Premiata Forneria Marconi

The making of this album, "I Dreamed of Electric Sheep", was somehow heavily influenced by the situation everyone had to face lately. We were forced to work under very peculiar circumstances, often interrupting our studio activity because of the lockdown and not being able to follow our schedule like we intended to. The whole process took indeed one year spent mostly working at home, sharing ideas and meeting at Patrick's home studio, before finally being able to record the album at White Studios in Milan. About this new album, Patrick and me being the rhythm section, we are naturally a perfect work team. We really get along and the whole process of creating a new piece of work is the result of constantly sharing ideas and creativity. We both have a great passion for SciFi movies. In the past we did watch many of them together and in the case of Blade Runner right from the very beginning we were hit by the question that is being asked in that one movie: "Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?" It's something that really made us think about it. The world has been changing around us. Computers are taking over and the Covid situation did accelerate this process. People stayed and worked from home, kids taking classes not being able to go to school... Seems like everyone is rapidly becoming an android. Each one of us was kind of locked in himself and could not interact with others. The leading principle was to avoid social contact. This reminded us of one of Blade Runner's main scenes, when an android was asked about his mother and obviously, being a machine, it could not have such a memory or personal experience on who his family was and where he came from. We therefore came up with the idea for the concept of this new album. We indeed believe in the power of people to use their imagination and fantasy as this is what really makes the difference between human beings and androids. Being able to dream affects your life, your creativity, your thoughts. We consider ourselves to be the same for music as the Impressionists were to painting. They didn't paint fixed somatic traits for their figures with their brush strokes, and we also cannot consider us locked in a specific music genre. Creativity and inspiration would die. Luckily enough we grew up in a musical era of total freedom. We all started with blues, then rock, jazz as we were growing up conceiving and playing our music. We like to consider our music a free explosion of colours and sounds. The album opens up and ends up with two instrumental tracks that have completely different meanings. In this album there are many different stories, but they are all somehow linked to passion, love and the power of imagination. They are allegories that make you think. "AtmoSpace" being such a beautiful concept like the drone falling in love with the Earth. We do live on this planet and it seems like we do not appreciate it, but ironically enough, a machine flying around the globe perceives it in an esthetic way and wants to live here. We also decided to invite a couple of musicians who have been friends for a long to take part in this new project. We shared the stage with Ian Anderson at the first edition of Prog Exhibition, playing together Jethro Tull's "Bourée", "My God" and PFM's "La Carrozza di Hans". I remember a year later a jam session with Steve Hackett and other musicians playing 70's classics and we also met on the Cruise To The Edge. Getting to call and involve them in this album was quite easy and natural as we are friends. Of course we had to adapt ourselves to the situation and share files with both not having a chance to meet and perform physically in the studio. They were enthusiastic about making their contribution and so were we! In making a new album we felt the urge to talk about whatever happened in our lives in the last few years. It would not have made any sense doing something only because that was what people would expect from us. This is not us. The way we are. We need to satisfy ourselves before our own fans as the album must truly represent who we are now. And after such a long and difficult time that we all just went through, we are anxious to finally get back on tour and perform these new songs live on stage! See you there!!!