Rondò veneziano: La Serenissima (Baby Records/BMG, 1981)

Rondò veneziano and their fake disco/baroque music mixture aren't usually much regarded among music fans. They're too prog for non-progsters, not prog enough for progsters, too disco or too classical for rock lovers and too few for disco or classical lovers, and so on. But most of all, they're considered just too kitsch for anyone - whatever one's tastes might be.

I don't want to deny this. Rondò veneziano are definitely kitsch: a perfectly conceived form of extreme kitsch. And that's precisely why they deserve your esteem.
Here's their second album and most famous one. The tracks "La serenissima", "Sinfonia per un addio", "Arlecchino" can't be new to your ears if you happened to watch Italian television in the Eighties or Nineties. If you did not... Well, the kind of music involved here is easily explained.
Take Vivaldi, Albinoni or any other notable Venetian composer of the baroque era, make it a bit more sugary, add some drums and bass guitar with a mild disco-music touch, and there you are.
At times the music - entirely instrumental, of course - sounds as cheesy as Il guardiano del faro (which is quite of an appropriate comparison, after all), but the most lively tracks, with all their counterpoints and strings and winds and canons, are something and no cheesiness can obscure that.

Rondò veneziano are a chamber orchestra lead by maestro Gian Piero Reverberi, one of the foremost arrangers of Italian pop music during the Sixties and Seventies. He worked with Gino Paoli, Le Orme, Fabrizio De André, Lucio Battisti, Luigi Tenco, and many more. The group started in 1979 and is still active and touring.

Tracklist:

1. La Serenissima
2. Rialto
3. Canal Grande
4. Aria di festa
5. Sinfonia per un addio
6. Arlecchino
7. Regata dei Dogi
8. Notturno in gondola
9. Capriccio veneziano
10. Magico incontro

Download (192 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
Giusto Pio: Legione straniera (EMI, 1982)
Luciano Basso: Voci (1975)

Squarcicatrici: s/t (Wallace, 2009)

It's been quite a while since the last post on this blog, and I can't guarantee I will update it frequently after this new post, but I hope I'll be able to. Anyway: I'm back.

Today's album is the debut record of a very odd chamber/jazzcore/world/whateverelse ensemble, lead by the omnipresent musical factotum Jacopo Andreini (L'Enfance Rouge, Vialka, Ronin, Ovo, Roy Paci, Cerberus Shoal, and many more).
The tracks are quite diverse, both in influences and styles. They range from "jazzified" versions of folkloric traditions (from the Balkans, or from Latin America) to unforseen chamber/electro/hip-hop experiments, and even reckless hommages to classical music ("Gorecky"). Even languages keep on shifting. Rhythm and interplay are excellent, strings as harsh sandpaper, and despite the studied roughness of the mix, the overall result is quite refined.

Fans of The Ex and the likes will surely love it, but I bet the album would sound original, daring and irresistable for many more. Remeber checking out Jacopo Andreini's "Bossa Storta" project if you liked this one, and follow the blog http://afoforomusicclub.blogspot.com for more information and associated artists.

Tracklist:

1. Afrotellacci
2. Macedone
3. Sans races
4. Mbizo
5. Pilhar Fraqueza
6. J'ai faim, Jessie!
7. Izgubljen sambetta
8. Garota
9. Afrocina
10. Gorecky
11. Afoforo
12. Invischiata
13. Izgubeljen sam (Vuneny mix)

Credits:

• Jacopo Andreini: guitar, bendir, drums, alto and baritone sax, voice;
• Andrea Caprara: tenor sax; 
• Matteo Bennici: cello, bass, voice;
• Enrico Antonello: trumpet;
• Erwan Naour: voice;
• Thollem McDonas: piano;
• Samuele Venturin: bass, accordion;
• Piero Spitilli: contrabass;
• Simone Tecla: drums;
• Andrea Belfi: drums;
• Valentino Receputi: violin;
• Uliva Velo: violin;
• Martina Chiaraugi: viola

Download (320 kbps)


Similar music on the blog:
Zu: Igneo (Wide Records, 2002)
L'enfance rouge: Trapani - Halq al Waady (Wallace, 2008)

Croma: Discromatopsia (Harlock, 1999)

Croma were a chamber-rock band from Bolzano whose members came from the most diverse experiences (hardcore punk, conservatory, visual arts). "Discromatopsia" is their only official recording and consists in a very personal take on minimalism, inspired by the most melodic works of Steve Reich, Philip Glass or Wim Mertens's Soft Verdict.
Though the melodic vein is always very prominent and the drums, the bass and the piano contribute to give the songs a consistent rhythm texture, Croma's music is as hieratic, soft and geometric as the one of the great masters of minimalism. The frequent pairing of oboe and soprano voice even emphasize the usual aura of ecstasy and abstractness of the genre.
As for the vocals, most of them are recited in a way that will surely recall Massimo Volume, even if the lyrical style is quite different. One of the songs, "P.g.m.g." is a readaptation of The Smiths' "Pretty Girls Make Graves".
The CD release is completed with two electronic remixes following a 5-minute track of silence.

Tracklist:

1. Bisettrice spazio-temporale
2. Butterflies' battery
3. P.g.m.g
4. Discromatopsia
5. Out of Control
6. Cenotaphé à Newton
7. -273,6°
8. [silenzio]
9. -273,6° [Remix]
10. Cenotaphé à Newton [Remix]

Download (320 kbps)

Quintorigo: In cattività (2003)

Quintorigo: sax, violin, cello, double bass and very histrionic vocals. They are a rock band. They cover such things as "Higway Star" (Deep Purple) and "Clap Hands" (Tom Waits) but no, luckily they're not the Italian Apocalyptica. They're sound is nervous and jocose, edgy, theatrical but always very funny and elegant. The lyrics are crazy. So bad they waited till their extraordinary singer John De Leo left the band to cover Area's "Luglio Agosto Settembre (Nero)", which was evidently written with Quintorigo in the mind back in the Seventies...
"In cattività" isn't their best album in my opinion, but it's fairly good all the same, and ablings it's the only one I actually have with a decent bitrate. Enjoy it!


Tracklist:

1. Illune (ninna nanna)
2. Neon-Sun
3. Clap Hands
4. Bogliasco
5. U.S.A. e getta
6. Myxectbo e Ckopocts
7. Dimentico
8. Night And Day
9. Deux heures de soleil (deux)
10. Raptus (il signore inesistente)
11. Rap-tus
12. Darn That Dream
13. Illune
14. Illume + Zahra (ghost track)
15. Raptus (ghost track)
16. Illume (ghost track)
    

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