2 Music Reviews

Il Programma di Religione (Boyarm/Slight Records)

Ever wonder how a 265-track CD would sound? Shawn Knight, the man behind this ambitious project probably did. The result was Il Programma di Religione (The Religion Program), which includes 67 tracks, each including four 10-15-second long “songs”, for a total of 265 tracks, recorded in tribute to the 265 Popes in the history of the Catholic church, starting with St. Peter and ending with John Paul II (the last track – for John Paul II – contains only one song). The result is another anthology disc that follows in the path of a previous CD by Boyarm/Slight Records that celebrated the innovators in the field of medicine, The Health Program. And this album proves to be even more crazy than that one. “It was cool, but never again!” Shawn Knight comments in the CD booklet and you can understand why, as it must have taken him an awful lot of time to put together this anthology. Each track is a mish-mash of different sounds: there are samples, noises, scratches, orgasms, snippets of childish songs, electronica, punk, rock, hip-hop, classical music and spoken word. In a nutshell, there is a bit of everything here, and the final result feels a bit like flipping between radio channels while being drunk. All the tracks are penned by obscure artists - who knows who’s hiding behind the monikers The Lolly Pope, Origami Klassika or Luther Blisset Project vs. L. Ron Hubbard - from different parts of the world, from the U.S.A. to Canada, from Germany to Italy, from Bulgaria to Lithuania, from Hong Kong to Japan. The irony of the whole project stands in the fact that most of the tracks here collected don’t have anything to do with any Pope; they’re just there to be listened and appreciated for what they are. Warning: listening to the 66-minute long compilation is a true act of courage. Indeed, the innovative “Il Programma di Religione” is for daring sonic adventurers and sound collectors only. – anna battista

Super Numeri, The Welcome Table (Ninja Tune)

Sun Ra consistently maintained he came from another planet; though Liverpool collective Super Numeri never stated such a thing about themselves, it’s easy to see that they in fact belong to another dimension where music is made passionately, without following the trends of the moment. The opening track to their new album The Welcome Table – the follow-up to their first album Great Aviaries and their EP The Coastal Bird Scene – proves it. The 24-minute track ‘The First League Of Angels’ starts indeed as a cosmic rock hymn in which drums and guitar weave a relentless ode that turns towards the end into a long intriguing and ethereal instrumental, with the harp creating an hypnotic groove. That Super Numeri - with its ever-changing line-up including Karl Webb, Snap Ant and Pop Levi - build through their music mesmerising soundscapes, is also proved by the other tracks, in particular the mythically titled ‘The Buzzard & The Lamb’, the mysterious ‘The Sea Wolves’, and the title track, an exotic instrumental piece enriched by the fragile music of a solitary flute. The year is slowly coming to an end, and listening to The Welcome Table and to its glorious intrumental tracks might be the best way to say goodbye to it forever and start a new one, trying to live it perhaps in a different dimension thanks to Super Numeri’s music. – anna battista