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Opus Avantra Box
The long-standing Italian imprint, ARTIS Records, returns with one of its most ambitious releases to date, the towering “Opus Avantra Box Collection” by Opus Avantra , a stunning Deluxe Box set which includes no less than five LPs, six CDs, two 7" records, a DVD, a book and various ephemera, offering a thrilling retrospective of one of the most singular bands to emerge from Italy's movement of Prog and “Rock in Opposition”. Ambitious, experimental, and wholly uncategorizable in the ways that few…
El Tor
* Deluxe LP reissue on 180 gr. Clear Red vinyl * Another band from Naples, and also connected to Osanna, formed by Lino Vairetti and Massimo Guarino when that band split in 1974. But Città Frontale were in fact two different bands, the first one being active in 1970 before Osanna were formed with four of that later band members and Gianni Leone, that left to join Balletto di Bronzo. After first Osanna's split up in 1974, former members Lino Vairetti (vocals, guitar, mellotron, harmonica) and Ma…
Alphataurus
LP reissue in triple gatefold sleeve as the original album, with sound taken the master tapes. Nothing much to say about this one, "Alphataurus", by sure one of the ten best Italian prog records of all times. "Alpahataurus" is a masterpiece, so well crafted and played that it seems impossible that it has been made by a group of unknowns. The singer Bavaro has a very original voice, keyboard player Pietro Pellegrini plays with competence and no self-indulgence, the guitar-playing of Guido Wasserm…
Vocazione
CD Edition. A beatiful reissue of Enzo Carella's first album released in Italy in 1977, whose original edition usually sells for crazy prices on the second-hand market. This undervalued piece of work was perhaps too avantgarde during the time of release to get the full attention it deserves.Carella was an Italian singer-songwriter who is best remembered for his 1979 major hit Barbara, which is the opening track on Barbara e altri Carella, his second album. All songs on this release are written b…
Il Grande Mare Che Avremmo Traversato
* 300 copies, 180 gr black vinyl * Among the many ones who left their band to pursue a solo career in the '70s we find Ivano Fossati. In 1972 his group Delirium had become very popular, thanks to 'Jesahel,' the song they presented at the Sanremo Festival in February: it became a real chart-hit 45 RPM, a very unusual thing for a progressive rock band. But commercial success didn't stop Fossati from leaving Delirium and releasing in 1973 his debut album, under the name of Alberto Ivano Fossati - I…
Pic_nic@Valdapozzo
*2023 stock* The fact that this album features not only new material by Picchio dal Pozzo, but also incorporates posthumous parts by legendary Area frontman Demitrio Stratos, should be enough to spur the fans of either or both ensembles into action.
Freepopjazzrock
*2023 stock* Duo of Luciano Margorani and Piero Chianura on Auditorium Edizioni.
The Trip
*2023 stock* Reissue of debut album from this rare Italian prog rock group with some British members originally released in 1970 on the RCA label.
La Casa Del Lago
"La Casa del Lago" came out just a year after Saint Just's eponymous debut album; in 1973 the band were a very special trio, consisting of Jenny Sorrenti (voice), Antonio Verde (guitar) and Robert Fix (saxophone). They had a contract with Harvest (as well as Jenny's brother Alan Sorrenti, who debuted with "Aria" the previous year), and managed to stand out in the vast Italian pop scene of the early '70s.Unlike many other musical realities, they had a concrete support from the record label, which…
Milano Calibro 9
2023 restock This album represents the intersection of a number of trends going on in Italy at the time it was made. One was for rock bands to adopt Classical forms, sometimes even involving actual orchestras (New Trolls, Rovescio della Medaglia). Another was movies about gangsters. Another was for movies to have soundtracks by rock bands (Goblin and so on). So here you have a rock band doing music in a Classical form (prelude, theme, variations) with an orchestra as the soundtrack to a gangster…
Senza Orario Senza Bandiera
* 2023 stock * “Senza timetable senza Bandiera” was releasedo on October 23, 1968. It is the long-distance debut of the New Trolls and is also the first concept album in the history of Italian rock. A work born from the encounter between a group then considered avant-garde, the New Trolls, a singer-songwriter used to going in a stubborn and opposite direction like Fabrizio De André, the visionary poet Riccardo Mannerini and Gian Piero Reverberi, a cultured musician and arranger and prepared. A c…
Per... Un Mondo Di Cristallo
* 2023 stock * The Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno (also called RRR) were a Roman group dedicated to progressive rock in the years in which the genre, in Italy and in Europe, lived its best years with enthusiasm. Formed by Luciano Regoli (vocals, acoustic guitar), Francesco Froggio Francica (drums, percussion), Manlio Zacchia (bass), Damaso Grassi (flute, sax), Nanni Civitenga (guitar) and Stefano Piermarioli (keyboards) they released only one album in 1972 - "Per un mondo di Cristallo" - and then…
Intorno Alla Mia Cattiva Educazione
* 2023 stock * That the vast majority of Italian prog groups, in the '70s, was inspired by the great English groups is a certain fact. But there are many groups that have been able to produce discs with personal elements, thanks to the use of warm Mediterranean sounds, typical traditional classicisms and, above all, an Italian feeling, a touch that distinguishes the product. The result was that of a total and worldwide appreciation, so as to make the Italian progressive almost a genre in itself.…
Inferno
*2023 stock* Another very important chapter of Italian progressive rock must be dedicated to the Roman Metamorfosi, an interesting four-piece group, which mainly revolved around the figure of the excellent keyboardist Enrico Olivieri, accompanied by the singer and flautist Jimmy Spitaleri, by the interesting bassist and guitarist Roberto Turbitosi and by the drummer Gianluca Herygers. Inferno is their second album and comes out in 1973 for the Vedette record company. It is a very interesting rei…
Flying Tapes
Limited Time Offer **First ever LP reissue, on blue coloured vinyl!** Listening today to the music produced by Sensations' Fix, a project founded and directed by Franco Falsini in '70s, can't just leave anyone indifferent. Already in the mid-'60s, Falsini was full-time involved in musical activities: a tireless traveler and experimenter, an artist with uncommon curiosity and intuition, after having lived for some time in the United States and England, he finally established again in Italy where …
Debut
*Official reissue with same original packaging of 1973* The neapolitan singer Gigi Pascal (real name Giancarlo D'Auria) had a long career as soloist in the melodic pop field, with some singles dating from the end of the sixties.
As many others he was attracted by the newly born rock groups of the early 70's, and assembled one with the odd name Pop Compagnia Meccanica. This group had a similar story to Fabio Celi & gli Infermieri, also from Naples, as they released an album in 1973 that sounds l…
Antico Teatro Da Camera
Having had a good career as lyricist, singer-songwriter Gianni D'Errico, from Brindisi, released some singles in the early seventies that went unnoticed, and an album that was released only in 1976, after his death (in September 1975, run over by a car). The LP, Antico teatro da camera, is usually considered as one of the best prog-inclined albums by solo artists, and a hard to find one! Produced by Equipe 84 leader Maurizio Vandelli (who also acted as producer for the first album by Reale Accad…
Come In Un'Ultima Cena
Come in un'Ultima Cena is the title of the sixth studio album by the legendary Italian progressive rock band Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, released in October 1976 on the Manticore Records record label. The disc includes nine previously unreleased tracks. For sale the exclusive 2022 reissue in high quality engraved 180 gram vinyl.
Come in Un'Ultima Cena is the last "classic" Banco album. After an instrumental album with orchestra (Di Terra, 1978), the band would favor a more commercial approach thro…
Io Come Io
*2023 stock* "Io come Io" could be regarded as the first Italian heavy metal effort. Ok, the sound results a little smoothed by a typical 1970s production, psychedelic influences can be easily found (most of all in the semi-power ballad "Non io" and the jazzy coda to "Io come Io") and the style of the band here is not so far from what Osage Tribe did the year before this album was released. Nevertheless, "Io come Io" has got such a real tension and straight-in-your-face approach you'd hardly exp…
Hieros Gamos
Of all the recent Italian prog comebacks, Pholas Dactylus' return is certainly the most unexpected. Exactly, Pholas Dactylus, the authors of the unreachable masterpiece "Concerto delle menti" (1973). Forty-five years later, "Hieros Gamos" ('sacred wedding' in Greek language) marks one of the most resounding rebirths for a band that everyone believed to be lost forever. The album, divided into two parts - one that bears the album title and consists of a long suite, and a second entitled "Ognuno d…