zeit: un giorno in una piazza del mediterraneo

Black Sweat Records present a reissue of Zeit's Un Giorno In Una Piazza Del Mediterraneo, originally released in 1979. In the late '70s, the Italian music scene's renewed interest in sound research involved 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 one of their main member Andrea Tamassia, who played and recorded with Aktuala. Un Giorno In Una Piazza Del Mediterraneo, their first album, seems to be a continuation of Aktuala's music. It presents a compendium of styles and shapes, a collection of letters and visual notes from various places (Greece, Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Maghreb, Balcan Area, etc.), rearranged in the form of a hypothetical diary, in order to create an unknown narrative scenario. In the music of Zeit, there are no formalistic or philological purposes, but it triumphs with an attitude of imaginative incorporation that is 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 approaches the Florentine ensemble to the significant European experiences of The Incredible String Band or Third Ear Band.