''Clic'' is a 1974 album by Italian experimental musician

Franco Battiato Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs explore many themes (including, but not limited to, ph ...

. The album, released on the Bla Bla label (catalogue BBXL 10006) is a brooding and intense collection of instrumental/vocal arrangements. Dedicated to

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

, the music has stylistic similarities with

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

and

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...

, but is more lyrical and has elements of

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...

. It was also released on 23 November 1974, on the

Island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

label (ILPS 9323), in the UK with a different tracklist.

Reception

Reviewing the 1998 re-release of album for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Ned Raggett said:

Aside from backing vocals and a string quartet, everything else is Battiato's doing, with the
Krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock that developed in Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It originated among artists who blended elements of psychedelic rock, avant-garde composition, and electron ...
touches apparent in his previous work starting to surface all the more readily here. Things are generally more meditative and reflective, though certainly Battiato isn't far from his usual wry humor (thus "Propriedad Prohibida," the title of his bitterly wry take on more-leftist-than-thou Italian bands of the time like
Area Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...
, though the song itself is a quietly entrancing instrumental). ... "Il Mercato Degli Dei" is as representative of the album as anything, an instrumental composed of various parts and consisting almost entirely of Battiato's various keyboard explorations arranged and overdubbed, but emphasizing calm, quiet arrangements rather than
Rick Wakeman Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist and composer best known as a member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his prolific solo career. AllMusic describes Wakema ...
-like orgies of sound. "I Cancelli Della Memoria" makes for a great start to the album, soothing
Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the grou ...
-like airs and bubbling
synth bass Keyboard bass (shortened to keybass and sometimes referred as a synth bass) is the use of a smaller, low-pitched keyboard with fewer notes than a regular keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the deep notes of a bass guitar or double bass ...
loops mixing with everything from (apparently) Battiato's own sax work to his more expected piano parts.

Musicians

– voice, piano, keyboards,

VCS3 The VCS 3 (or VCS3; an initialism for ''Voltage Controlled Studio, version #3'') is a portable analogue synthesizer with a flexible modular voice architecture introduced by Electronic Music Studios (EMS) in 1969. EMS released the product ...

kalimba Mbira ( ; ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and ...

, special effects * Gianni Mocchetti – bass, electric guitar * Gianfranco D'Adda – percussion *

Gianni Bedori Gianni Bedori (25 November 1930 – 21 January 2005), also known as Johnny Sax, was an Italian jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, flautist and composer. Career Born in Mantua, Bedori graduated in clarinet at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Mart ...

–

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

s * Jutta Nienhaus – vocals on "Revolution in the Air" *

Juri Camisasca Roberto Camisasca (born 9 August 1951), best known as Juri Camisasca, is an Italian singer-songwriter and composer. Life and career Born in Melegnano, a self-taught musician, Camisasca debuted in 1974 with the progressive rock album ''La finestr ...

– vocals

Other personnel

* Producer:

Pino Massara Pino Massara (24 April 1931 - 23 July 2013) was an Italian musician, composer, record producer and conductor. Born in Vigevano as Giuseppe Previde Massara, graduated in chemistry, from the university years he devoted himself to jazz music. Among ...

* Art Director: Franco Battiato, Peppo Delconte * Designer: Mario Covertino * Photography: Roberto Masotti

Track listing (original 1974 release)

* All music and lyrics by Franco Battiato: # "I cancelli della memoria" (6:16) (Italian: "The Gates of Memory") # "No U Turn" (4:54) # "Il mercato degli dei" (4:30) (Italian: "The Market of the Gods") # "Rien ne va plus: andante" (2:47) (French: "Nothing Is Going Well Anymore") # "Propiedad prohibida" (5:24) (Spanish: "Prohibited Property") # "Nel cantiere di un'infanzia" (4:33) (Italian: "Construction of a Childhood") # "Ethika Fon Ethica" (3:53)

Track listing (1974 UK release)

* All music and lyrics by Franco Battiato:

Side one

# "Propiedad Prohibida" # "No U Turn" # "Gates of Memory"

Side two

# "Revolution In The Air"

References

External links

''Clic''
at discogs.com * Music video: 1974 albums Franco Battiato albums Island Records albums {{Electronic-album-stub