Italian Experimental Progressive
Juke Box
The highly neglected record by Franco Battiato! Originally intended as the soundtrack for TV movie 'Brunelleschi', it was rejected — allegedly, for being "not appropriate enough". Their loss. It is also the first official collaboration with Giusto Pio, at the time engaged as violinist in the RAI orchestra of Milan, as well as first violin at Orchestra - Teatro alla Scala. Over the following decades, Pio and Battiato formed a close collaborative relationship – chasing each other across genre and…
La Valle Dei Templi
Perigeo were founded in Rome in 1971: five professional musicians, all of them already largely active in the jazz and rock circuits of those years, who gathered in the studio to wisely blend together the two aforementioned music genres: this is probably the first example of jazz-rock music in Italy, admittedly influenced by Miles Davis and that legendary “Bitches Brew” that just two years earlier had shocked the jazz scene worldwide.Purists among the music critics were then unhappy about such an…
l'Egitto prima delle Sabbie
** Small restock available, nice price **Mindblowing! The last album of what could be called Franco Battiato's "experimental prog" period, L'Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie consists of two sidelong compositions strictly arranged for piano only, without any vocals; and even more intriguingly, neither of the performers on the album are Battiato himself. He limited himself strictly to the roles of composer and producer. After Battiato's many different sonic explorations and efforts throughout the '70s, s…
Sconcerto 1978
Yet another 'out of time' band from the glorious golden season of Italian progressive rock, Il Baricentro - a name that does not coincidentally reveals the musicians' origins (Bari/center, Puglia) - were founded in the mid-'70s by brothers Francesco and Vanni Boccuzzi, out from the ashes of Festa Mobile.The debut "Sconcerto" saw the light in 1976: a beautiful instrumental jazz-rock LP, in which keyboards dominate over every other instrument. Despite the season of punk, new wave and disco music s…
Ipotesi
Another great italian avantgarde progressive rarity from 1972! Complex and excellent album, with classic moments, jazz-rock influences in the Canterbury vein, acoustic parts, sudden rhythm changes and complex arrangements, in a few words everything we love from vintage italian prog! "Part of the charm of the Italian progressive rock is undoubtedly due to its inner presence of many bands who were able to release just a single LP, often overshadowed by the 'big' names: therefore, the album and i…
Aktuala
Finally repressed on CD, milestone reissue! This reissue is enriched by a booklet with rare and unreleased pictures, plus the bonustrack "Flauti" by Walter maioli... Following the same path as Third Ear Band in England, Embryo or Gruppe Between (and even Limbus 4, Kalacakra and Popol Vuh), Aktuala tried to mix together the western musical tradition with african and asian instruments, rhythms, cultures and avant-garde forms, creating a pioneering new form of music that went beyond anythin…
Arrow Head
Osage Tribe were an Italian Prog band who released just one album in 1972, "Arrow Head", before splitting up and disappear - even if all bandmembers went on playing in other groups as Duello Madre, Capsicum Red, The Trip and Il Volo. The band was founded by Franco Battiato, who left right after the release of the single "Un falco nel cielo" to pursue a solo career that's still active nowadays. The other musicians then significantly changed their musical style, moving towards a hard rock-based pr…
I Fiori Del Sole
Restocked, reduced price. Originally released by the legendary Cramps Records - one of the most remarkable assemblies of avant-garde recording in history, Michele Fedrigotti and Danilo Lorenzini’s long overlooked LP - I Fiori Del Sole, is among of the great works of to emerge from Italy’s incredible movement of musical Minimalism. Both Fedrigotti and Lorenzini are renowned classical pianists, with the bulk of their respective careers dedicated to realizing the works of others. During the 1970’s…
Aria
A very important artist from Naples, Alan Sorrenti released his first album in 1972 on the legendary Harvest label. Aria is an absolute Italian prog classic, with two different sides: the first only contained the long title track, a dreamy psych-suite starting with acoustic guitar and based on the marvelous instrument-like voice of Sorrenti, and exploding in the final part with a memorable violin solo by Jean Luc Ponty. Side 2 was softer, with three tracks, two of which also appeared on …
Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso
High quality vinyl reissue with remastered sound. Legendary Italian progressive rock band Banco del Mutuo Soccorso released its first LP in 1971 on the label Dischi Ricordi. The lineup included Vittorio Nocenzi (keyboards), Gianni Nocenzi (piano), Francesco Di Giacomo (vocals), Renato d'Angelo (bass), the newly arrived Pierluigi Calderoni (drums), and guitarist Marcello Todara, who would soon be replaced by Rodolfo Maltese. Although plagued by poor sound quality (something frequent with Italian …
Alpha ralpha Boulevard
"Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" is the only album released by I Numi back in 1971: issued on Polaris label (the same as I Teoremi) in a small batch of a thousand copies, it is today one of the rarest Italian progressive rock LP's. Already reissued in CD format by AMS Records, it is finally, for the very first time in almost fifty years, reissued on vinyl with gatefold cover, a faithful reproduction of the original version.I Numi were founded in 1967 by musicians from three different beat groups. Their …
Abbiamo Tutti I Suoi Problemi
Picchio dal Pozzo is regarded as one of the most original, impressive and highly respected of all the experimental groups to have come out of Italy in the 1970s. They share their original label with Henry Cow's Concerts, and were early invitees to the canonical Recommended Sampler. Aldo De Scalzi, Andrea Beccari, Giorgio Karaghiosoff and Paulo Griguolo all met at infant school and began playing Teleman, Corelli, Bach and Mozart together in their school orchestra. In 1969, Aldo's brother, one of …
To Allen Ginsberg
Regarded as the link between Italian acid folk, Library music and Krautrock, Living Music was a collective of Italian Musicians, artists and poets active in the counterculture and student movement of Rome in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Taking their name and concept from the New York experimental theatre group ‘Living Theatre’ husband and wife duo Umberto Santucci (jazz critic, graphic designer (Brainticket) and photographer, library composer) and Gianfranca Montedoro (Jazz and rock singer, m…
Come un Vecchio Incensiere all'Alba di un Villaggio Deserto
The Sorrenti brothers' musical careers, Jenny and Alan Sorrenti, have three elements in common at least: the unconventional use of the voice as an instrument, a wonderful debut album (respectively, the eponymous Saint Just's LP and "Aria") and the subsequent 'second album syndrome' that depicted their sophomore efforts as inferior to their predecessors, by an unfair and demeaning comparison. Sorrenti's voice and relatively sparse instrumental accompaniment are remarkable in how much they accompl…
Free Love
"Free Love", the only LP ever released by Kaleidon, is one of the many 'forgotten ones' from the Italian progressive rock era. The title "Free Love" takes its name from the eponymous band, 3/5 of which were North American musicians living in Italy. Free Love released two 45rpm's in 1970; the first one, "Sandy / Temple of Stone", highlights the remarkable ability of each individual component, if we also consider their young age. The second single contains the theme of the movie western "Roy Colt …
Terra In Bocca
This is an absolute treat! A very important, outwardly "weird and wild" work as some of the 73-74 period Italian albums would become, "Terra in bocca" is a sort of rock-opera concept album, basically consisting of two long suites, each occupying an entire side of the LP. Full of tension from the first to the last moment and beautifully produced, this record had everything it takes to make I Giganti rise above the crowded Italian pop scene of the early '70s, but the subject chosen as concept - th…
Trusciant
The second and last Il Baricentro album reinforces the jazz-fusion trend that had already been dominantly relevant for the band's debut effort. Here, in "Trusciant", it is quite clear that the combo led by the Boccuzzi brothers has a strong focus on the funky jazz framework that was at the moment functioning in the limelight of American NE and NW coasts' musical scenes. The resulting sonic amalgam is adequately augmented with an exotic swing by two guest percussionists, which help Il Baricentro …
Fetus, Pollution, Sulle corde di Aries
** 3 LP in bundle** There is no figure in Italian music, nor within the country’s shimmering, expansive avant-garde, who demands the respect and awe offered to Franco Battiato. He is the beginning and the end. An artist whose output, stretching across six decades, is so diverse and singular, that it defies any concrete definition - darting from psychedelic Prog, definitive gestures in the history of Minimalism, to the heights of explicit Pop. Fans of avant-garde and experimental music have long …
Sulle corde di Aries
1973’s Sulle Corde Di Aries was Franco Battiato's third release and showed his fascination for electronic, minimalist and systemic musics, as well as his third chapter in Battiato’s foray into esoteric pop. While the artist would venture further out into avant-garde terrain on subsequent releases, his early records enjoy a lyrical and playful spirit—eschewing traditional, song-based composition in favor of kosmische voyages. On Sulle Corde Di Aries, Battiato guides the labyrinthine structural ch…
Zora
32nd Anniversary Edition of the legendary occult prog album by Antonius Rex, with an unreleased song (Monastery) and original "nude witch" cover. Probably the most charismatic figure of all the Italian prog scene, Antonio Bartoccetti (Antonius Rex) began his career going to Milan from the Marche, forming Jacula, Dietro Noi Deserto (even with a single on Decca in 1971!), and Invisible Force (another lonely single in 1971). Not real bands but just a group of musicians working beyond the leading fi…