Diego Petrini is an excellent drummer and keyboard player, among the founders and main composers of Il Bacio della Medusa, an essential Italian progressive rock band of the 2000s. With “La Materia del Suono” (The Matter of Sound), his first solo record, the multi-instrumentalist from Perugia allows his creativity to literally explode and flood into a mixture of music genres that is no other than the true spirit of progressive rock.

We are dealing with a cinematic concept album, the result of a compositional process that began years ago on the piano, an instrument that in fact dominates the stage from the first to the last note over a mainly jazz-rock and fusion rhythmic-melodic core. Countless contaminations are to be found throughout each track: classical, lyrical, ethnic, folk, and rock music, with several Moog and Mellotron performances that pay tribute to the Scandinavian prog, while flute and saxophone – played by Eva Morelli from Il Bacio della Medusa – frequently evoke jazz-rock and 1970s progressive music.

The album is fully instrumental, with the exception of the closing “Ciò che trascende” (What Transcends) whose lyrics are sung by the legendary Jumbo’s unmistakable vocalist Alvaro Fella, and explicitly invite the listeners to be always themselves and to constantly ask existential and philosophical questions in an increasingly materialistic and cold world. With “La Materia del Suono” Diego Petrini eventually manages to make his few guest musicians sound like an orchestra, and proves himself to be a quite unique musical talent!

CD papersleeve edition.