Eugenio Finardi: Sugo (Cramps, 1976)

An album reflecting the mood of its time, the strong political involvement of Italian music in the mid-Seventies. The opening track is one of the best known symbols of the era, "Musica ribelle", celebrating the unstoppable urge of rock music, dragging away the youth from their comfortable passivity and making them part of the "rebellion". Despite the strong connection with the social climate of the period, the song is direct, heartfelt and lacks any rhetorics: for these reasons, it hasn't aged at all, and is still as intense and striking as it was at the time.
The rest of the album is much less topical in its themes - and much more evidently naïve in the rhymes, but is musically very good nontheless. The band who played on the record was composed of top-notch musicians from the Milanese progressive scene: Area's Patrizio Fariselli, Paolo Tofani, Ares Tavolazzi, (soon to be) PFM's Lucio Fabbri and the well-known Cramps Records sessionmen Hugh Bullen, Walter Calloni, Alberto Camerini. "Quasar" is an all-instrumental track clearly reminding of Area, but the album's most remarkable for its fusion of jazz-rock with American folk-rock models (a pretty unusual fact, since it was the UK which inspired most of the musicians back in those days). Finardi's passion for American music has its biographic roots: Finardi's mother is American and he was raised in an American school in Milan. His excellent English pronounciation can be noticed in "La C.I.A.", an intriguing and quite "early" raggae/rock experiment.

Here's an interesting documentary/interview about "Musica ribelle" (in Italian).

Tracklist:

1. Musica ribelle
2. La radio
3. Quasar
4. Soldi
5. Ninnananna
6. Sulla strada
7. Voglio
8. Oggi ho imparato a volare
9. La C.I.A.
10. La paura del domani

Download (160 kbps)

Similar music on the blog:
Alberto Camerini: Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano (Cramps, 1976)
Area: Maledetti (Cramps, 1976)

Moggi: Tra scienza e fantascienza (Omicron, 1976)

A peculiar record, bridging bebop mannerism and electronic experimentation. Synthetizer arabesques rise over exquisite double-bass grooves and jazzy drumming. Their use is much varied: from soundtrack-like melodic themes, to minimal-tinged stagnations and proto-techno burbles. The compositions are elegant, lucid, but pleasantly devoid of the bombast of much prog-rock of those years. On the contrary, the tracks are absorbed in a gassy fluctuation, slighthly futuristic, a bit Satiesque, but most of all very light and unpretentious. The imaginative work on percussions is unfortunately spoiled by the bad audio quality.

"Moggi" is an alter ego of composer Piero Umilani's. Born in 1926, he began his career in the field of film soundtracks in the late 50s. In 1964, he founded the Omicron label to publish his quite experimental "sound library" works. They were collections of instrumental tracks, thought as repertoires of possible soundtracks for TV commercials, radio backgrounds and so on. The creation of Sound Work Shop recording studio in 1968 gave a strong push to his production, and he soon began publishing something like ten albums a year. Their dominant style was much varied: for "Tra scienza e fantascienza", the inspiration was evidently sci-fi.

Tracklist:

1. Cowboy spaziale
2. Officina stellare
3. Danza galattica
4. Saltarello marziano
5. Jingle N°1
6. Automa
7. Tarantellaccia
8. Bric brac
9. Soundmaker Blues
10. Gadget
11. Soft Key
12. Happy Accompainment
13. Futuristic Jam N°1
14. Futuristic Jam N°2
15. Killer Robot

Download (192 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:

Ennio Morricone: Crime and Dissonance (Ipecac, 2005)

VV.AA.: Polizziotteschi Graffiti (GDM Music, 2005)

Yu Kung: Pietre della mia gente (I dischi dello zodiaco, 1976)

Milanese band Yu Kung didn't go down in the history of Italian folk-rock, but their music is surely one of the most mature and representative exemples of the left-wing branch of 70s folk revival.
Relying strongly on acoustic instrumentation (double acoustic guitar, flute, percussions) and bringing in the discreet energy of the electric bass, their style couples country dance motifs from all the Italian peninsula and hieratic vocals singing about the themes of emigration, protest, antifascism, rediscovery of traditions and the discomfort of the weaker classes.
The songs are often lively and choral, with "Piazza Fontana" strongly condemning both the terrorist attack of 1969 and the state reaction to it. Most of them sound perfect for arousing people during strikes and many a passage distinctly remind of Stalingrado-era Stormy Six. As a matter of fact, the album was first published by Stormy Six's own label "L'orchestra", and reprinted one year later by I dischi dello zodiaco.


Tracklist:

1. Povera gente/Piccolo paese
2. La mia gente
3. Valigie di cartone
4. Il popolo è forte
5. Mineros
6. Festa in paese
7. L'emigrato
8. Zip e zip
9. Piazza Fontana

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Alberto Camerini: Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano (Cramps, 1976)

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 teaming with Roberto Colombo, then forming the band Il Pacco with Donatella Bardi, Eugenio Finardi, Belloni and Lucio Fabbri.
While the others began recording as solo artists or got into other bands (Lucio Fabbri was to join P.F.M.), Camerini became an acclaimed sessionman thanks to his whimsical guitar playing.

As of 1976, he signed with Cramps Records and recorded his first solo album, "Cenerentola e il pane quotidiano". Musically speaking, the sound is the typical one of Cramps Records: kaleidoscopic, zippy jazz-rock combined with folk and singer/songwriter structures - very close to Area or Finardi's Cramps-era albums. Camerini merged some exquisite Brazilian nuances to the formula and his very sprightly melodic talent, creating a dynamic, easy-going style.
The lyrics aren't stunningly literate, but they're brilliantly critical: while they do not explicitly step out of the left-wing youth culture, they ironize upon its trends and irrationalities. "Pane quotidiano" laughs at the vegetarian fashion, while "La ballata dell'invasione degli extraterresti" is an illuminating picture of the hippies as "aliens":

Approfittarono del lusso della civiltà avanzata,
Si nutrivano di scarti della società privata
Riciclavano le macchine e i vestiti non usati,
Si vestivano di niente, di stracci colorati.
Vivevano in bande in case occupate,
Non avevano famiglia o tradizioni antiquate
Comunicavano tra loro con nuovi segnali,
Tu li avresti detti diversi invece erano tutti uguali.

They took advantage of the luxury of the advanced civilization,
They lived on the waste of the private society
They recycled cars and unemployed dresses,
They dressed of nothing, of coloured rags,
They lived in bands in squatted houses,
They didn't have a family or antiquated traditions
They communicated with themselves with a new kind of signals,
You'd have said they were all diverse, but they were all the same.

Tracklist:

1. La ballata dell'invasione degli extraterrestri
2. Maracantù F.C.
3. Pane quotidiano
4. Sicurezza
5. Droga (aiutami dottore)
6. La straordinaria storia dell'invasione della televisione
7. TV Baby (gli eroi della televisione)
8. Santa Marta
9. Cenerentola

Download (192 kbps)

Claudio Lolli: Ho Visto Anche Degli Zingari Felici (EMI, 1976)

A very good singer/songwriter album, with the songs forming a continuum which ends right in the way it begins. There are some jazzy elements (saxophone, flute, wah-wah here and there), but the style is very essential. Excellent lyrics, good melodies and great songs. The mood is breezy, just subtly melancholic. It reminds alternatively of Francesco De Gregori or Fabrizio De André, but aside from comparisons Lolli's definitely original.



Tracklist:

1. Introduzione
2. Agosto
3. Piazza, bella piazza
4. Primo maggio di festa
5. La morte della mosca
6. Anna di Francia
7. Albana per Togliatti
8. Conclusione

Download (192 kbps, re-up)