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WINDHAWK: (five stars review!)

NODO GORDIANO is an Italian act that was formed in 1994, originally as a cover band performing songs penned by King Crimson, Genesis and various popular rock tunes played on the radio. They soon started making their own music though, and in 1999 their debut album was issued. Come 2009 and the band has basically been reduced to a duo, enlisting guest musicians when needed. Probably not as active as a live unit these days, but they still continue to record it though - as documented on Flektogon, their third studio effort.
On this venture we're served close to an hours worth of eclectic and quirky music, with hardly any stylistic expressions dominating the proceedings. The band does like to revisit certain themes though, but as the sound and timbre of the various segments explored throughout this album is about as different as the total number of these this is more of a structural than musical similarity.
Opening number Theatro di Memoria opens with a sacral mixed choir theme, and continues with a mellow melodic theme as foundation for female operatic vocals - with a dark, heavy instrumental theme wedged in between the vocal passages. The first of the Ozymandias tracks follows, a percussion-dominated effort that starts and ends with strong melodic themes with a chaotic mid-section.
The following composition, Avventure di Mastarna, is the central work on this production. Just over 30 minutes long, this quirky, shifting psychedelic tinged number visits a number of stylistic expressions on it's journey, from driving space-tinged passages to calmer symphonic-tinged sequences. Subtle dissonances and disharmonies, energetic heavy moods and beautiful harmonic themes all find their place in this piece - a rewarding number for most people with an interest in challenging musical efforts.
The second chapter in the Ozymandia saga follows, this time a drum-dominated effort, while Crimsonheads gets a nod or three in their direction in the dark, bleak, quirky and slightly repetitive closing number Zeitgeist. Flektogon isn't a creation that will hold a universal appeal by any means, but for those with a liking for adventurous, mostly instrumental and challenging art rock from the darker side of that universe, this CD may be a strong contender for album of the year for 2009.

memowakeman:

Once again, an Italian band that puts a smile upon my face! It is incredible not only the amount, but the quality of some bands that are unknown to you and when you listen to them, you just say "wow", why didn't I discover them before?. Well this happened to me with this Italian band called Nodo Gordiano, a band that has been working since the mid 90's, and have released so far 3 albums, being this their latest work entitled "Flecktogon". An album that lasts 53 minutes approx, and that contains only 5 tracks, being one of them a surprisingly exquisite 30-minute epic. It kicks off with "Theatro di Memoria", the first minute has only some choral vocals, but then an ambient of tension starts with the guitar sound, and some seconds later drums and bass join, that same ambient of tension prevails and slows down at minute 3, where you will hear only a constant guitar along with female vocals that puts some dark mood to the music that disappears a couple of minutes later when there is a powerful eruption inside the song, same that lasts just for a moment in order to return to that dark-female vocals- mood, and again, returning to the eruption moment and finishing the song with a great form.
A very nice introduction to the album! The next song is "Ozymandias Part I", which is very different to the previous one, so the band let us know that they can use several musical elements in order to compose different but in some way, connected songs. This one is a short song that contains percussion, which gives to the music a kind of dark, chamber or avant-garde mood; it is a beautiful instrumental composition.
And then, we have that long epic called "Avventure di Mastarna" which as I mentioned above, lasts 30 minutes. I have heard several boring epics, but this time I was really pleased and surprised by the high quality of this composition. There are lots of musical elements inside this piece that sums up an extraordinary epic, full of experimentation and creativity. It starts with something that reminds me like an acoustic guitar but with some oriental sound, don't really know how to explain it, then little by little the drums enter and a new sound begins, something more powerful and addictive to the listener, the bass notes are excellent and the synth effects are an excellent complement. The same structure continues during some minutes, but the colorful use of sounds makes the song even better, because they are always experimenting and playing something different into the same structure, hope you get what I mean. After minute 5 the atmosphere changes a little bit, the structure is the same so we can appreciate the musician's creativity, there is a moment where the bass takes the leadership. And then, at minute 8 the song makes a little stop, the music out but just in order to build up something new, the atmosphere is now of tranquility and relaxation, it's like taking a breath after the nervous and powerful first part. Then, there are some experimentation moments where the song does not have a structure itself, they are just playing with some sounds but a few seconds later there is a hypnotizing synth sound along with softly played guitars, but then all of a sudden a strong saxophone appears along with also strong bass notes, this moment in particular remind me to my beloved Mexican band Cabezas de Cera, so as you guess, I enjoy this moment a lot. It also reminds me to some King Crimson moments, I guess they may have taken some elements of them as inspiration. Then, they continue experimenting but what they create every minute is different to the previous one, that is what I really like of it, their capacity of combining and experimenting. The last part of the song builds up a new and interesting structure, with constant drumming and great bass lines, alone with those captivating synth effects that make you feel interested with what you are listening. A great epic!!!
The next song is the second part of "Ozymandias", again what predominate here are the percussion, tranquility at first, but then when drums enter a sensation of don't knowing what is going to happen appears, but the drums keep sounding, reminding me this time to Crimson´s Thrak passages, so it's like a drum solo for two minutes, then the other percussion instruments appear, along with a delicate electric guitar.
And the album finishes with "Zeitgeist" which starts with another addictive bass line, accompanied with some drums here and guitar there, the sound here is more alike to the first part of the epic, something stronger than the Ozymandia´s tracks for sure, where the musicianship is noticeable and the music keeps being captivating, I like a lot the bass lines here actually, and the atmosphere created gives a very eclectic flavor to the music. There is a little stop at minute 3, then some distorted guitar and later it returns to the strong structure. A very nice song to finish this great album.
As you could notice, I am happy with this album due to it's eclecticism and experimentation, I honestly believe it is not so easy to dig, but once you do it, you will love it. My final grade is 4 stars, since I really recommend it, and once again, it proofs that prog rock from Italy is always alive and strong. Special thanks to glover, for letting me know about Nodo Giordano. Enjoy it!

philippe:

Coming from Italy's classy ne-prog scene, Nodo gordiano has recently recorded a curiously enigmatic and powerfuly exuberant album called flektogon. This one can be perceived as a conceptual album about the mystico-rational discoverings of old alchemists. The concept is all about the occult and the practical symbolism.
Nodo Gordiano's proggy hard rockin songs combined to classical motifs and weird experiments deliver convincing musical metaphors of the epiphanic-magical universe of the ancients. The album opens with some religious-highly spiritual chants to pursue on high-energy atonal rockin sequences.
The delicate-lyrical parts of the singer punctuate the ensemble with haunted and fragile melodic touches. The two chapters of Ozimandias represent the highlight and most representative-idiosyncrasic aspects of the album: an inspired combination between classical-suspensful-avant garde orchestrations / experiments and bombastic heavy fuzzed out rockin leads.
To sum up things, flektogon is a brilliant, colorful and difficult album that will ravish fans of early Italian classics (Osanna, Museo Rosenbach...) and those who like the most challenging tendances of neo-prog rock.

clarke2001 (NEW):

I live in a city suburban area, I'm surrounded by buildings and apartments. In a circle of 1 km in diameter around my apartment there are almost 10000 inhabitants.

I'm convinced each of those 10000 people hear my scream after I wrote a lenghty review which is long overdue, and my browser just crashed in a second before I submitted it. Frankly, I kicked the computer so hard I'm surprised it's still working.

But NODO GORDIANO deserves that review from me - they're one of the most unique bands that can be heard. If they endure a career with a span of ten years or more, I'm sure they will gather a cult status and numerous devotees in various prog rock communities worldwide.

To the point.

First off, I'll try to describe what do they sound like - which is not an easy task at all.

The band's music got an emphasis on drums and percussion - varying from a standard rock drum kit, to all kinds of percussion, chimes and bells. They're all over the place; the are unaccompanied percussion as well, but I guess a 'drum solo' was not a band's statement. More on that later. The other prominent instrument is bass - it's set up quit high in the mix - and it's adding nicely to the rhythmical aspect of the band, along with its sinister melodies. There are also keyboards, producing various percussive and bell-like sounds (contributing to the percussion inferno), some undecipherable sounds, even snippets of classical electronic sequences. Electric guitar is used as a tool for producing soundscapes (varying from simple to elaborated), sometimes carrying the melody, sometimes being simply erratic. The vocals are few and far between, as this is mostly instrumental music, adding operatic and choir elements to the singular musical landscape. There's also a plethora of other instruments, swallowed among many layers.

The overall picture is 'dark', whatever 'dark' might represent you. Now try to look things from this perspective:

NODO GORDIANO epitomize everything associated with progressive rock - in both adjective and literal sense. They're clever, complex, sinister, angular, eclectic. There's not a single moment of pop approach in their music. In the very roots, they're a rock band, but I dare to say their approach to music crafting is academic. There's no point of underlining the phrases such are 'high artistci level' and the like; that's already implied, and it won't help you in understanding their style. Impossible encapsulation aside, perhaps a few reference points would help; but take them with a grain of salt.

KING CRIMSON are holding the lion's share of band's musical influence, but band is far from being a copycat; I think I already mentioned the word 'unique' once or twice. Another post that might lead somewhere might be GONG from their post-psychedelic period; or perhaps Karlheinz Stockhausen (circa 'Ceylon' era) - of course, it's because of percussion and bells, varying from chimes, gongs to Gamelan bells. As for the dimension above the standard rock approach (even standard prog rock), JADE WARRIOR springs to mind. There's also a hint of symphonic progressive rock, both vintage and modern, but it's far from being very evident. Finally, I think I can trace bits of metal - perhaps because of certain drumming moments, or because of guitar, but this is more a gut feeling and it might be misleading: there's no thin and ultra-fast soloing, and there's not a single chugging riff, power chord on the entire album. Perhaps that was only my expectation since the opening track is titled 'Theatro Di Memoria', hinting both at DREAM THEATER and their 'Scenes From The Memory Album'. But this album doesn't sound like aforementioned one at all. Maybe all that is because of angular melodies - which will close this circle of comparisons again with Crimson; with all the diminished, wholetone scales and what not.

I might also mention ANGLAGARD's 'Hybris', going totally berserk, abandoning symphonic components and emphasizing the percussion. But I'm overdoing it.

There's a certain 'air' in the sound. Don't get me wrong, album is dense, complex and multi-layered, but it seems there's enough silence between two microscopic point of chaos. This is highly ellaborated craft, intelligent so much it's almost arrogant. But that's not a negative aspect; I, for one, like it.

Speaking of negative aspects, there's a certain something, but nothing I can pin-point. The songs are complex and long, but not for the sake of being so. It's not that ideas are going nowhere, or that the musicians are 'lost', although there's virtually anything you can find in, and yet it's not incoherent. It's cold, but it doesn't leave me cold.

Perhaps I'm missing a rounded-up statement that will fully resonate with my inner self, clearly revealing its masterpiece status. It's a food for the brain, and somehow it's urging you to analyze, but maybe it should be enjoyed on a more simplistic level, letting the music happen in the present moment - nevermind the complexities protruding in all dimensions. Which leads to the fact this band is not only enigmatic it's also paradoxical.

Nice going, NODO GORDIANO. You left something to scratch my head about.

ZowieZiggy:

This is the third studio album from this Italian band. Their previous album was more a jam party and as such could hardly be described as a full studio effort. A few weeks ago, I received a message (from Glover) asking me if I would like to receive this CD from the band. I responded positively of course and since I was shipped this record FOF, I promised to review it on PA. This work holds a lot of technical skills and leans towards the eclectic genre: music is rich, complex, maybe difficult to apprehend at first sight (one definitely needs several listening to get the essence from "Flektogon").
The best reference I can compare them with is KC. Dark and heavy moods combined with (few) symphonic passages. The opener "Theatro Di Memoria" is indeed very theatrical; this effect is mostly due to the high pitched (almost opera like) vocal parts. But the instrumental interludes are rather heavy. A very good but scary start (with great drumming). The next track is an instrumental and more an experimental piece with a deep Far-Eastern taste combined with lots of percussions. It is the first part of "Ozymandias".
I don't understand why they divided this track into two parts though. The second leg is a faithful continuation of the first one. This piece reminds me of the atmosphere of their "Alea" work. Somewhat too avant-garde for my ears. The "pièce de résistance" is obviously the epic "Avventure Di Mastarna". The powerful sounds available during the opener are again heavily rendered in the excellent introduction of this thirty minute piece of music.
Crimson is very much present, and to imagine that the music produced is the result of only two musicians is quite remarkable. It remains quite heavy till the eighth minute or so, while the mood calms down and offers some good symphonic prog. Quiet piano, nice cymbal work and nice synths for this haunting section. The next section is not my preferred one I must say: fully free-jazz oriented and quite hectic. Fortunately some pastoral fluting comes at the rescue to make this track a little lighter and varied. Still, I would have liked more parts like this one.
The whole is pretty dark. The closing section and its Oriental mood is again quite catchy and impressive (bass and drumming are fantastically well played). My fave song (together with the opening number) is the oppressive and repetitive "Zeitgeist". The influence is also pretty easy to determine (but I mention this already). The accent is quite on percussions throughout the album. The whole ranges between eclectic/heavy prog.
The music is quite sophisticated and not easily accessible. It is also almost instrumental. "Flektogon" is definitely a special album and displays musical moments that are certainly worth a spin. But be warned: this is not for everybody. Three stars.