Lucky Restock - Limited Quantities Please note: these are original copies that may show minor sleeve wear due to long-term storage. The vinyl is in excellent condition. The name I Gres encodes its own membership roster: the G stands for organist Giorgio Carnini, the R for maestro Roberto Pregadio, the E for drummer Enzo Restuccia, and the S for guitarist Silvano Chimenti, the group's driving force and de facto leader. Together they formed one of the most sought-after studio ensembles in the Italian library music universe, recording three volumes of funky, groove-laden sonorizzazioni between 1974 and 1975 for the Globevision and Gemelli labels. These records, pressed in minuscule quantities for professional broadcast use and never commercially available, have since become holy grails for collectors, DJs, and sample hunters worldwide.

Silvano Chimenti (b. 1947, Taranto) began his career with the beat group I Planets before establishing himself as one of the most in-demand session guitarists in the Italian music industry. His fretwork appears on recordings by Domenico Modugno, Loretta Goggi, and Sergio Caputo, and he contributed to film scores including the notorious slasher Pieces (1982). But it is his library work, both with I Gres and under his own name, that has secured his reputation among contemporary musicians and crate diggers.

Romano Rizzati, better known by his professional name Walter Rizzati, brought compositional sophistication and keyboard textures to the group's sound. His career extended well beyond the library world: he scored numerous Italian films including Lucio Fulci's Quella villa accanto al cimitero (The House by the Cemetery, 1981) and the Bud Spencer/Terence Hill comedy Io sto con gli ippopotami (I'm for the Hippopotamus, 1979). His ability to move seamlessly between horror atmospherics, comedy cues, and hard-hitting funk grooves made him an ideal collaborator for Chimenti's eclectic vision.

Exotic Themes For Films, Radio And TV compiles fourteen tracks drawn from the three I Gres volumes, offering an ideal introduction to their distinctive sound. The music ranges across bossa nova ("Minor Bossa," "To Mendes"), blues-rock ("Hot Dog," "Moaning"), jazz-funk ("Duo Balls," "To Ramsey"), and atmospheric mood pieces ("Shadow," "Plancton"). Track titles pay homage to the group's musical heroes: "To Jean-Luc" nods to violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, "To Wes" honors guitarist Wes Montgomery, "To Ramsey" salutes pianist Ramsey Lewis, and "To Mendes" acknowledges Brazilian master Sergio Mendes.

What sets I Gres apart from their contemporaries is the sheer rhythmic intensity of their recordings. Tracks like "Restless" (not included on this compilation but present on Vol. 1) became B-boy favorites, their drum breaks sampled and looped by hip-hop producers seeking that elusive combination of funky precision and raw energy. The group's sound anticipated the breakbeat culture that would emerge a decade later, their tight interplay between drums, bass, organ, and guitar creating patterns that practically demand to be cut up and reassembled.

This Plastic Records compilation, released in 1998, represented one of the first opportunities for listeners outside the collector circuit to hear I Gres' music. The label, founded in Prato by Marco Villanti and Andrea Mancini, specialized in exactly this kind of archaeological work, bringing impossibly rare library material back into circulation with meticulous documentation and faithful pressings. For many, this release served as an introduction not just to I Gres but to the entire world of Italian sonorizzazioni.

The original Globevision and Gemelli pressings remain among the most expensive Italian library records on the secondary market, with copies regularly selling for hundreds of euros. This compilation offers the essential tracks at a fraction of that cost, making it an ideal entry point for collectors curious about one of the genre's most consistently exciting groups.