Franco Battiato

In 1979, after some years of soporific avant-garde, Franco Battiato woke up and turned his attention to the public. However "L'Era Del Cinghiale Bianco" is not just an easy pop album or a bleak effort to reach a commercial success. In that period the "Halcyon days" of prog were gone and Franco Battiato, like many other artists, was looking for new musical ways. Here classical music and Mediterranean and Middle- Eastern folk influences are blended with rock and pop in a very personal way, with the help of a group of excellent musicians. Lyrics don't tell stories but the words are just like "flashes" trying to suggest imagines. The result is surprisingly good! The album is short (it lasts only 31 minutes) but every track is worth listen to. "L'Era Del Cinghiale Bianco" is still far from the clever pop of Battiato's following albums and in the whole it could be an excellent addition to an Italian prog collection.

In 1979, after some years of soporific avant-garde, Franco Battiato woke up and turned his attention to the public. However "L'Era Del Cinghiale Bianco" is not just an easy pop album or a bleak effort to reach a commercial success. In that period the "Halcyon days" of prog were gone and Franco Battiato, like many other artists, was looking for new musical ways. Here classical music and Mediterranean and Middle- Eastern folk influences are blended with rock and pop in a very personal way, with the help of a group of excellent musicians. Lyrics don't tell stories but the words are just like "flashes" trying to suggest imagines. The result is surprisingly good! The album is short (it lasts only 31 minutes) but every track is worth listen to. "L'Era Del Cinghiale Bianco" is still far from the clever pop of Battiato's following albums and in the whole it could be an excellent addition to an Italian prog collection.

"Torneremo Ancora" is the new album by Franco Battiato (Sony Music Legacy), available from Friday, October 18 (on CD and double LP) in stores and on digital stores.

Franco Battiato - L'era del cinghiale bianco (2019) {40th Anniversary Remastered Edition, Universal 060257795600 rec 1979}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 434 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 164 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1979, 2019 EMI / Universal Music / Italia | 06025779560
Rock / Pop / Progressive Rock / Pop Rock / Neo-Classical / Spiritual

On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the release, Franco Battiato's disc was reprinted on 19 July 2019. The era of the white boar - 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition (1979-2019) on Universal. The album - which in the original version was released on September 10th - marks the pop turning point of the Sicilian artist and is considered by many to be a transitional masterpiece, between past and future, between experimental prog and intellectual pop totally influenced by New Wave. In fact, in the work there are many references to esotericism, exoticism, spirituality, to the philosophy of René Guenon, who defined the era of the white boar as "a mythological and magical age, during which every man reaches absolute knowledge in a spiritual sense".

Franco Battiato's 1980 album Patriots, his first for the major multinational company EMI, found him moving to more of a synth-based pop/rock sound, the better to create stirring anthems like the opening track, "Up Patriots to Arms." The 40th anniversary edition of the album adds four bonus tracks, including English- and Spanish-language versions of that song. Later Battiato albums would enjoy widespread commercial success, but Patriots set the stage for that mass popularity.

A Persian scientist of the XII Century was used to say "I live like a camel into a gutter" to show how is language was inadequate to speak of science. This is where the album's title is from. The cover is a paint of Battiato himself who has signed it with his arabic nickname. It's a very short album as almost all in his production with 4 "minimal" songs on the A side and the arrangement of 4 lieders on the B side. If the four songs can't be considered as classical music, all the instrumentation is classical and also the melodies have an operistic touch. Of the four the best is the last: "L'Ombra Della Luce" (Light's Shadow) both as music and lyrics…

Franco Battiato's 1980 album Patriots, his first for the major multinational company EMI, found him moving to more of a synth-based pop/rock sound, the better to create stirring anthems like the opening track, "Up Patriots to Arms." Later Battiato albums would enjoy widespread commercial success, but Patriots set the stage for that mass popularity.