MASSIMO PUPILLO - My Own Private Afghanistan LP

Highly recommended.

"Bologna's Home Movies Foundation commissioned me to soundtrack a private film, shot in Afghanistan in 1969 by Anna Bavicchi, the daughter of an Italian diplomat. The innocence of those images, imbued with a very rich culture, which after a while was devastated by repeated wars, informed a work in which the foreboding of "perpetual war" acts as an emotional background.

This work grew over weeks and then months and then years, becoming an obsession, a heartfelt meditation on the continuous state of war, on planet earth, and in our souls. The concept that guided me is that of "Wetiko", a word used by Native Americans to describe a mental virus that takes over the human mind, and spreads. A word they used for the behavior of white men, incomprehensible to them. It is beautifully described in a book called Wetiko by Paul Levy.

Never becoming a literal soundtrack, this work presents a continuous reversal of the narrative planes, from commentary to contrast. The fulcrum, however, is in the emotionality that has arisen, almost as if this documentary presented me with a personal issue to solve.

The equivalent of a Zen Koan. Hence and with a little grain of irony, the title I gave to this work is: My Own Private Afghanistan."