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Zarko · 04-24-2009, 08:29 AM

Roma,Wien. – Mushroom’s Patience (2001)

GENRES – Experimental, Electronic, Avant Garde

Zeit – 6:35
Eaten Alive – 5:54
The Butterfly Bites The Hand Of The Thief – 4:27
My Alphabet – 4:30
Pontebba – 2:09
Vertigo – 7:38
Neubaugasse – 1:38
Obsession – 3:08
Traffic Lights – 4:02
Zeit Stop – 10:32
Bef – 4:06
Pontebba II – 2:27
Roma,Wien. – 7:12
Blind – 3:00
Von Unsren Augen Die Illuminierte Stadt – 1:25

This is the first experimental album I remember getting, and to this day it is still one of the few albums I have paid for from overseas after I couldn’t find it in the music stores in my city. Mushroom’s Patience is a project by an Italian trio that began in 1985, and has been part of the Italian Industrial scene for a while now. I introduced the album to most MB members via the competition, where it garnered some interest at least.

The album begins with a rain hammering the streets and bucketing down drains. Thunder crackles in the background, a prologue to the haunting piano that soon enters the track. Early on, the piano’s job is simple, with only a short burst of work, before its output becomes greater and greater. The volume of the piano slowly rises, as if it is a beast getting closer to its prey. The entire 6 minutes is just repeating these same few parts; First, the driving rain and thunder, before the piano does its short tune, and then echoes into nothingness. The piano riff doesn’t change throughout the entire piece. I love it

.

‘Eaten Alive’ creates a mood that eventually feels synonymous to the titles suggestion. The heavy, brooding drumming, before the thunder and a deep sigh set the mood before some xylophones enter the track. The whole while, the deep breathing continues, as this beast produced noises of all variety. Some deep bass builds up the layers, until the whole track is vampiric, slowly driving forward but still confident it will catch his prey. It is another amazing track on the album. ‘The Butterfly Bites The Hand Of The Thief’ begins auspiciously, with the sound of a drill cutting into someone, followed by a scream. The whole track seems like a floating cream, much more upbeat that the previous tracks, but the low groaning vocals that display nothing but indifference to everything around them make the track what it is. Guitars take a slightly more important role, with the light and high picking accompanying everything. To me, the host (vocalist Simone Salvatori) is in an imaginary world, all bright but still obviously ‘fake’ and bogus.

‘My Alphabet’ changes up the pace a bit with some alternate rock base, with heavier influence by the drumming particularly. There are two voices in conflict throughout, one grunting throughout and the other remaining soft and ‘angelic’. It is quite a good contrast, and the rolling thunder is present once again in a fine little touch. ‘Pontebba’ is a small ‘reflective piece’, as some light breathing dominates the track and crackles of thunder spread across the sky just outside the window. This man is playing his piano, lonely, despondently, and without much time left in the world. The track picks up with some depth guitar and drumming, but nothing overwhelming that takes away from the main sentiment of the track. ‘Vertigo’ is a slightly jazzier tune, with an electric organ and clarinet providing the bass before drumming and some spoken word/begging vocals begin. Screams, thunder, coins dropping, and other random noises are intermittent throughout the track, and this whole process is repeated over 7 minutes.

‘Neubaugasse’ is the shortest track, but begins with that trusty drilling but it continues this theme of torture throughout, unlike ‘The Thief’ which only uses one sample. Some harsh avant garde piano continues in the background, trying to drown out the sounds as well as some slide guitar by Marcello Fraioli. At only a minute and a half, it is an interesting intermission though nothing amazing. ‘Obsession’ is packed with electronic mixing and psychedelic guitar licks and the return of the clarinet in the depths. It pretty much becomes an odd experimental alt rock song, and the final result is pretty interesting, with a lot of random percussion and vocal variety, with an almost Waits-esque feeling before sounding like they are singing to children. ‘Traffic Lights’ is another guitar strumming alt rock piece, with maniacal screaming taking place of the early vocals. Domenico Vitucci’s vocals are more animalistic than human, sporadic cackling laughter and screaming jumping into and out of the song. This becomes particularly scary and funny at the same time near the end of the track, when only the rains and his hysteria exist.

‘Zeit Stop’ is a continuation of the opening track, virtually exactly the same, but with some driving percussion (What sounds like a steel pipe hitting another) as well as aggressive ghostly vocals. They seem to be everywhere, throwing abuse at the listener before floating away, before coming back to curse their pains. At over 10 minutes it is the longest track on the album, and even if it does rehash many ideas, I still love it. ‘Bef’ has a more controlled electronic jazz beat, as a fairly standard almost light DnB drumming sound works in conjunction with the trumpet of Flavio Rivabella. Mixed into this are more lingering vocals as well as a deep guitar riff and screeching violins. This track has so much packed into a fairly structured area, and it all works. Everything simply works well, and the overall resultant tone is top notch.

‘Pontebba II’ is another continuation, of the earlier Pontebba, and it works well as a 2 minute break before the final long stretch on the album. ‘Roma,Wien.’ Is the standout track on the album. Filled to the brim with melancholic vocals and deep bassy electronics, as well as random feedback sounds, it is a track that I showed many MBers during the compilation. The vocals are distorted to the point of no longer being able to understand them, and yet at the same time they convey so many different emotions. From dishevelled to angry to insane to happy, it has it all. It is the standout vocal performance on the album, and the underlying synth and piano just top off the cake. The track flicks between electronic, rock and avant garde at random times depending on what the prominent instrumentation is. This is without a doubt one of my favourite tracks of all time, and should be experienced. And to top the topped off cake with a cherry, it has whistling… Only a supremely confident artist would do such a thing and know it will work

.

‘Blind’ begins with a violin’s beauty being destroyed and eventually sounds like nails on a chalk board. The driving instrument in this track is the trumpet once again, as well as a bass. It certainly is the jazziest tune on the album, but at the same time it is all so painful, with the scratching chalkboard never quite going away. ‘Von Unsren Augen Die Illuminierte Stadt’ is the final track, with a major contribution by ‘Novy Svet’, another Italian underground experimental post-industrial band.

This album personally is the number one experimental electronic out there. Even when it feels like its lagging, it is only doing so in comparison to the gold tracks found elsewhere on the album, and even the repeated sounds don’t discourage from the overall result. What else is there to say? Get this album I guess…

TOTAL SCORE

9.5/10

– Eaten Alive
– Roma,Wien.
- Blind

04-24-2009, 08:29 AM	#72 (permalink)
Zarko Barely Disheveled Zombie Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 1,196	Roma,Wien. – Mushroom’s Patience (2001) GENRES – Experimental, Electronic, Avant Garde Zeit – 6:35 Eaten Alive – 5:54 The Butterfly Bites The Hand Of The Thief – 4:27 My Alphabet – 4:30 Pontebba – 2:09 Vertigo – 7:38 Neubaugasse – 1:38 Obsession – 3:08 Traffic Lights – 4:02 Zeit Stop – 10:32 Bef – 4:06 Pontebba II – 2:27 Roma,Wien. – 7:12 Blind – 3:00 Von Unsren Augen Die Illuminierte Stadt – 1:25 This is the first experimental album I remember getting, and to this day it is still one of the few albums I have paid for from overseas after I couldn’t find it in the music stores in my city. Mushroom’s Patience is a project by an Italian trio that began in 1985, and has been part of the Italian Industrial scene for a while now. I introduced the album to most MB members via the competition, where it garnered some interest at least. The album begins with a rain hammering the streets and bucketing down drains. Thunder crackles in the background, a prologue to the haunting piano that soon enters the track. Early on, the piano’s job is simple, with only a short burst of work, before its output becomes greater and greater. The volume of the piano slowly rises, as if it is a beast getting closer to its prey. The entire 6 minutes is just repeating these same few parts; First, the driving rain and thunder, before the piano does its short tune, and then echoes into nothingness. The piano riff doesn’t change throughout the entire piece. I love it . ‘Eaten Alive’ creates a mood that eventually feels synonymous to the titles suggestion. The heavy, brooding drumming, before the thunder and a deep sigh set the mood before some xylophones enter the track. The whole while, the deep breathing continues, as this beast produced noises of all variety. Some deep bass builds up the layers, until the whole track is vampiric, slowly driving forward but still confident it will catch his prey. It is another amazing track on the album. ‘The Butterfly Bites The Hand Of The Thief’ begins auspiciously, with the sound of a drill cutting into someone, followed by a scream. The whole track seems like a floating cream, much more upbeat that the previous tracks, but the low groaning vocals that display nothing but indifference to everything around them make the track what it is. Guitars take a slightly more important role, with the light and high picking accompanying everything. To me, the host (vocalist Simone Salvatori) is in an imaginary world, all bright but still obviously ‘fake’ and bogus. ‘My Alphabet’ changes up the pace a bit with some alternate rock base, with heavier influence by the drumming particularly. There are two voices in conflict throughout, one grunting throughout and the other remaining soft and ‘angelic’. It is quite a good contrast, and the rolling thunder is present once again in a fine little touch. ‘Pontebba’ is a small ‘reflective piece’, as some light breathing dominates the track and crackles of thunder spread across the sky just outside the window. This man is playing his piano, lonely, despondently, and without much time left in the world. The track picks up with some depth guitar and drumming, but nothing overwhelming that takes away from the main sentiment of the track. ‘Vertigo’ is a slightly jazzier tune, with an electric organ and clarinet providing the bass before drumming and some spoken word/begging vocals begin. Screams, thunder, coins dropping, and other random noises are intermittent throughout the track, and this whole process is repeated over 7 minutes. ‘Neubaugasse’ is the shortest track, but begins with that trusty drilling but it continues this theme of torture throughout, unlike ‘The Thief’ which only uses one sample. Some harsh avant garde piano continues in the background, trying to drown out the sounds as well as some slide guitar by Marcello Fraioli. At only a minute and a half, it is an interesting intermission though nothing amazing. ‘Obsession’ is packed with electronic mixing and psychedelic guitar licks and the return of the clarinet in the depths. It pretty much becomes an odd experimental alt rock song, and the final result is pretty interesting, with a lot of random percussion and vocal variety, with an almost Waits-esque feeling before sounding like they are singing to children. ‘Traffic Lights’ is another guitar strumming alt rock piece, with maniacal screaming taking place of the early vocals. Domenico Vitucci’s vocals are more animalistic than human, sporadic cackling laughter and screaming jumping into and out of the song. This becomes particularly scary and funny at the same time near the end of the track, when only the rains and his hysteria exist. ‘Zeit Stop’ is a continuation of the opening track, virtually exactly the same, but with some driving percussion (What sounds like a steel pipe hitting another) as well as aggressive ghostly vocals. They seem to be everywhere, throwing abuse at the listener before floating away, before coming back to curse their pains. At over 10 minutes it is the longest track on the album, and even if it does rehash many ideas, I still love it. ‘Bef’ has a more controlled electronic jazz beat, as a fairly standard almost light DnB drumming sound works in conjunction with the trumpet of Flavio Rivabella. Mixed into this are more lingering vocals as well as a deep guitar riff and screeching violins. This track has so much packed into a fairly structured area, and it all works. Everything simply works well, and the overall resultant tone is top notch. ‘Pontebba II’ is another continuation, of the earlier Pontebba, and it works well as a 2 minute break before the final long stretch on the album. ‘Roma,Wien.’ Is the standout track on the album. Filled to the brim with melancholic vocals and deep bassy electronics, as well as random feedback sounds, it is a track that I showed many MBers during the compilation. The vocals are distorted to the point of no longer being able to understand them, and yet at the same time they convey so many different emotions. From dishevelled to angry to insane to happy, it has it all. It is the standout vocal performance on the album, and the underlying synth and piano just top off the cake. The track flicks between electronic, rock and avant garde at random times depending on what the prominent instrumentation is. This is without a doubt one of my favourite tracks of all time, and should be experienced. And to top the topped off cake with a cherry, it has whistling… Only a supremely confident artist would do such a thing and know it will work . ‘Blind’ begins with a violin’s beauty being destroyed and eventually sounds like nails on a chalk board. The driving instrument in this track is the trumpet once again, as well as a bass. It certainly is the jazziest tune on the album, but at the same time it is all so painful, with the scratching chalkboard never quite going away. ‘Von Unsren Augen Die Illuminierte Stadt’ is the final track, with a major contribution by ‘Novy Svet’, another Italian underground experimental post-industrial band. This album personally is the number one experimental electronic out there. Even when it feels like its lagging, it is only doing so in comparison to the gold tracks found elsewhere on the album, and even the repeated sounds don’t discourage from the overall result. What else is there to say? Get this album I guess… TOTAL SCORE 9.5/10 – Eaten Alive – Roma,Wien. - Blind Last edited by Zarko; 04-24-2009 at 08:42 PM.