Moto browniano - Brownian Motion

Un frammento della Sfinge E altro Sospesi in acqua... Moto browniano Particelle di polline Pulviscolo londinese Un frammento della Sfinge E altro Sospesi in acqua... Provo sdegno verso alberi e fogliami Foreste onnipossenti Mi invita una terra spoglia Senza tracce di vita Uguali l'uragano E il tenue soffio di vento..... Mi tentano paesaggi Senza alcuna idea di movimento.... Dove l'immoto echeggia – riposi Moto browniano © 1995 Franco Battiato & Manlio Sgalambro "Moto browniano" pairs the molecular world of incessant and random motion (known as Brownian motion) with an almost science-fiction world where not even the idea of motion exists (this part of the lyric is an adaptation of Sgalambro's 1991 work Of Brief Thought (Del Pensare Breve); to give a sense of how he altered the original, the final three lines of the last verse were boiled down from this: "They tempt me, lunar landscapes, spongy, where the rocky mass lies inert, without any idea of movement. Where motionlessness echoes antique reposes.").

a fragment of the Sphynx, and more, suspended in water . . . Brownian motion – particles of pollen, London particulates, a fragment of the Sphynx, and more, suspended in water . . . I feel disdain for trees and foliage, omnipresent forests. A barren land invites me, with no trace of life, equal the hurricane and the soft breath of wind . . . They tempt me, landscapes without any idea of movement . . . Where motionlessness echoes – reposes. English translation © 2020 Dennis Criteser L'ombrella e la macchina da cucire was released in 1995. It was recorded at Battiato's home using only electronic instruments, and for him it was somewhat of a return to the musical experimentation that characterized his 1970s work. The lyrics were written by Manlio Sgalambro, the Sicilian philosopher who said that, for him, Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit sung like music in his ears. References to philosophy and literature abound; the title of the album is taken from a line by the French poet Isidore Ducasse: "Beautiful as a chance encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table." This line, according to Max Ernst, is the key to understanding surrealist poetry - "the search for beauty through the pairing of two seemingly irreconcilable realities." Battiato felt liberated by not having to write lyrics, and he was stimulated to explore and discover new musical realms by the different aesthetic that Sgalambro brought to wordsmithing, one that flows from a man in many ways his opposite. Sgalambro described it this way: "Spiritual, transcendent, ascetic the first [Battiato]. Materialist, fleeting, anti-poetic, even cynical, the second [Sgalambro]."

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