Zeit / UN GIORNO IN UNA PIAZZA DEL MEDITERRANEO

In the late 70’s the Italian music scene recorded a renewed interest in a sound research involved to a stimulating fusion of popular elements, jazz improvisation and suggestions of the middle-oriental classical heritage. Starting from the experience of Aktuala the idea of a common “Mediterranean air”, that could compare and harmonize rhythms and timbres of various regions, enlivened a large number of musicians. In this context, it also placed the short history of Zeit and of his main member Andrea Tamassia who played and recorded with Aktuala. This first album of 1979, seems to be a continuation of Aktuala music, it presents a compendium of styles and shapes, a collection of letters, visual notes from various places (Greece, Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Maghreb, Balcan Area etc.) rearranged in the form of an hypothetical diary, in order to create an unknown narrative scenario. In the music of the Zeit there’s no formalistic or philological purposes but triumphs an attitude to imaginative incorporation always changing. The rich poly-instrumentalism brings the rhythms of dance and ancient melodies, but also results in a palette of more abstract and ecstatic sounds with rare experimental lyricism that approach the florentine ensemble to the significant european experiences of The Incredible String Band or Third Ear Band.