Giusto Pio: Legione straniera (EMI, 1982)

I hope you'll get used to the publishing of some Battiato-related stuff every now and then in the blog's "Eighties" corner. I personally believe his school is one of the greatest moments to ever bless Italian pop music. As for today, let's concentrate on the second solo album by Giusto Pio, 1926-born violin teacher and longtime collaborator of Battiato's.

As a matter of fact, "Legione straniera" is a two-hands work by Pio and Battiato. Pio's compositional style relies mostly on his violin, and embodies an ideal trait-d'union between baroque music and postmodern minimalism. Elegance, repetition, and regularity are the key aspects of the albums, where schematic violin themes fluctuate over Battiato's straight beats, evocating sometimes an outworld placidity, other times more nervous and metropolitan ambiences.
The album collects many extra-European suggestions, but never actually sounds like world music. And despite the strong electronic architecture, the prevailing air is a noble fin de siècle mood.

Tracklist:

1. Aria di un tempo
2. Celestial tibet
3. Cristina's Day
4. Eritrea's
5. Giardino segreto
6. Legione straniera
7. Ostinato
8. Totem

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Similar music on the blog:
Franco Battiato: Giubbe Rosse (EMI, 1989)
Francesco Messina: Medio Occidente (Casablanca Records, 1983)

Bluvertigo: Zero - ovvero la famosa nevicata dell'85 (Mescal, 1999)

A reprise of synth-pop's most dandiesque facet sharply bucked the dominating post-grunge trend of the late Nineties. Nevertheless Bluvertigo got some remarkable success by reviving the decadent sound of Depeche Mode, Berlin-era David Bowie, Japan. As a matter of fact, their aestheticism was the reverse of the medal of the "loser" mitology pervading the indie-rock ethos - another side of those years' omnipresent spleen.
Musically speaking, the album "Zero" is the most mature and varied in Bluvertigo's discography. The obvious art-rock influences reside on very solid synth-funk architectures, and the harmonic framework of the compositions is unusually clever for pop music in general. Dissonances and extra-rock chords are often used to cast an unquiet shadow on the atmospheres, and backing vocals tend to follow quite unpredictable orbits. Besides that, the music shows an unsuspected passion for rhythm inlays (quite close to Discipline-era King Crimson), and many tracks drift on a daring techno/industrial direction without abdicating to their popsong scheme.
The music conveys a sense of dissociation, but the lyrics go even further. As usual for Bluvertigo, the focus is on the feebleness of the sane/insane, reason/unconscious boundaries. The songs juxtapose partially unrelated flashes, in a style much debtor of Franco Battiato's, and definitely evocate a psychoanalytic setting. Some refrains unfortunately trivialize the overall result, but many tracks are perfect and striking.

Bluvertigo are a band from Monza, close to Milan, lead by charismatic singer/multi-instrumentist/composer Morgan (Marco Castoldi). "Zero" is their third and last studio album, featuring guest appearences by Mauro Pagani and Franco Battiato.

Tracklist:

1. Versozero
2. Zero
3. La crisi
4. sono=sono
5. La comprensione
6. Finché saprai spiegarti
7. Sovrappensiero
8. Forse
9. Autofraintendimento
10. Lo psicopatico
11. Always Crashing in the Same Car
12. Saxs Interlude
13. Porno Muzik
14. Niente x scontato
15. Numero
16. Punto di non arrivo

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Similar music on the blog:
Franco Battiato: Giubbe Rosse (EMI, 1989)
Central Unit: Central Unit + Loving Machinery (M.P. Records, 2003)

Franco Battiato: Giubbe Rosse (EMI, 1989)

Franco Battiato's one of the most prominent Italian artists. His critically acclaimed production began in the seventies with some experimental albums which embodied a very personal progressive/kosmische musik formula with slight ethnic allures. The album "L'Egitto prima delle Sabbie" won the international Stockhausen prize as best piano composition.
Right after that, at the end of the decade, he began shifting towards a more pop attitude. "La voce del padrone" (1981) was the first Italian album to sell a million copies and definitively marked the style transition. Battiato's music was still very innovative: now blending synth-pop, mediterranean suggestions and a nonsense/citationist approach to the lyrics, his new recipe sounded groundbreaking and had a distinct influence on many Italian artists of the Eighties.

"Giubbe Rosse" is his first live record. A double album collecting songs from three 1988 performances in theatres around Europe (Paris, Milan, Madrid). The tracks span over all of his career, thus including both mainly instrumentally-focused synthetizer compositions and his most famous pop songs. Some of the latter were originally written by Battiato for other Italian singers: "Lettera al governatore della Libia", brought to success by Giuni Russo, was never released by Battiato before this album.


Tracklist:

1. Giubbe Rosse
   
2. Alexander Platz
3. Lettera al governatore della Libia
4. Mesopotamia
5. L'era del cinghiale bianco
6. Un'altra vita
7. Voglio vederti danzare
8. Oceano di silenzio
9. Sequenze e frequenze
10. Aria di Rivoluzione
11. No U turn
12. Summer on a solitary Beach
13. Cuccurucucu
14. Centro di gravità permanente
15. Gli Uccelli
16. E ti vengo a Cercare

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

First album as "Giuni Russo" by Palermitan singer Giuseppa Romeo, Energie was quite rare until the CD reprint in 2005 (to the point that Italian rapper CapaRezza has publicly asked to lend him a copy of it). Most of the songs are written by Italian most-reknown pop experimentator Franco Battiato and the arrengements feature some of his longtime collaborators such as Giusto Pio and Alberto Radius.
The album mixes tuneful, lighthearted pop with vocal experimentation based on Giuni's incredible range and timbre shifting ability. The CD edition contains three bonus tracks, among which is the hyper-hit "Un'estate al mare", with its chimeric lyrics.

Tracklist:

1. Lettera al governatore della Libia
2. Il sole di Austerlitz
3. Crisi metropolitana
4. Atmosfera
5. L'addio
6. Una vipera sarò
7. L'attesa
8. Tappeto volante
9. Un'estate al mare
10. Bing Bang Being
11. Adeste fideles

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