La Fatica by Massimo Catalano/Remigio Ducros

Massimo Catalano (who died in 2013) enjoyed a brief stint of fame after joining the cast of Renzo Arbore’s cult tv show "Quelli della notte", but he risked to be remembered only for those little, funny sketches he delivered on camera. Indeed, a few people are aware of Catalano’s great skills as a jazz trumpet player (he also played with Louis Armstrong in his career!), which he first nurtured with a band called Flippers (also featuring Franco Bracardi on piano and a very young Lucio Dalla on clarinet).
For him, the step from jazz to library music was short and easy (even if he wasn’t so prolific) and he started working his friend Remigio Ducros – composer and piano player, husband of Daniela Casa and author of some rare and extremely refined libraries’ albums. The joint efforts of Catalano and Ducros produced two albums only: "Idee 1" (also featuring Casa in a track) and the beautiful "La Fatica" – a weird, hard to file item, mixing avant-garde, proggy moods, electro rhythms, jazz and musique concrète.
It’s almost impossible to guess what Catalano and Ducros were looking for, while making this album – but, despite the troubles and difficulties during its recording process, listening to "La Fatica" is a breeze. It’s a continuous surprise, actually, since every track features unexpected tricks and changes. And, exactly like in other Intervallo releases, also in this case the titles evoke the noise of machinery, the fascination for science and technology, the beauty of factories: "Catena di montaggio rapido" (Rapid Assembly Line), "Sesto capannone" (Sixth Depot), "Officina meccanica" (Mechanical Workshop), "Terapia della fatica" (Strain Therapy), "Saturazione" (Saturation), "Esperimento 320" (Experiment 320), "Esami di laboratorio" (Lab Tests), "Dopo la tensione" (After The Tension). Can you say industrial music?