Gudrun

It’s a big call, but Gudrun is perhaps the presiding masterpiece of the Italian underground. Formed in Rome in 1974 by Gaio Chiocchio and Artur Stalteri, they brought Vincenzo Caporaletti into the fold for their self-titled debut from the same year, a sweet, acoustic phase-out of an album. But two years later, with a changed line-up – Caporaletti was out, Welsh soprano Jacqueline Darby was in, Massimo Buzzi guested on drums – Gudrun was an altogether different, far more complex beast. Darby’s presence opens the music up to the operatic, though this is kept in check by the fragmentary nature of the album’s structure; the modular compositions multiply in complexity and intensity, the arrangement and ornamentation is eloquent without overstatement or recourse to blithe signifiers of the ‘progressive’. From the twining tone of harpsichord to the weirdly interplanetary glow of the mellotron, from vaguely Krautrock mantras for guitar and drums to chipped and worn arpeggios for electronics, everything here makes perfect no-sense.