Fetus (album)

Fetus
Studio album by Franco Battiato
Released	1972
Genre	Progressive rock [1]
Length	30:40
Label	Bla Bla
Producer	Pino Massara
Franco Battiato chronology
Fetus (1972) Pollution (1973)

Fetus is the debut studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Franco Battiato, released in 1972. A concept album, it tells the metaphisical development of an embryo into a human being, from conception to birth.

Production

Battiato got inspiration for the album from Aldous Huxley's books Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited, and from the RAI documentary series Destinazione uomo ('Destination man'). ^{[2] [3]} Recording started at the REGson studios (later Officine Meccaniche) in Milan in November 1971. ^{[2] [3]} Battiato was supported by Gianni Mocchetti's band Cristalli Fragili, with the EMS VCS 3 synthesizer playing a major role in music composition and arrangements. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

The shocking cover art, featuring a real fetus, was ideated by Gianni Sassi  [ it ] and photographed by Fabio Simion. ^[2] The internal cover features Niki de Saint Phalle's sculpture installation Hon – en katedral ('She-a-Cathedral'), depicting a pregnant woman lying on her back with her legs spread and a gate in place of her vagina. ^{[1] [3]}

The album was composed by Battiato with Sassi, Sergio Albergoni and producer Pino Massara, and they were all credited under the pseudonym Frankenstein. ^[2] The opening song "Energia" features a fragment of David Vorhaus' composition "Canon". ^[2] The title song "Fetus" opens with a heartbeat, an effect later used by Pink Floyd in The Dark Side of the Moon . ^[2]

Release

The album was released in January 1972. ^{[1] [4]} The fetus on the cover proved to be extremely controversial, leading many record shops to refuse to sell the album. ^[1] An English-version of the album titled Foetus was produced by Island Records, but remained unreleased until 1999, when it was published on CD by Vynilmagic. ^[1]

Reception

At the time of its release, Fetus sold about 7,000 copies. ^[4] The album has been described as "pure experimentation", "a melodic vocal in a fabric of meditative electronic sounds". ^[3] Battiato's colleague Eugenio Finardi referred to the album as "really innovative, different and shocking". ^[4] Fabio Zuffanti wrote: "With unusual sounds and a general hallucinatory feeling, [the album is] a work of mysterious and elusive fascination". ^[2] Former Il Mucchio Selvaggio music critic Andrea Scanzi described Fetus and the following Battiato's album Pollution as "somewhere between art music and krautrock, drenched in psychedelia and science fiction themes". ^[5]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Frankenstein [Sassi, Albergoni, Battiato, Massara].

Fetus track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Energia"	4:31
2.	"Fetus"	2:39
3.	"Una cellula"	2:55
4.	"Cariocinesi"	1:59
5.	"Fenomenologia"	3:51
6.	"Meccanica"	6:11
7.	"Anafase"	5:36
8.	"Mutazione"	2:58

References

1. La Posta, Annino (2010). "1971-1973: Al.Sa. e Bla Bla". Franco Battiato: soprattutto il silenzio. Giunti. ISBN   978-88-09-74253-6.
2. Zuffanti, Fabio (30 June 2020). "Fetus". Franco Battiato: Tutti i dischi e tutte le canzoni, dal 1965 al 2019 (in Italian). LIT Edizioni. ISBN   978-88-6231-868-6.
3. Spessato, Carla (20 October 2021). "Fetus". Franco Battiato: Come un incantesimo. Giunti. ISBN   978-88-09-95527-1.
4. Iondini, Massimo (28 January 2022). "Musica. Battiato, 50 anni fa "Fetus" il suo primo album". Avvenire (in Italian). Retrieved 20 June 2025.
5. Scanzi, Andrea (2022). "Liberare la fantasia". E ti vengo a cercare: voli imprevedibili ed ascese velocissime di Franco Battiato. PaperFirst. ISBN   978-88-31431-75-0.

External links

Fetus at Discogs (list of releases)