★BMG Ricordi
Darwin!
*500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl* The perfect mixture between complex and beauty. The best of Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, a superb album. Incredible instrumental richness, lots of variations, very expressive voice, long epic tracks and beautiful short songs, all in the same bag. This stuff is the pearl of the great Banco's trilogy (the first three albums they edited), and deserves a privileged place in a serious prog discoteque. One of the Italian monsters, highly recommended! (…
La Convenzione / Paranoia (7")
* 2021 Stock. * Pollution from 1972 is the captivating follow-up to Fetus. Like its predecessor, the album features Baroque textures, motorik rhythms, weird tape effects and Franco Battiato’s perfectly oblique vocals, with a minimalist sound mainly based on the use of a VCS3 synth, unusual lyrics, complex arrangements: upon hearing Pollution, Frank Zappa joyfully proclaimed it “genius.” While Battiato’s core group of collaborators remains largely the same as on his debut, this phenomenal band (j…
Fetus
Franco Battiato moved into the 1970s on the crest of the progressive rock wave. This 1972 impossibly strange record inhabits that nether world of pop music, electronics, politics and experimental rock. Fetus is an album beyond all definition. It's a masterpiece of daring and wild risks that work every single time. Battiato takes us through eight uniquely super-detailed songs that tug at the heart strings as no other experimental record ever could. New liner notes by Jim O'Rourke.
Pollution
Franco Battiato's wonderfully lively 1973 concept album Pollution is an audaciously psychedelic album drawn from the space rock dimension with good portions of electronics and keyboard layers. Drawing heavily on the VCS3 synthesizer, Battiato and company (besides himself, three backing band members play synth as well) give Pollution an extreme electronic edge. With comparisons to Ash Ra Tempel, Faust, and Pink Floyd, Pollution was declared 'genius' by Frank Zappa.
Kolednice
Legendary east block vocalist. Here is 17 tracks of experimental child songs mixed with traditional folky style that are calm and relaxing. Beautiful voice as always.
La norma del cielo
Always influenced by eastern doctrines (he later became a Hare Krishna), Rocchi was also active in anti-war movements and always present at various italian pop festivals during the early 70's. His second album, released in 1971 and titled "Volo magico n.1", is usually considered as his best effort, in much the same style as Alan Sorrenti's "Aria" with a side-long title track and softer tracks on the other side. "Volo Magico n.1" features a 18 minute long title-track starting with a soft introduc…
Sulle corde di Aries
With Sulle Corde Di Aries (1973) Battiato evolved towards the chamber electroacoustic music of Sequenze e Frequenze and Da Oriente A Occidente, a natural progression from his electronic-rock fusion.
Clic
"Clic" is released in 1974 and it is truly of those art-popping creations Battiato ever managed to do - there are full analogies naming it a best ever album, there are voices that appreciate its corrosive attitude under quite exhaustive portraits, everything being or not of a heads-up, since "Clic" needs to affirm a great response from the person who listens to it. All the fractured comparisons can become unremarkable, even if most of the previous solid works has lead to this entire full interes…
Za
This is another one of Franco Battiato's amazing recordings from the 70's, and it features two extended pieces -- "ZA" and "Café Table Musik". "Za" is a long piece for solo piano, with lots of spare minimal moments, and haunting trancelike lines of chords that build very very slowly. It's a beautiful exercise in restraint, and the kind of haunting soundscape that Battiato is legendary for. "Café Table Musik" is a bit more complex, although it's still got minimal piano progressions as its core. T…
L\'Egitto prima della sabbie
Battiato's work on minimalism culminates with "L' Egitto prime delle Sabbie", with two long pieces based on hardly one note and its harmonics.