Donatella Rettore: Kamikaze Rock'n'Roll Suicide (Ariston, 1982)

Italian synth-pop's known mostly for its many electrodisco hits, but it also spawned some more "new wave"-sounding records. "Kamikaze Rock'n'Roll Suicide" is one of them, a somehow obscure concept album about the cult of honour in Japanese philosophy. Drawing on the figure of WWII suicide kamikazes, the music funnily bridges bleak oriental atmospheres, a sullen sense of resignation and the robotic aesthetics of early-80s discopunk. A bit Devo, a bit Blondie and a bit Gaznevada, the album's light, decadent, provoking and adventurous at the same time. Wonderfully pop, and slightly demented.

Donatella Rettore's career covers three decades, but she's mostly known for a couple of hits which are still absolute floorfillers at trash parties. "Kamikaze Rock'n'Roll Suicide" is her sixth album, and does contain one of those tracks: the awkward techno-ska "Lamette".

Tracklist:

1. Kamikaze Rock'n'Roll Suicide
2. Karakiri
3. Oblio
4. Sayonara
5. Lamette
6. Garage
7. Sangue del mio sangue
8. Canta sempre
9. Giulietta

Donwload (256 kbps except for one track)

Similar albums on the blog:

Giuni Russo: Energie (CGD/Warner Music Italia, 1981)

Gaznevada: Sick Soundtrack (Italian Records, 1980)

Contropotere: Il seme della devianza (Skuld, 1991)

A grim, filthy, monster-heavy post-hardcore maelstrom, often on the brink of thrash metal (even doom metal at times). The songs are long, tortuous and convulsive: an everchanging flow of guitar stabs, upsetting vocal howls which reminds more of a black magic rite than of an ordinary hardcore punk record. A constant hail of blast beats, broken by apocalyptic sludge riffs and chainsaw intrusions (or offhand King Crimson quotes) even seem to mark the entrance to the chaotic realm of Today Is the Day, Neurosis or Flying Luttembachers. The frightening frame is completed by an aggressive anti-capitalist stance, a devious, cyberpunk version of the anarcho-punk attitude of Franti or The Ex.

"Il seme della devianza" isn't really an accomplished record: it's awfully recorded and the unravelling of the tracks is clumsy and unmemorable. But it's daring, utterly original, and it almost gives the shivers.

Contropotere were a band from Naples, founded in 1985 and disbanded ten years later. "Il seme della devianza" is their second LP, and it was followed just by two other EPs.

Tracklist:

1. La chiave del tempo
2. Templum desertii
3. Clonazione
4. Baghdad: la morte in diretta
5. Urragan
6. U.S.P. (Uniformità Sociale Precostituita)

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Franti: Non classificato (1987)

Taras Bul'ba: Incisione (Wallace, 2005)

Sinenomine: Spartenza (Incipit Records, 2009)

Will Italian music ever have a counterpart for Pentangle and their magical blend of floklore, jazzy fragrances and instrumental panache? Maybe not, but take Pentangle, bring in tango and fado and take out the blues, trade Celtic for Southern Italian and you get an idea of the wonderful "Spartenza".

Based on a perfectly coalescence of very polished, wonderfully orchestrated counterpoints, the album may fail to appeal to the lovers of coarse, impulsive, bristly music. It might find it a bit too clean, even unpersonal and soulless. I don't envy them: "Spartenza" is just one of the most charming, passionate and classy Italian folk albums I've ever chanced into.
Its most striking element is the subtle play of silences, pauses and rarefaction: accordion cirrus clouds, restrained acoustic guitar weavings, delicate cello caresses and double bass rustles never owerwhelm the listener, but lull him gently together with the sensuos recitation of a very mediterranean, but effervescently jazz-tinged female voice.
The album merges centuries, styles and sound-worlds, creating its unique out-of-time cocoon: comfortable, entangling and glowing in velvety crayon colours.

Sinenomine are an acoustic quintet from Rome. This is their first album.

Tracklist:

1. Vulumbrella
2. LeMetamorfosi
3. Perduto
4. Luistania
5. Camminante
6. Soliloquia
7. Solaria
8. A lu bene mie
9. Tango de esperanza
10. Rua de saudade
11. Canto delle lavandaie del vomero
12. Riturnella
13. Spartenza

Download (320 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Calicanto: Venexia (Compagnia Nuove Indye, 1997)

Ritmia: Forse il mare (New Tone, 1986)

Giorgio Moroder: E=mc² (Durion, 1979)

Technopop. Tail-swallowing synth-bass locks are its core; endless, metronomic disco grooves its foundation; programmed keyboard tangles its secret. And then, there are songs - light, inventive, adorably artifact. And refinate, despite their minimalism: "Baby Blue" resurrects the best vocal harmonies of the 60s, and most of the other conceal classical progressions and a kaleidoscope of quotations which take the robotic aesthetics of Kraftwerk to a new, playful and totally de-ideologized level.

Besides being a cornerstone of electronic music, the second ultra-electronic album by Tyrolean Giorgio Moroder is a very funny record and a collection of masterful pop tunes. More accomplished than its groundbreaking precursor "From Here to Eternity", probably. Both the records are inescapable inspirations for the Chicago house music scene and the whole electro-disco/italo-disco genres, which Moroder himself contributed to set up with his cutting-edge work on Donna Summer's "I Feel Love".

Tracklist:

1. Baby Blue
2. What a Night
3. If You Weren't Afraid
4. I Wanna Rock You
5. In My Wildest Dreams
6. E=mc²
7. Love's in You Love's in Me [Bonus Track]
8. Evolution [Bonus Track]

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Jolly Music: Jolly Bar (Nature/Wide, 2000)

Dagada Saf: No Inzro (Rockgarage Records, 1984)

La lionetta: Il gioco del diavolo (Shirak, 1981)

Traditional folk, encompassing the whole heritage of Northern Italy, with a special attention to the folklore of Occitanian valleys. Somehow akin to Planxty's celtic revisitations, "Il gioco del diavolo" merges themes and styles, crafting warm sounds and sophisticated embroideries which astonish with their richness and fullness.

The album probably isn't faithful to traditional patterns, techniques and instrumentation (hurdy-gurdy, French bagbipes, bombardes and dulcimeres are everywhere), but actually reinvents the tradition, enriching it, polishing and casting a (wonderful) counterfeit "ancient times" allure. The starting point is traditional material, but the arrival is surely something that never got so intricate, delicate and refinate for a folk band.

Though well-mannered and studied, the album never sounds austere: its breeziness and light-paced folk-dance rhythms are actually the elements that really make it stand out.

La lionetta are a traditional folk ensemble from Piedmont, born in 1977 around reed/pipe player Roberto Aversa, a longtime collaborator of Dario Fo's theatre company. This is their second record, and last one for a long time.

Tracklist:

1. Il matto, il diavolo e il bagatto/La fiera
2. Cecilia/Il sogno fi Cecilia
3. Rocastalda
4. La lionetta
5. Muran dell'Inghilterra/Canzone della bella
6. La monferrina di Napoleone
7. Leandra
8. Bourrée d'Auvergne/Valzer della montagna
9. Povra mi/Tema della madre

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Calicanto: Venexia (Compagnia Nuove Indye, 1997)

Musicanova: omonimo (Philips, 1978)

Fiorella Mannoia: Certe piccole voci (Harpo, 1999)

What a voice. Deep, warm, vivid and bittersweet. Every note is full-bodied and enormously femine - neither a Lolita nor a femme fatale fashion, but the voice of a woman, with the placid and overwhelming charm of maturity. Responsibility and everyday life which succeeded to compenetrate with love and dreams.

Some may say the music in this album isn't but ordinary cantautori stuff, not particularly intimate or intense, nor particularly original or elegant. Even a bit mannerist with regards to the sessionman-dominated sound which came to characterize the style of the foremost Italian singer/songwiters during the Nineties. And that would be true, 'cause the point in these songs and these renditions isn't innovation, fantasy or introspection, but talking discreetly to the heart of those who listen. Without changing their life, but giving them for a moment the chance to reflect upon it and dream.

The best episodes in "Certe piccole voci" have this peculiar charm, and there are many of them among the 25 tracks of the double LP. The styles are very varied in terms of composition, often relying on simple structures occasionally coloured by refinate chord changes and Irish influences. The narrations are mainly based on images, but sill their design differs much from song to song. The arrangements, though, are all quite close one another in terms of sound: perfectly centered on the voice, they embellish it with crystalline-clear acoustic guitar chords ranging between delicacy and muscularity. The soundscape is completed by wet synthetizers, glossy piano sketches and jazzy drum patterns and basslines. Here and there, some guitar or saxophone solo steals the spot from the voice giving the music a more instrumental feeling (the results aren't very good, usually).

Fiorella Mannoia emerged, starting from the Eighties, as one of the most personal and classy interpreters of the cantautori repertoire. Her name is linked to such songs as Vasco Rossi's "Sally", Bubola's "Il cielo d'Irlanda", Ruggeri's "Quello che le donne non dicono", Piero Fabrizi's "Belle speranze". "Certe piccole voci" is her first live album after ten studio LPs.

Tracklist:

CD 1

1. L'amore con l'amore si paga (I. Fossati)
2. Sally (V. Rossi)
3. I treni a vapore (I. Fossati)
4. Il fiume e la nebbia (D. Silvestri)
5. Non sono un cantautore (P. Fabrizi)
6. Cuore di cane (F. De Gregori)
7. Normandia (P. Fabrizi)
8. Belle speranze (P. Fabrizi)
9. Piano solo (D. Rea)
10. Oh che sarà (C. B. De Hollanda - I. Fossati)
11. Il culo del mondo (C. Veloso - A. Lamberti - P. Fabrizi)
12. Caterina e il coraggio (P. Fabrizi)
13. Passalento (I. Fossati)

CD 2

1. Le notti di Maggio (I. Fossati)
2. Sorvolando Eilat (P. Fabrizi - Mogol)
3. Lunaspina (I. Fossati)
4. La stagione dell'amore (F. Battiato)
5. Il tempo non torna più (P. Fabrizi)
6. I dubbi dell'amore (E. Ruggeri - L. Schiavone)
7. I muscoli del capitano (F. De Gregori)
8. Ninetto e la colonia (F. De Gregori)
9. l cielo d'Irlanda (M. Bubola)
10. Crazy Boy (S. Bersani)
11. Quello che le donne non dicono (E. Ruggeri - L. Schiavone)
12. Ascolta l'infinito (P. Fabrizi - E. Ruggeri)

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Francesco Guccini: Fra la via Emilia e il West (EMI, 1984)

Paolo Conte: Concerti (CGD, 1985)

Transgender: Sen Soj Trumàs (Snowdonia/New LM Record, 2003)

A fiercely cross-style and cross-reference record, on the brink of prog-rock, post-rock, post-punk. The music plunges into King Crimson distorted assaults, Tortoise-like angular weavings, Mr. Bungle's provincial matchings, muscolarity, rarefyings. The vocals are mostly sung in a disquieting fictitious language and the treatment is often dystopian and futurist, maybe reminding the kitsch and hypertrophic imaginary of Trans AM. Some French here and there, an excerpt declaimed by Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and nonchalantly overblown circus/fanfare episodes, noisy bursts and mellotron-soaked textures are just some of the many odd-tasting elements scattered like raisins in a panettone.

Transgender are an Emilian band. This is their second studio album after a bunch of demo CDs. "Mey Ark Vu" followed in 2006.

ps. If you have a bigger/higher definition artwork image, please give me a link!

Tracklist:

1. Dre Oucantèlva
2. Multìs
3. Le dernier jour
4. Craud
5. Dre Foè
6. Mavra (Sal a ruè)
7. Mantra
8. Spoony Geeza
9. A Crime Memoir
10. Dernier jour (Remix by Serial)

Download (160 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Corleone: Wei Wu Wei (Etnagigante/V2 Records Italia, 2005)

C.C.C.P. Fedeli alla linea: Epica etica etnica pathos (Virgin, 1990)

Underground Life: Filosofia dell'aria (1987, Target/Emi)

A voluptuos new wave record, blending glam-pop transformism and slight dark/decadent atmospheres together with rock riffs and edges and some out of fashion keyboard weavings and other mid-70s arrangement techniques. The songs are refinate and complex, both from a melodic and lyrical point of view, but most of all the sound is very rich and lush: sparkling guitar jingle-jangle, pounding basslines and rubbery drumming - both with a distinct rock groove, and then mellifluous saxophone lines, harmonica, violin, jigsaw new wave interlocks and omnipresent prog/pop triumphant keyboard circles.
The album might remind anything from XTC to Litfiba, Battiato, Ultravox or cheesy mainstream Italian pop, but actually has a very unique charm.

Underground Life were a band from Monza, Milano. They formed in 1979 and disbanded in the early Nineties. "Filosofia dell'aria" is produced by the well-known guitarist Alberto Radius (of Lucio Battisti/Formula Tre fame), who plays in the record and is most probably the main responsible of the 70s nuances of the record.

Tracklist:

1. Uccidiamo il lavoro di massa
2. Belfagor
3. Lady Von Masoch
4. Il battito
5. L'iperbole/Architettura
6. La rivolta degli infanti
7. Albe atomiche
8. In inverno

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Gino D'Eliso: Ti ricordi Vienna

Garbo: Scortati

Jovanotti: Lorenzo 1997 - L'albero (Soleluna/Mercury, 1997)

The songwriting of "L'albero" isn't elaborate, classy or witty. The structures are simple, the chords are suitable for beach strumming and the vocal lines are gawky and tone-deaf.

But a few things must be recognized. The easy-going singing, halfway between pop and hip-hop; the words, plain, frugal and optimistically third-worldist; the warm timbres of the music: everything contributes to make the album wonderfully cosy, optimistic and unpretentious.

And the arrangements, they're almost a miracle. Acoustic funky, jazzy intermissions, African music elements (choirs, rhythms and that ungraspable sense of levity) give rise to a "wooden", airy sound which is able to explore impervious hexatonic territories without losing a bit of groove.

Lorenzo Cherubini A.K.A. Jovanotti was the first to bring hip-hop to the mainstream in Italy, in the late 80s. "L'albero" is his ninth album, and one of the most succesul of his career.

Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Bella
3. La linea d'ombra
4. Questa è la mia casa
5. Umano
6. Il muratore
7. Canzone piccola
8. Il re
9. Per la vita che verrà
10. L'albero
11. Occhio non vede cuore non duole
12. Ueikap
13. Luna di città d'agosto
14. Il fiore del 2000
15. Big bang (parte 1 - parole)
16. Big bang (parte 2 - pensieri)
17. La ritmica
18. Il tamburo
19. La pace

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

Radiodervish: In acustico (Cosmasola, 2001)

Üstmamò: omonimo (Virgin, 1991)

Jolly Music: Jolly Bar (Nature/Wide, 2000)

A fizzy musical cocktail: funky/house, hip-hop, old classical vinyls, a bit of minimalism and some soda water. These nineteen non-stop tracks are a breezy journey to the reign of bubbles and kitschy synthetizers. With extreme nonchalance the shiny beats of the album shift from cybernetic breakbeats to playful glitch recombinations, from lounge sambas to watery space-minimalist soundscapes; always keeping adventurous, groovy and bright.

Jolly Music are a DJ duo from Rome, previously known as MAT-101. "Jolly Bar" is their only album, and received very good reviews from the international press. One of the two, Mario Pierro, is having a very good critical response too with his solo project Raiders of the Lost Arp.

Many thanks to my friend Federico Romagnoli for suggesting me to listen to this album.

Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Piano
3. Disco disco
4. Jollyo
5. Les figalles
6. With Love
7. Talco Uno
8. Dragon
9. Crazy Simon
10. Talco Due
11. Kfun
12. Crociera
13. La dolce vita
14. Daddy
15. Tape Jam
16. Borotalco
17. Reversi
18. Anicafill
19. Angel

Download (~192 kbps)

Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

miles_gurtu: omonimo (Shakti, 2004)

Gomma Workshop: Almanacco moderno sul linguaggio dei gatti (Madcap collective, 2004)

Gianfranco Manfredi: Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi (Ultima spiaggia, 1977)

An atypical singer/songwriter album, very sarcastic about the remnants of the 68 era though manifestly bound to the left-wing contestation area. The lyrics are sharp and salacious, still quite enjoyable for their cleverness even if the themes they deal of are a bit outdated.

Musically speaking, the songs are quite elaborate, both for the arrangements and for the meandery melodies. Some slight progressive leanings, muscular string arrangements and zippy piano/drums bluesy grooves converge to an energic - though melancholic - atmosphere which wonderfully portraits the garrulous disillusionment of the lyrics.

"Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi" (evidently a pun on Marx&Engels's adagio "Workers of the world, unite!") is Gianfranco Manfredi's third album, written with fellow singer/songwriter Ricky Gianco and performed by prog-rock celebrities Premiata Forneria Marconi. The album inspired a theatrical show, which was staged by Manfredi, Gianco and P.F.M. in 1977.

Manfredi's now a comics writer, working for Bonelli editions (Magico Vento, Volto Nascosto).

Tracklist:

1. Dagli Appennini alle bande
2. Un tranquillo festival pop di paura
3. Ultimo mohicano
4. Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi
5. Gatte da pelare
6. Lamiento de amor
7. Ogino Knaus
8. Feto di gruppo con signora
9. I modelli
10. Nella diversità

Download (128 kbps)

Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

David Riondino: Racconti picareschi

Alberto Fortis: omonimo

Ensemble Havadià: '81-'82 (Warner Italia, 2006)

Irriverent, jocose and dynamic, this music is one of the highest peaks of the Italian "R.I.O." scene. The songs are exuberant chamber-rock divertissements, full of mockeries, calembours and sharp eccentricities. Nevertheless, the structures are extremely lucid and complicated: ubiquitous North-Italian folklore and fanfare elements clash with flabbergasting tempo shifts and early 900 classical references - daring layerings which unexpectably manage to keep light and funny; miles away from any self-indulgent prog-rock bluster.

Ensemble Havadià was a short-lived project captained by Milanese "jew atheist" Moni Ovadia, now a well-known stage actor and comedian, and closely related to "Gruppo Folk Internazionale" and Stormy Six's label "L'orchestra". "'81-'82" collects the only two records issued by the band: the eponymous 1981 LP and the 1982 EP "Specchi".

Tracklist:

1. Finale
2. I benandanti
3. Aria del serpente
4. Il serpente burocratico
5. Aria del serpente
6. Gocce amare
7. Konik
8. Fuma el camin
9. Sigla
10. Apertoure
11. L'eternità
12. Straziato assai
13. Rumba "An den Leser"
14. Treno

Download (160 kbps)

Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

Gramigna: Gran disordine sotto il cielo

Stormy Six: Macchina maccheronica

Nicola Alesini, Pier Luigi Andreoni: Marco Polo (Materiali sonori, 1996)

A deeply fascinating ambient-world record, "Marco Polo" is both thick and suffused, lush and minimal, layered and discreet. Its red-heated saxophone and Fripp-like guitar velvets hover on bewitching percussion groves and space-filling synthetizer ponds, in a sultry air which sounds exotic and arcane. Gentle electronic vines crawl in with dazing gamelan-like weavings and plough a music landscape of self-intersecting arabesques. Mystery and unearthliness drip like dew from the leaves, in an oceanic expanse of reverbs and refractions.

"Marco Polo"'s a music project by saxophone player Nicola Alesini and electronic pioneer Pierluigi Andreoni. Important figures in the ambient music field collaborated to the album: Japan's David Sylvian (vocals), Pierrot Lunaire's Arturo Stalteri (bouzouki, harmonium), Roger Eno (keyboards, percussion, vocals), David Torn (guitar), Harold Budd (percussion).


Tracklist:

1. Come Morning
2. Quinsai, la città del cielo
3. Yangchow
4. The Golden Way
5. Sumatra
6. M. Polo
7. Il libro dell'incessante accordo con il cielo
8. Maya
9. Buchara
10. Kubilay Khan
    
11. Samarca
12. The Valley of Pamir

Download (192 kbps)


Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:
Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici: GMM
Minox: Lazare

Perturbazione: In circolo (Santeria, 2002)

A light, elegant and meditative pop album, "In circolo" is an autumnal record for homespent rainy days just as well as it is a collection of springtime songs for afternoons in the open air. Here are its two souls: moody, delicate songs in the vein of The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian and lively, ironic episodes with the enviable quality of sounding both optimist and slightly melancoholic.
Everything shines of very fine clean guitar arpeggios, eversurprising melodic lines and turns, posh chamber arrangements. And very smart, everyday lyrics discreetly oscillanting between pensiveness and wordplay.

Perturbazione are a Piedmontese band founded in 1988. This is their first Italian language album after their debut, "Waiting to Happen".


Tracklist:

1. La rosa dei 20
2. Agosto
3. Mi piacerebbe
4. Rocket Coffee
5. Iceberg
6. Arrivederci addio
7. Senza una scusa
8. This Ain't My Bed Anymore
9. Il senso della vite
10. Cuorum
11. Fiat lux
12. I complicati pretesti del come

Download (192 kbps)

Fiorenzo Carpi: Le avventure di Pinocchio (CAM, 1972)

While the passion for dusty fanfares, village two-steps and barrel organs surely connects "Le avventure di Pinocchio" to the style of Nino Rota and Nicola Piovani, the music here sounds more homely, pure and stripped-down. Most of the eighteen tracks reduce the instruments to the bare necessity, getting to a rural and sprightly style which surprisingly reminds of Yann Tiersen's work for "Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain".
The themes are airy, elegant and memorable. The slow carillon in "Fata turchina", the coupled piano-harpsicord motif of "Birichinata" or the magic, slightly psychedelic mood of "Trasformazione di Pinocchio e Lucignolo", the askance tango "Il Gatto e la Volpe": just a few of the excellent episodes giving the LP its old-fashioned countryside charm.

Fiorenzo Carpi was a Milanese composer, active since the late Fourties in the field of theater music and - later - soundtrack music. "Le avventure di Pinocchio" is a selection from his score for the celebrated 1971 TV serial by Luigi Comencini.


Tracklist:

1. Pinocchio: viaggio in groppa al tonno
2. Geppetto: in allegria
3. In cerca di cibo
4. Fata Turchina
5. Pinocchio: birichinata
6. Geppetto: con malinconia
7. Trasformazione di Pinocchio e Lucignolo
8. Il Gatto e la Volpe
9. Pinocchio: la tempesta
10. Geppetto
11. Pinocchio: nascita di un burattino
12. Fata Turchina: sonatina
13. In cerca di cibo
14. Geppetto: il litigio
15. Geppetto: sogni nell'Orto dei Miracoli
16. Lucignolo
17. In cerca di cibo: nel paese delle api industriose
18. Geppetto: partenza per le lontane Americhe

Download (~160 kbps)

Not Moving: Sinnermen (Spittle Records, 1986)

The idea behind "Sinnermen" is quite simple: Let's play some sort of new wave with loads of Morricone-like flangers'n'reverbs. The result could have sounded just as elegant and minimal as Wall of Voodoo, or as deviant and funny as Man or Astro-Man, but is actually quite dissimilar to both.
The point is that "Sinnermen" is so poorly recorded and awfully played that it sounds like nothing else. The songs are some sort of primeval cherokee-rock dirges. Organ's everywhere, the mood is rather dark and psychedelic and this would probably remind of The Stranglers (or The Doors), if only the guitars didn't desperately try to imitate The Shadows and the English pronounciation weren't so ridiculous.
So clumsy, so original and so provincial, "Sinnermen" is definitely funnier than the average Italian post-punk album. Even beautiful, here and there.

Not Moving were founded in 1981, taking their name from a DNA song. "Sinnermen" is their first LP, produced by the renown music journalist Federico Guglielmi.


Tracklist:

1. Sinnerman
2. Catman
3. I Know Your Feelings
4. The Lost Bay
5. My Lovely Loved
6. Pray For Your God
7. You Really Got Me Babe
8. A Wonderful Night to Die
9. Land of Nothing
10. A Life Long
11. Sucide Temple
12. Mr. Nothing
13. Ice Eyes Baby
14. In the Batland
15. Cocksucker Blues

Download (192 kbps)

Calicanto: Venexia (Compagnia Nuove Indye, 1997)

Listening to "Venexia" is being thrown in the maze of calles, scents, voices and sounds which were the soul of Venice, the melting-pot of the Mediterranean Sea. A concept album dedicated to the bicentenary of the fall of the Serenissima, "Venexia" is a deeply charming progressive folk work, almost astonishing, even moving. Entirely acoustic, extremely rich and layered, it's as firmly rooted in the Mediterranean traditions as it is projected towards a very modern and focose attitude, close to the one of the most courageous European trad-folk ensembles (Blowzabella and Bellowhead to name a few). The music is a merger of sounds and traditions: different languages and dialects; accordions, winds, psaltery and fiery hornpipes; Italian, Arabic and Balkan rhythms and melodies meet and entwine just as they probably used to meet and entwine along the channels of Venice a few centuries ago.

Calicanto are a Venetian ensemble born in 1981 and devotely committed to an ethnomusicological approach. "Venexia" is their eighth album, conceived with the cooperation of the Venice University and the Conservatory of Rovigo.

Thanks to the Italian Folk Music blog for having published this album first.


Tracklist:

1. Canson roversa
2. Bealaguna
3. Sulla via dei battipali
4. Correnti del sud
5. Lepanto
6. Te speto / La croxe
7. Oci sensa mar
8. Corcal
9. Adriatica
10. Rivasse Carlo Scarpa
11. Venessia dai

Download (192 kbps)

Airportman: Letters (Lizard records, 2008)

"Letters" sounds like Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" denuded of any guise of soul or emotion. What lasts in the music? The tail-swallowing stagnation of dangling piano progressions, the soaking sense of laziness of tired accordion drones, the dampened warmth of some sullen acoustic guitar chords. Then the jazzy, emptied-out atmospheres, the chamber-like breaches, the outworldly suspension of the slow minor-key tides permeating everything.
What's unique to "Letters"? Its homely creakings - a fossil recall of a hospitality which has somehow mutated in a Tortoise-like call for abstraction, made of dub drifts and sparse, cold-blooded electronic heartbeats.

Airportman are a band from Cuneo, Piedmont. This is their seventh album.


Tracklist:

1. trk #1
2. trk #2
3. trk #3
4. trk #4
5. trk #5
6. trk #6
7. trk #7
8. trk #8
9. trk #9

Download (320 kbps)

Marcello Capra: Aria mediterranea (Mu records, 1978)

"Aria mediterranea" is a lighter-than-air instrumental masterpiece, fusing European folklore, jazz and improvisation, progressive, minimalist and baroque nuances. The center of the music is a sparkling and very rich acoustic guitar style encompassing interwaved arpeggios, three-string strumming and skipping solo lines; breezy, elegant and free, it creates a sense of suspension which is unpredictably close to the unique feeling of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks". John Fahey might be another ponderous but fitting comparison.
Vibes, flute, bass, percussion and very rare electric guitar interventions are the other few elements completing the palette for this unparalleled revisitation of the folk heritage.

Marcello Capra is a guitarist from Turin, active in the local beat/progressive rock scene since the late Sixties. "Aria mediterranea" is his first solo LP, with collaborations from some members of Arti & Mestieri and Procession (the band Capra was playing with at the time).


Tracklist:

1. Aria mediterranea
2. Biosfera
3. Il ballo degli gnomi
4. Danza russa
5. Il sole sulla palude
6. Merligen
7. Dedicato ad irio
8. Canto di mare

Download (256 kbps)

Lucio Battisti: Don Giovanni (Numero Uno, 1986)

The songs in "Don Giovanni" sound lopsided and aloof. They obey the synth-pop rule in a lunar, idiosincratic manner. They seem totally lifeless, artificial, made of plastic despite some sparse velvety warmth in the basslines, in the saxophone seductions and in the rainy, breathy synth tides. The melodies are quirky, meandery, indubitably "pop" and refined but hardly catchy. The lyrics, well, the lyrics are a closed book: almost nonsensical, blatantly post-modern and sardonic, they're captivating nevertheless and - once you've partly got into them - even evocative. With its jaunty and polished synth-funky grooves and its obliterating lyrics framed into the melodies with a total disdain for the meter, "Don Giovanni" is one of the most abstract and undeciphrable works of Italian pop music.

Lucio Battisti was the most celebrated Italian pop artist of the 60s/70s. "Don Giovanni" is his first collaboration with lyricist Pasquale Panella, and a complete departure from his previous style, which had become more and more experimental but never appeared so tough and detached before.


Tracklist:

1. Le cose che pensano
2. Fatti un pianto
3. Il doppio del gioco
4. Madre pennuta
5. Equivoci amici
6. Don Giovanni
7. Che vita ha fatto
8. Il diluvio

Download (160 kbps)