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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
Big Tip! Edition of 500 copies, comes with booklet. 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…
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.
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…
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…
Caution Radiation Area
Temporary nicer price * 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * Area's second album takes its cues from the most serious side of early-'70s British progressive rock, particularly Soft Machine and King Crimson. There's a high-voltage, at times furious energy to the quasi-jazz-rock fusion, with keyboards showing some influence from Miles Davis fusion records, and the guitars wheeling off lines with a busy anxiety. Despite some sinister progressions and overlays of electronic squiggles…
Crac!
Temporary nicer price 700 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * “Crac!” is Area’s third album, released in 1974 and one of the strongest in their revolutionary canon of political artfulness. The previous album had received some mixed opinions after the explosive debut; Crac! is a departure in style from both of those two records—in a way, more compact and sleek if that is possible to think of with Area. In that aspect, this is the most “accessible” version of the band, and not surpri…
L'Internazionale
* Clear Vinyl * Nice and quality reissue of shis Area's 7" was distributed in the left-winged movement/circuit, as the money from sales financed the legal costs of the trial against the Italian writer and anarchist Giovanni Marini, caught up in Italy's Strategy of Tension and unjustly convicted of the murder. The B-side, Citazione Da George L. Jackson is a strong denunciation against the inhumane conditions of prisoners and inspired by Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, a com…
L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin
* Yellow Vinyl * A great Area 7", quality replica of their L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin first single. Kick-ass free-form music recorded in the glorious year of 1973 in Milan, Italy. Blow-out with blasting sax solos played by Victor Edouard Busnello, and a kicking Demetrio Stratos on these two extraordinary tracks
Palepoli
* Deluxe LP reissue on 180 gr. Clear Red vinyl * Third album, and Osanna best one, "Palepoli", from 1973 sees the band at their peak. The album only contains three long tracks and is housed in a nice gatefold whose inner picture is based on the band live stage background. 18 minutes of sheer heavy progdom is 'Oro Caldo', a raw jambalaya of moody atmosphere, experimental samplings, greasy garage dirt, and some flat out classic symphonic prog with a great-sounding mellotron - and other unique and…
What Me Worry?
Temporary nicer price * 500 copies, 180 gr. Orange vinyl * Electric Frankenstein was the solo project of the multi instrumentalist Paolo Tofani who is best known for his work with the band Area. Tofani plays all the instruments by himself on this lone Electric Frankenstein album. The result is a highly satisfying mix of psychedelia and progressive rock, a guitar extravaganza with long spacey guitar solos by Tofani and all the instruments played by himself, the album will appeal to acid-psych lo…
Cenerentola E Il Pane Quotidiano
* First ever vinyl repress. Limited to 500 copies, 140 gr. Yellow Vinyl. Replica of the original, gatefold cover and printed inner * Definitely the best album of this Brazilian-born, Italian rock guitarist and songwriter, who skillfully blended excellent Italian rock of the mid-70's with some exotic Brazilian influences. Alberto Camerini was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and he stayed there until the age of eleven, when he relocated to Milan. There he soon became involved in rock music, first teami…
Amarena
* First ever vinyl repress. Limited to 500 copies, 180 gr. Red Vinyl * Lucio Fabbri is probably best known for his tenure as violinist with PFM in their post-Passpartù period, and with Claudio Rocchi, and also for some of the work he's done with Demetrio Stratos. As a violinist, Fabbri has an extraordinary fluid and adaptable style, centered somewhere between jazz and folk-rock. His only solo album Amarena (originally released on Cramps) from 1978 comes off as a bit of a mixed bag with differen…