11 June 2021

UPUPAYĀMA – Upupayāma (2021, LP Centripetal Force/Cardinal Fuzz)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Centripetal Force/Cardinal Fuzz

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Red Vinyl, 150 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 200 copies

Release Date: 13 Jul 2021

This is another album (out of many) that originally was digitally self-released through the Bandcamp, but Thanks (!!!) to the fast reflexes (in this case) of Centripetal Force/Cardinal Fuzz labels, this MAGNIFICENT small (concerning to its timing) album is going to be released on vinyl format and this way can satisfy “real” Psych Lovers throughout the world… Behind Upupayāma is just one man, Alessio Ferrari, a multi-instrumentalist/songwriter from Italy. Alessio writes, records, and plays all instruments in his self-titled debut album and I need to say that the vinyl version of the album except being re-mastered, also contains one more additional track, the one that opens the album, “Hopsa-Japapé”… Also, Alessio sings in his own invented language, how cool is that? Let’s have a look/read at the press release that was sent to TimeMaZine Headquarters by Mike Mannix (Centripetal Force):

“Centripetal Force (North America) and Cardinal Fuzz (UK/Europe) are pleased to announce the upcoming vinyl release of Upupayama’s self-titled debut. The album is being presented in a 350 copy vinyl pressing, 150 of which will be available on red and 200 of which will be on black. The record will be made available for preorder on June 11th, with a release date of July 13th.

Upupayama is the musical persona of Alessio Ferrari, an Italian multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who lives in a small mountain village above the city of Parma. Upupayama’s music is rooted strongly in Eastern and Western folk traditions, an approach that Ferrari blends with his own modern sensibilities and style. In addition to playing guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums on the album, Ferrari himself also incorporates a number of other instruments into his sound, including sitar, erhu, transverse and wooden flutes, and a variety of percussion instruments. He is also responsible for all of the recordings that went into the project.

Ferrari is currently in the process of putting together a group of musicians that will help deliver his vision of Upupayama to a live setting. Informed by the wonders of nature that surround him high in the Northern Apennine mountains, Ferrari’s songwriting possesses a mystical quality, one that reflects the fantastical and surreal, yet simple, elements of the natural world. His use of imagery is strong and is communicated vividly through his music. This is especially clear in “The Blue Magician’s Fantasy” and “Hello Green Man, I am a Tiger,” both of which are songs in which he sings with his own invented language. True to the sense of magical realism his songs evoke, Ferrari is quick to point out that even the concept of Upupayama, which means mountain hoopoe, “is surreal because the hoopoe is not a mountain bird.” As he puts it, “I like the fact that a mountain hoopoe and an invented language can live in an imaginative world.” That imaginative world is the five songs in front of you right now. Comparisons to Kikagaku Moyo are understandably easy to make, but it should be noted that Alessio Ferrari is drawing from the same waters as many of his contemporaries, including his Japanese counterparts. These influences are wide and varied, ranging from the folk leanings of Fairport Convention and Popol Vuh to the rich creativity of Italian library music to the long-form jamming styles of Träd Gräs Och Stenar and the Grateful Dead”…

34 minutes and 19 seconds, divided into 5 songs, 3 on the first side and 2 on the second. The album kicks off with the previously unreleased “Hopsa-Japapé”, under a weird and mystical musical environment, sadistically slow and creepy, a psychedelic-folkie full-electric soundscape is being unfolded while the mind-bending music over here makes a full antithesis with the trippy heady vocals, stunning! “Green Cabana” glitters an Eastern-like shimmering sound that shamelessly flirts with a majestic guitar sounding that it appears to come straight out of West Africa’s shores, slowly the tune is transformed into a psych ritual kind-of-thing, really trippy! You get the feeling of being on the highest top of the Apennine Mountains and somehow you can watch the long-distant seashores in Gambia (!!!)… But there’s more! There’s a sick twisted Popol Vuh subterranean presence all over the track! Mind-Blowing! “The Blue Magician’s Fantasy” has a let-loose trippy electrical-psych atmosphere created by a remarkable Sitar/Guitar sound that is blended with Alessio’s invented language, and the result is really astonishing! This could be a long-lost Grateful Dead jam coming from Tibet’s high mountaintops… Magical and Surreal! Side ‘B’ opens in an eerie folkie way with “White Oak”, there’s a strong Psych-Acid feel, a shamanic call that with Pythia’s touch is transformed into a hallucinogenic psychedelic jam-a-like experiment of the mind, splendid! Only 26 minutes have passed and I think that I’m listening to this for at least 3 hours! The last Trip-Song is called “Hello Green Man, I am A Tiger”, mystical folklore bucolic scenery, unknown words, an intense old-traditional feeling (courtesy of that lovely magical flute sounding), this is an elegy that can be heard late at night to a Synagogue somewhere in ancient Rome… But, of course, there’s more… The Sitar adds a Middle-Eastern breeze that finally transforms the tune into a heady trippy let-loose jam coming straight from the famous Hashbury corner… It’s really unbelievable how 36 minutes can last 5 hours! Upupayāma is one of the best vinyl releases of the salvation year 2021! Psychedelically Scrumptious! TimeLord Michalis