, prog or otherwise, to gain some fame outside of Italy in the Anglophone world by recording some English spoken albums. L’isola di niente (The Island of Nothing) is the third Italian language album from the group, released in 1974. For this album, the lineup was Franz Di Cioccio (drums/Vocals), Patrick Djivas (bass/Vocals), Franco Mussida (guitars/vocals), Flavio Premoli (keyboards/vocals), and Mauro Pagani (violin/flute/vocals).

L’isola di niente starts with its title track. This itself starts with 2:30 of choral chants, a throwback to the liturgical traditions of Italian music. However, a nice guitar riff then takes us into the hard hitting meat of the song. The vocals here are quite strange, but the guitar playing really leads the way, with both electric and acoustic passages. The keyboard work is very sweet and pastoral to accompany. This song truly fits the “symphonic” in symphonic prog. Afterward, we have “Is my face on straight”, the only English song on the album. Due to this, vocals truly lead, and we do suffer from some of that ESL loss to translation. However, there’s a nice carnival like atmosphere to the track, with some nice keyboard work. Also of note is the strong presence of the flute in the background which helps carry the song along.

On side B of L’isola di niente we have three tracks. First is “La luna nuova”, which starts with quiet percussion and then leads into a violin melody. This song shows PFM at their most rhythmic. The synths used on this song go way be on the line of acceptable tackiness, unfortunately. There’s not too much else to make up for it, but there’s some good bass playing in particular. This one also has the festive feel. Next up is “Dolcissima maria” a 4 minute track. This sounds like it’s probably some sort of ballad. As would be expected, it’s soft, with lots of acoustic guitar. Overall, it’s a very sweet little piece that I wish I could translate. The final song on the album is “Via lumiere”, it starts with quiet bass and later guitar exercises, before, going into a hard edged assault of distorted violin and guitar. It alternates between some quieter passages and then more of the rock. This song is the most experimental and most rewarding of the tracks on L’isola di niente.

When looking at the album as a whole, I see lots of small strengths rather than anything spectacular or mind blowing. Likewise, the flaws are all minor and overlookable. What saves this from the curse of the average is that the playing is very articulate and professional. Also, “Via lumiere” provides a big boost to the rest of the album with it’s interesting loud/ soft contrasts.

I’d highly recommend this one to fans of prog, especially Italian prog. A strong effort with many little goodies to offer, I give it a Grade of B-.