Zeit: Un giorno in una piazza del Mediterraneo (Materiali sonori, 1979)

The progressive-folk field can be split in two veins: one came (almost) directly from traditional music, and tried to revive the "folkloric" spirit updating it to the era of pop music and electric guitars; the other came from the most experimental and non-rock sides of the psychedelic galaxy, and looked to the traditional sounds as a new lexicon for their avantgardish jams.
The albums by Aktuala, Third Ear Band, Älgarnas Trädgård surely belonged to this latter wave, and so does "Un giorno in una piazza del Mediterraneo" (A day in a Mediterranean square). Compared to the work of the aforementioned bands, it seems to be a bit more orthodox in the treatment of the folkloric material, and more rhythmically challenging. Instead of stagnant ragas, the compositions have the pace of circle dances, and the melodic patterns show some attention to real traditional figures.
The album is entirely acoustic and instrumental; a crucible of Eastern-Mediterranean vapours, Italian shepherd pipes, tinkling sounds, and wavering violin improvisations. Daring, fascinating, and hypnotic.

Zeit were a quintet, from Florence. They recorded just another album, "Il cerchio degli antichi colori", in 1981.



Tracklist:

1. Ruz
2. Circus
3. Echi d'acqua
4. Ritmo berbero
5. Il mosaico
6. Vetri e canne
7. Tema oscuro
8. Sintesi

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First posted on Mutant Sounds.


Similar albums on the blog:
Spirale: omonimo (King, 1974)
Marcello Capra: Aria mediterranea (Mu records, 1978)

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

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Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:

Radiodervish: In acustico (Cosmasola, 2001)

Üstmamò: omonimo (Virgin, 1991)

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

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

Radiodervish: In acustico (Cosmasola, 2001)

A duo composed by Ligurian multi-instrumentist Michele Lobaccaro and Palestinian-born singer Nabil Salameh, Radiodervish were formed (originally as Al Darwish) in the late Eighties in Bari and took their name from the one of Sufi Muslim ascetics.
"In acustico" is their first live album, with songs taken from their first three LPs. While the studio works relied on electronica and quasi trip-hop atmospheres, the same songs are here stripped down to their acoustic roots. All of the tracks are intimate, suspended ballads with a dreamlike pop vein and very strong Mediterranean nuances reflecting both on the harmonies and the melodic style - the latter alternating Italian and Arabian language vocals with wordless melisms. Minimal piano and string arrangements and coruscating acoustic strumming make the mood even more delicate, charming and melancholic.


Tracklist:

1. Bahia
2. Taci, il nemico ti ascolta
3. Radiodervish
4. Gaza
5. Rosa di Turi
6. New Partisan
7. Due Soli
8. Belzebù

Download (192 kbps)

L'enfance rouge: Trapani - Halq al Waady (Wallace, 2008)

Italo-French band L'enfance rouge has a veteran trans-European attitude: they record their albums all around the continent and dedicate them to European cities. Both their angular, noisy rock and their European internationalism link them directly with the cult Dutch post-punk band The Ex. With their sixth album, they borrow a very strong Mediterranean influence thanks to the collaboration of the Institut Superieur de Musique of Tunisi.

The overall atmosphere has the charm of remote, millenary trade routes. It evocates the last centuries of a decadent Costantinopolis, a crucible of cultures, dangers and long-lost wealth. Ruthless noise-rock sabre blows, dreary French poetries about galleys and kalashnikovs, pachidermal, lethargic basslines hybridate the French noise-rock school (Bästard, Ulan Bator) with bewitching oud vapours and flute arabesques.
Light peeps out very rarely: just a few times Pink Floyd and Godspeed You Black Emperor! substitute Slint and Massimo Volume as guardian angels of the disillusioned, mature and extremely captivating fusion of the album.


Tracklist:

1. Otranto
2. Ras et Ahmar
3. Ana Lastu Amrikyyan
4. Tombeau pour New York
5. Azizati
6. Lame de fond
7. Vendicatori
8. Nous
9. Hurricane Lily
10. Terre d'élection
11. Petite-mort

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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

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