Premiata Forneria Marconi: Passpartù (Zoo Records, 1978)

P.F.M. are the giants of Italian prog-rock. Despite their celebrity, their records always showed some consistent flaws: the lack of a gifted singer; the poorness of the lyrics; the substantial unoriginality of their musical themes. "Passpartù" isn't generally regarded as their peak, but unquestionably solves two of the three problems above.
Though the singer - Bernardo Lanzetti from Acqua Fragile - doesn't have a versatile voice, the lyrics are brilliant and imaginative: they are a work by singer/songwriter Gianfranco Manfredi, who privileged levity above his usual causticity for the occasion. What's more, the music makes a resolved step towards the incorporation of folkloric material: the resulting sound is a hybrid of jazz-rock fusion in the vein of Weather Report and Mediterranean suggestions which remind of Area (compound meters in profusion!) but show a very personal acoustic edge.
Everything converges to a surprisingly breezy album, where the instrumental skill of the musicians doesn't suffocate the pop appeal of the music, but weaves smart woofs which enhance it with class and moderation .

"Passpartù" ninth studio release from P.F.M., and the second without their well-known violinist Mauro Pagani.  Many tracks feature Roberto Colombo on keyboards - later a key producer of Italian new wave.

Tracklist:

1. Viene il santo
2. Svita la vita
3. Se fossi cosa
4. Le trame blu
5. Passpartù
6. I cavalieri del tavolo cubico
7. Su una mosca e sui dolci
8. Fantalità

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Similar albums on the blog:
Gianfranco Manfredi: Zombie di tutto il mondo unitevi (Ultima spiaggia, 1977)
Alberto Fortis: omonimo (1979)

Giuntoli & Meroni: Diabolik e i sette nani (Rombo, 1980)

Idly couched on the confluence of progressive, jazz and "modern classical" experimentation lies "Diabolik e i Sette Nani", and it does not sound as you would expect from these few words. Don't imagine anything difficult, pretentious, or intellectual: just piano and saxophone (or clarinet, sometimes). Placid and spontaneous - even a bit tipsy, I dare say. No apparent direction: the tracks are just take-it-as-it-comes excursions through Satiesque impressions, free-jazz(y) improvisations, and facetious melodic quotations. The overall spirit might remind Robert Wyatt, but the most close comparison I can think about is the lazy melancholy of French avant-prog project ZNR (for the few ones which actually knew them).

Massimo Giuntoli and Roberto Meroni are both from Milan, where they still live and play today.

Tracklist:

1. I racconti di Canterbury
2. Mastro Antonio
3. Tre movimenti per pianoforte
4. Diabolik e i sette nani
5. Lothrorien

Download (217 kbps, vinyl rip)

nb. The first four tracks are grouped together in one single file

Similar albums on the blog:

Piero Milesi: The Nuclear Observatory of Mr. Nanof (Cuneiform, 1986)

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

Calibro 35: s/t (Cinedelic/Self, 2008)

"Poliziotteschi" of the 70s are among the most appreciated Italian movies abroad. Longly dismissed as "trash", they've been promoted recently to near-masterpieces. Their soundtracks were probably the first to be reconsidered: the international stardom of Ennio Morricone and Quentin Tarantino's B-movie fetishism surely contributed to the process.
Calibro 35 tries to revieve some of the key pieces of the genre with a more "rock" spirit. Where the original tracks featured extended instrumentations and privileged groove and atmosphere over impulse, their updated versions have a more aggressive sound and a more compact sonic palette. The edginess of the compositions remains the same though, and is still impressive.
A well-conceived and respectful tribute to the less pretentious and less ingenuous - but most daring - form of progressive which ever came from Italy.

Calibro 35 are a supergroup formed by Enrico Gabrielli, Fabio Rondanini, Luca Cavina, Massimo Martellotta, Tommaso Colliva, well-credited collaborators of Mariposa, Afterhours, Transgender, Mauro Pagani and many more. They're united by the passion for obscure Italian movie themes and excellent instrumental skills.
Their second LP, "Ritornano quelli di Calibro 35", is out now.

Tracklist:

1. Italia a mano armata, dal film “Italia A Mano Armata” (F. Micalizzi)
2. Summertime Killer, dal film “Ricatto alla Mala” (L. Bacalov)
3. Notte in Bovisa (M. Martellotta, E. Gabrielli, F.  Rondanini, L. Cavina , T. Colliva)
4. Titoli, dal film “Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto” (E. Morricone)
5. Milano Calibro 9 (Bouchet Funk), dal film “Milano Calibro 9” (L. Bacalov)
6. Trafelato, dal film “Giornata Nera per l’Ariete” (E. Morricone)
7. Una stanza vuota, dal film “Svegliati e Uccidi” (E. Morricone)
8. La mala ordina, dal film “ La Mala Ordina” (A. Trovajoli)
9. La polizia s’incazza (M. Martellotta, E. Gabrielli, F. Rondanini, L. Cavina , T. Colliva)
10. Preludio dal film “Milano Calibro 9” (L. Bacalov)
11. Gangster Story, dal film “La Polizia incrimina, La Legge Assolve” (G. & M. DeAngelis)
12. Spiralys, soundlibrary (D. Casa)
13. Shake Balera, dal film “La Ragazza Con La Pistola” (P. De Luca, V. Tommaso)

Download (192 kbps)


Similar albums on the blog:
Braen's Machine: Temi ritmici e dinamici (Liuto LRS, 1973)
Ennio Morricone: Crime and Dissonance (Ipecac, 2005) 

Automat: Automat (EMI, 1978)

Progressive and italo-disco? Sounds foolish, but "Automat" is not an isolated case: in the end of the 70s, more than an artist tried to merge the neoclassical grandeur of spaghetti-prog and the electronic grooves of Giorgio Moroder.
"Automat" is anyway one of the most accomplished attempts at this fusion. Listening to it is like spinning Jean-Michael Jarre on one deck, Midnight Express theme on the other and discovering they fit perfectly. The album has something like a concept, dealing with the adventures of a golem-like robot. It is no futurist work though: instead of celebrating the glory of the machine, the music portays a somehow disillusioned spleen. Baroque fugues inspired by Bach, minimalist repetitions and crystalline synth layerings disclose an alabastrine melancholy, the one of a creature which can't feel at home in the human world. A steampunk version of Alan Moore's Dr. Manhattan.

Automat was a short-lived project of soundtrack composers Claudio Gizzi and Romano Musumarra, together with sound engineer Mario Maggi. The album was entirely performed (even the drums!) on the MCS70 analog synthetizer, designed by Maggi himself. The first half of the record features Gizzi's compositions, the second one Musumarra's.
Trivia: J.-M. Jarre was the first person to get a copy of "Automat".

Tracklist:

1. Automat: (The) Rise
2. Automat: (The) Advance
3. Automat: (The) Genus
4. Droid
5. Ultraviolet
6. Mecadance

Download (320 kbps)

Similar albums on the blog:
Easy Going: Fear (Banana Records, 1979)
Giorgio Moroder: E=mc² (Durion, 1979)

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)

Chiave di volta: Ritratto libero (Lizard Records, 2004)

As one of those anachronistic neo-progressive albums, "Ritratto libero" isn't one of the most celebrated releases of the last decade, at least outside the community of prog-rock aficionados. Its very balanced fusion of the most distant Italian progressive legacies - from the most melodic to the most experimental ones - would deserve some more attention though, both for the stylistic synthesis and the excellency of the six songs composing the album.
"Dietro le mura" hints at the daydream atmospheres of La locanda delle fate with enthralling and passionate melodies, mesmerizing piano/synth/flute fugues and driving drums interlocks, but it also winks at the suspended mood of Picchio dal pozzo and the daredevil intrications of Stormy Six. The latter are the most evident inspiration for the central part of the title-track, featuring an impossibly anti-tuneful, epically detached vocal melody dubbed by Fripp-like guitar playing. Then come Stravinskian joints, Genesis/Area influenced dance passages, funky basslines and laid back jazzy nuances.
The overall sound is very mellow and clean, but it does have the warmth and roundness which actually lacks from most contemporary neoprog releases.

"Ritratto libero", the debut album of the Tuscanian quintet Chiave di volta, is one of the very few gems sprung out with spaghetti-prog coming back into fashion during the last fifteen years, and shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in the genre.

Tracklist:

1. Il viaggio
2. Onirica mente
3. Dietro le mura
4. Ritratto libero
5. Involuzioni rapide
6. Ballo al molino

Download (256 kbps)

La locanda delle fate: Forse le lucciole non si amano più (Polydor, 1977)

Often regarded as the swansong of Italian progressive, "Forse le lucciole non si amano più" is actually one of its greatest masterpieces, and surely my personal favourite.
Hailing from Asti, Piedmont, the septet recorded just one album before disbanding. Their mellow, elegant but extremely ablaze sound did take much from Genesis (Steve Hackett being the most evident reference for the guitar) but is nonetheless very mature and distinctive. Dashing keyboard/guitar/flute intertwinings, tireless drum tempo shifts and superlative vocal melodies (with apparently pretentious lyrics, actually nonsense and chosen just for their sound) are the key elements of their style, but don't give an account of the dreamlike atmosphere pervading the album.
"Forse le lucciole non si amano più" shines indeed most of all for its wonderful, magical aura: genuinely triumphant but subtly, elusively melancholic. As if the music knew it was the last act of an entire era, of an unrepeatable daydream...


Tracklist:

1. A volte un istante di quiete
2. Forse le lucciole non si amano più
3. Profumo di colla bianca
4. Cercando un nuovo confine
5. Sogno di Estunno
6. Non chiudere a chiave le stelle
7. Vendesi saggezza
8. New York [bonus track]

Donwload (320 kbps)
part 1 | part 2

Braen's Machine: Temi ritmici e dinamici (Liuto LRS, 1973)

Braen's Machine were sound library composers Pietro Umiliani and Alessandro Alessandroni under the monikers "Braen" and "Gisteri". "Sound libraries" were collections of musical material intended for film, television or radio commercials: the composers tried to make the music express some specific sensations and published archives of tracks with similar purposes, providing functional repositories of ready-made soundtrack music.
Being composed under no commission, the genre offered much artistic freedom and can be regarded in hindsight as a very suitable territory for almost unbounded eperimentation.

"Temi ritmici e dinamici" is the second and the last release of the Umiliani/Alessandroni combo. The two artists, among the most important in the field, focused here on jaunty, airy jazzy-proggy sketches conceived to give the idea of sport and movement. Based on keyboards, acoustic guitar and very groovy drumming, the music reminds vaguely of Goblin, without ever sounding eerie or sinister.
Post-rock band Stereolab surely learned much from the rhythm locks featured on similar albums.


Tracklist:

1. Movimento
2. Dinamica
3. Competizione
4. Attività all'aperto
5. Ritmica sportiva
6. Esercizi ginnici
7. Gara
8. Dilettanti
9. Rinuncia
10. Passeggiata
11. Allenamento
12. Aspetti grotteschi

Download (320 kbps)

Lucio Battisti: Anima latina (Numero Uno, 1975)

This is the sixth album by Italian pop colossus Lucio Battisti. It is much probably the most experimental one Battisti released while still collaborating with lyricist Mogol, who had written for him in the late Sixties some of the most successful Italian pop songs ever.
The recording of "Anima latina" (the title means "latin soul") follows a trip to South America Battisti and Mogol undertook in the beginning of 1974. Many of the sounds and lyrical themes, indeed, reflect a fascination with the music and the social contrasts of Brazil.

The final sound of the album is something unique: metamorphic pop hooks dissolved into an extremely dilated jazz-rock stream, often blessed by surprisingly lucid, anti-psychedelic world music premonitions and heavenly synthetizer suspensions. It might be called "progressive rock" perhaps, but in fact this fusion originated from a completely different route than any English or European progressive: the sound of "Anima latina" is a figment of the work of an astounding number of collabortors, the arrangements feature the most different instruments and the whole album fluctuates in an otherwordly funky groove which is very far from the prog-rock standards. The opening "Abbracciala, abbracciali, abbracciati" may even remind of later Talk Talk and their soulful, emptied-out approach!


Tracklist:

1. Abbracciala, abbracciali, abbracciati
2. Due mondi
3. Anonimo
4. Gli uomini celesti
5. Gli uomini celesti - ripresa
6. Due mondi - ripresa
7. Anima latina
8. Il salame
   
9. La nuova America
   
10. Macchina del tempo
11. Separazione naturale

Download (192 kbps) [re-up]

Goblin: The Goblin Collection, 1975-1989 (DRG, 1995)

Roman prog-rock quartet Goblin is mainly known as the band who scored Dario Argento's most celebrated horror films: "Profondo Rosso" and "Suspiria". Their haunting, repetition-based style, often driven by crystalline keyboards, roaring basslines and rampant jazz-fusion drumming is a staple of soundtrack music.

This is a very good collection which gives an idea of the many allures Goblin experimented for different films throughout their long career. Many of their soundtracks are nothing less than masterpieces, but I think it's better to start with a catalogue of their variety and use it to select the specific works that seem to be more interesting for one's personal taste.


Tracklist:

1. Profondo Rosso (Main Title)
2. Death Dies - M 32 (original film version)
3. Profondo Rosso - M 15
4. Profondo Rosso - M 31
5. Wampyr (finale)
6. Chi? - Part 1
7. Chi? - Part 2
8. Patrick - M 32 bis
9. Patrick - M 1
10. Patrick - M 34/34 Bis/35
    
11. Suspiria (Main Title)
12. La Via Della Droga - M 1 IV
    
13. La Via Della Droga - M 2
14. La Via Della Droga - M 6
15. La Via Della Droga - 31
16. L'Alba dei Morti Viventi
    
17. Buio Omega - M6
18. Buio Omega - M25
19. Buio Omega (Main Title)
    
20. St. Helen (Love Theme)
    
21. Contamination - M 3
    
22. Contamination - M 8
    
23. Tenebre (Main Title)
24. Bass Theme (from Notturno)
    
25. Phenomena - M 12
    
26. Phenomena - M 15 (Alternate version)
27. La Chiesa

Download:
Part 1 | Part 2

Garamond: Quant'altro (Lizard, 2007)

Garamond's debut album is actually some sort of retrospective of their activity: the tracks date to 2001 and 2005. They are an ensemble from Ancona and their style is firmly rooted in the Italian "Rock In Opposition" tradition. The singer Laura Agostinelli's vocal research evidently reminds of Area's Demetrio Stratos, but is definitely more jocose, thus coming close to experimentation of Quintorigo's John De Leo.
The whole album is extremely high-spirited indeed. The lyrics seem to reflect an Ou.Li.Po. aesthetics: they keep on switching among registers, from fairytalesque to nonsense, childish, aulic. The music behaves pretty much in the same way, ranging from chamber music to jazz, band music, electronica... The result is a very dynamic and fanciful work, maybe comparable to Picchio dal pozzo or Stormy Six: highly intricated, kaleidoscopic, but always very light.

Here's a (not so much) more detailed review I wrote in Italian.


Tracklist:

1. Nel sogno di Otfon Brunzig, consumatore di sogni
2. La (proverbiale) fine del Ca' De Luzi
3. Il gesuita millantatore
4. Filastrocca all'oracolo
5. La saga degli immaginari
6. Beatamente plagiati da superstizioni organizzate
7. Omaggio al Dottor Zoidberg
8. Drazil
9. Situazione angolare

Download (320 kbps) re-up

Addamanera: Nella tasca de il zio (Trovarobato/Lizard, 2005)

Addamanera are a band from Messina. Mariposa may be considered their closer relatives: besides recording from the same label, they both advocate they play "compoundable music".
In fact their style is some sort of Canterbury/folk/pop hybrid with a strong nonsensical element. They bear resemblances to Franco Battiato, Ivan Graziani, Picchio dal Pozzo, but the explicit influences would be many more. All of them are fused in a very playful and brisk musical pot pourri which never sounds daffy, pretentious or out of focus. "Nella tasca de il zio" is a very refined and carefully structured album, reflecting a definite progressive spirit and skillful musicianship.

Tracklist:

1. Neurogenesi
2. Gli altri non sapevano niente
3. (Qualcosa a qualcuno) bla bla
4. Il piromane
5. La barca
6. Libellule
7. Lemonjelly
8. La reale forma del vaso
9. Il vaso
10. Viandante
11. Langue

Download

VV.AA.: The Letters - An Unconventional Italian Guide To King Crimson (Mellow, 2004)

This is three-CD compilation released by Mellow Records as a King Crimson tribute. Among the performers are some of the most prominent contemporary progressive bands, with a wide variety ranging from the old-fashioned spaghetti-prog of Germinale or Malibran to the jazzcore ardour of Anatrofobia and Caboto.
Some of the cover versions are quite calligraphic while others reshape the compositions more deeply (Nema Niko and Comfort bring in some electronica, Mariposa show their chamber-punk attitude - and their awful English pronounciation, Mosaic Orchestra almost have a fanfare sound), but they're all substantially faithful and well-played, with many great renditions and a very good overall result.


Tracklist:
CD #1

1. Stefano Bollani - Frame By Frame
2. Germinale - Doctor Diamond
3. Nema Niko - The Talking Drum
4. Spirosfera - Cat Food
5. Roversi Caimi Menotti - Discipline
6. Soundvision - One More Red Nightmare
7. Anatrofobia - The Sailor's Tale
8. Tilion - One Time
9. Taproban - Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part 2
10. Three Of A Charming Pair - Inner Garden I & II
11. Prophexy - The Great Deceiver
12. Giardini d'autunno - Formentera Lady
13. Psychonoesis - Starless

CD #2

1. Goad - Epitaph
2. Costa Mombrini Piazzi - Lady Of The Dancing Water
3. Jet Lag - Pictures Of A City
4. Ubi Maior - Prince Rupert
5. L'imbroglio - Providence
6. Malibran - I Talk To The Wind
7. Floating State - Exiles
8. Notturno Concertante - Cadence And Cascade
9. Greenwall - Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part 1
10. Caboto - Moonchild
11. The Slowmovies - Matte Kudasai
12. ZAQ - In The Court Of The Crimson King
13. Mariposa - Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream

Cd #3

1. Mosaic Orchestra - Red
2. Comfort - We'll Let You Know/Fracture
3. Nodo Gordiano - Lament
4. Aria Palea - The Great Deceiver
   

Download (re-up):
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Luciano Basso: Voci (1975)

Luciano Basso's a Venetian keyboardist/composer and "Voci" is his first LP. It's quite original in its attempt to couple symph-prog magnitude and lyricism (think of Genesis) with a more academic approach. Though the sound has definitely aged and many Bach-inspired passages seem a bit cheesy nowadays, the result is very accomplished and it stands out as a unique fusion of the suggestive "Spaghetti prog" aesthetic and a more cosmic-rock attitude.

Tracklist:

1. Preludio
2. Prominade I
3. Prominade II
4. Voci
5. Echo

Download