Il Programma di Religione review on boyarm records

Dear all;

Yet another review for you..


Il Programma di Religione - Various

(Boyarm Records)

To say Shawn Knight, who runs Boyarm records and organised this CD must have had a absolute nightmare arranging this CD is not probably that far away from the truth.

I first heard of this project through my musical partner, Keith who had heard (god knows how literally) of this record label in America called boyarm records who had decided to do a tribute album with a song for every Pope who had ever lived. Yes, all 267 of them!

Of course to do it as say a 3 or 4 minute song would have resulted in a 8 or 9 CD boxset. So Shawn decided to invite artists / bands to send in 15 second songs to get them all onto one CD.

Yes, 15 second songs! Now imagine for you how difficult that is to write. Just 15 seconds! I am sure all of us could write songs if prompted that went on for 3 or 4 minutes but 15 seconds! It sounds impossible...

And it was... I submitted a track by myself and worked on 4 others with pals while informing other pals which resulted in 12 tracks scattered across the CD.

Of course, listening to it, the quality and styles vary hugely from experimental free for all silliness and noise to hardcore punk on one track which lasts for about 6 seconds, with the lead singer shouting, 1,2,3 and then about two or three more seconds of hard core guitar work and then nothing....

Not all of it is my personal taste which is to be expected here of course, but what makes it particularly amazing is the way that a number of the tracks merge together to make slightly longer tracks.

That alone takes skill or a miracle considering some of the variations in style.

Perhaps that is why it is a tribute CD for popes..

Excellent...