Reprinting “Vala, Or The Four Zoas” today means opening a sonic crypt where time seems to have stopped, preserving the essence of an underground that defied the linearity of its decade. Capricorni Pneumatici, after forty years of experimentation that escapes any conventional categorization, confirm with this work their role as architects of parallel worlds: a place where the FM synthesis of the DX7 and CX5 is not merely a tool, but an esoteric medium—a conduit between matter and spirit, between chaos and occult geometry.
Recorded on a Tascam Porta One without artifice, without outboard gear, without external effects, Vala presents itself as an intimate ritual, an act of sonic purification. Every click, every oscillation, every modulation seems to emerge from the depths of a personal abyss, captured in a tape loop that vibrates like a restless mantra. There is no room for the superfluous: the listener is enveloped in a tactile density reminiscent of ancient electromagnetic rites, an art of sound that manifests first in the body and only afterward in the mind. The tracks flow like both liquid and mineral streams, where the geometry of the DX7 intertwines with the raw material of tape, giving rise to soundscapes that defy categorization—at times abstract, at times painfully corporeal, always imbued with a cosmic melancholy. Beneath it all, one senses an arcane tension, the feeling that behind every FM pattern lies a hidden sigil, an encoded message that only those who dare to listen closely can decipher.
The CD reissue curated by Eighth Tower Records in collaboration with SSS Production restores Vala to its original density, but with the clarity needed to perceive every vibration, every deviation, and every imperfection as an essential component of the artistic vision. The album is not a simple listening experience: it is an invitation to immerse oneself in an underground realm, a journey that oscillates between dream and ritual, between the obscure and the infinitely small, between noise and illumination. Forty years later, Capricorni Pneumatici have lost none of their enigmatic aura. “Vala, Or The Four Zoas” remains a monument to radical experimentation, a work for souls willing to abandon the light of the conventional and lose themselves in the shadows of pure creation.
Caesar