Grosso autunno: Almanacco (EMI, 1977)

A bucolic folk album with delicate hippie sediments, "Almanacco" portraits the intimization of Utopias, political battles and disillusionment. Music for a turning-point era, which deals with the same old themes and clichés of post-68 Italy but unknowingly gives up any social connotation, replacing it with light-hearted introversion, everyday reflections about the passing of time and dreamy atmospheres.
The songs are wordy, hilarious and somehow even touching in the ingenuous intellectualism of their lyrics. Elegant and placid acoustic arpeggios become warmly melancholic when maudlin synthetizers meander in the background giving the music a feeble progressive allure, just occasionaly enhanced by faraway flute meddlings. Some songs may remind Claudio Lolli's style for the sincerity of the voice and the resigned suspension of the melodic lines.

Grosso autunno were a singer/songwriter quintet founded in Rome; they were active during the second half of the Seventies. "Almanacco" is their second and last studio album.


Tracklist:

1. Lontani
2. Fiori
3. Questione
4. Da bambini
5. Solo una storia
6. Anonima S.P.A.
7. Qualche ritratto
8. Ancora
9. Bar Edelweiss
10. Jekyll
11. Frutta secca

Download (~195 kbps)

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)

Baraonna: self-titled (Rossodisera Records, 1994)

Baraonna are a vocal quartet revisiting the Neapolitan tradition with a swing touch. The description would account for an incredibly cheap and kitsch neo-traditional pastiche, but Baraonna's attitude is quite different from this expectation. Their clean, refined and retro-sounding style might remind the most aristocratic episodes of Matia Bazar, and the perfectly controlled sopranistic vocals are pretty close too. Moreover, they share some aspects with prog/world/pop band Avion Travel: a convoluted, but higly evocative and mediterranean melodic sense; a very genteel tendency to recitation which projects the songs in a fantasized world, suspended between heartfeltness and demiurgic detachedness.

The songs of the album stand out even more for their funambolic vocal harmonies and counterpoints, which take back directly to Swingle Singers, Manhattan Transfer or, talking of Italian models, Quartetto Cetra. Their music is virtuous, sophisticated, but extremely playful: Baraonna like out-of-context quotations and musical jokes ("Fuga in re" superimposes three children melodies: "Giro giro tondo", "Fra martino campanaro" and "Ma che bel castello") and all the songs are very light and breezy.
The album contains a couple of cover versions: Paolo Conte's "Come di" and "Palconscenico" by Mauro Castelnuovo (actually a translation itself, from Julien Clerc's "Ma preference a moi"). The quartet is accompained by swingy arrangements, Spanish guitars and ethereal keyboards, which strangely enhance the elegant soberty of their sound.

Founded in 1992 by the brothers Angela, Rosella, Serena and Vito Caporale, Baraonna participated to Sanremo Festival in 1994 and won the critique award with the song "I giardini d'Alhambra". The music and the lyrics are composed by Vito and Angela with the help of their father Fulvio, a musician himself.


Tracklist:

1. I giardini d'Alhambra
2. Niente swing
3. Cola
   
4. Ninna nanna d'argiento
   
5. Fuite
6. Mediterranea gente
7. Scaramacai
8. Comme di
9. All'uriente
10. Fuga in re
11. Palcoscenico
12. Brigante
13. 1799

Download (192 kbps)

Roberto Cacciapaglia: Sei note in logica (Philips, 1979)

After having graduated at Milan conservatory, composer Roberto Cacciapaglia soon began experimenting with computer and electronic music for C.N.R. (National Research Center) and RAI Musical Phonology Studio (founded by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna).
He collaborated with Franco Battiato for his album "Pollution", then recorded his first album "Sonanze" with the production of German Ohr/Cosmic Couriers labelmmaster Rolf Ulrich Kaiser. "Sonanze" was recently published on the blog laltritalia.wordpress.com.

"Sei note in logica" is his second LP and features one long composition for voice, computer and orchestra. The mood is much more limpid and light than the one of "Sonanze": influence by Steve Reich and Terry Riley's take on minimalism, the work revolves around static, crystalline six-note patterns which are permuted and transmuted throughout the composition creating a heavenly sense of ecstasy. The female choir's utterings and its subtle interlock with electronic electronic elements create the album's most peculiar and captivating component.
"Sei note in logica" is a very rare and mature exemple of Italian ecstatic minimalism, less melodic-driven than the one of Arturo Stalteri and more static than most of Piero Milesi's works, but certainly more abstract and formal than both of them.


Tracklist:

1. Sei note in logica (parte I)
2. Sei note in logica (parte II)

Download (192 kbps)

Paolo Conte: Concerti (CGD, 1985)

Though he's older than the other ones among the most prominent cantautori, Paolo Conte didn't record songs until 1974, and reached personal fame only in 1979, with the album "Un gelato al limon". Despite his longtime work as a songwriter (he's the man behind such hits as Celentano's "Azzurro" and Caterina Caselli's "Insieme a te non ci sto più"), Conte's name is mainly associated with the first Eighties.

"Concerti" is his first live album, featuring some of the most successful and indicative songs. It's a wonderful synthesis of his unique style, based on very passionate and amusing piano playing, old-fashioned jazz structures and arrangements and half-spoken, smoky vocals. Both the lyrics and the music are usually detached, reserved and even cynical at times, but they're unfailingly wise, ironic, unpretentious and somehow tender-hearted. A very cultured and poetic character, Conte often focuses on lazy and autumnal impressions, based on mixed-level nomenclatures, black-and-white atmospheres and suspended chords. Musically speaking, he's probably the most classy of all the italian singer/songwriters.
"Concerti" isn't Conte's most celebrated album, but as a live and recapitulatory album it has two main merits: it works fine as an introduction to his very personal style and his most immediate songs, and it doesn't have the same very tiresome production gloss of his studio recordings.


Tracklist:

1. Lo zio
2. Come di
3. La ricostruzione del Mocambo
4. Via con me
5. La Topolino amaranto
6. Alle prese con la verde milonga
7. Parigi
8. Diavolo rosso
9. Hemingway
   
10. Bartali
11. Un gelato al limon
12. Una giornata al mare
13. Il nostro amico angiolino
14. Onda su onda
15. Sotto le stelle del jazz
16. Azzurro
17. Boogie
18. Genova per noi

Download (~190 kbps)

Casino Royale: CRX (Black Out, 1997)

Milanese band Casino Royale began in 1987 as a reggae/ska band, but progressively incorporated electronic and hip-hop influences, finally coming to a full-blown and very original hip-hop album ten years later, "CRX".
The producer is DJ Gruff, already a veteran of the Italian hip-hop scene thanks to his work in the band Sangue Misto. The style is urban and deep-sounding, evidently affected by dub and the trip-hop experimentations of Massive Attack. Subliminal basslines, jazzy samples and restrained sci-fi effects are fractured by jagged rhythm patterns and form hypnotic, subway-like backgrounds for superimpositions of detached raggamuffin rap and dissolved melodic hooks. Even more often, the voice slips under the grooves, fusing with the music in a very abstract, but very enthralling melange.
I actually don't know who are the many vocalists who collaborated to the album: surely there's the band's frontman Giuliano Palma, but there are several different rap contributions (some of them in English, too) which give "CRX" a very collective and multi-accent feeling.


Tracklist:

1. CRX
2. Benvenuto in mia casa
3. The Future
4. Ora solo io ora
5. Oltre
6. Là dov'è la fine
7. Specchio
8. In picchiata
9. Homeboy
10. Hi-fi
11. Là sopra qualcuno ti ama

Download (128 kbps)

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)

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

Download (224 kbps)

Viridanse: Mediterranea (Contempo, 1985)

I don't know much about the new wave band Viridanse. They were from Alessandria, Piedmont, and "Mediterranea" is their second release, just after the EP "Benvenuto Cellini".
Their guitar-based darkwave style owes much to Joy Division, though it turns down the band's trademark funeral feeling into a more voluptuous sound delving on Meditterranean influences and melodic arabesques. The singer's emphatic vocals, very typical of Italian darkwave, and the wannabe cerebral lyrics may sound quite disturbing, but the mood of the album is original and peculiar, slightly resembling to a Mediterranean version of Japan's "Tin Drum". Apart from the forced comparisons, Viridanse's convoluted basslines were much probably influenced by Mick Karn's legendary style. Most tracks are dominated by the fine and sharp-sounding intrications of the two guitars and all of them are pervaded by a hedonistic, decadent mood which is, as a matter of fact, the album's most accomplished element.


Tracklist:

1. Frontiere
2. Notte chiara
3. Sheherazade
4. Corinna
5. Dolce vita
6. Mediterranea
7. Sulla strada
8. Desiderio di me
9. Terra di sempre
10. Déjà vu

Download (~170 kbps)

Corleone: Wei Wu Wei (Etnagigante / V2 Records Italia, 2005)

Trumpeter Roy Paci is one of the most ubiquitous protagonists of the contemporary Italian music scene. Though he's known mainly for his ska/jazz band Aretuska and his work with many artists in the left-field area of Italian pop music, he's also very active in the experimentation on traditional music and quite renown abroad for his collaboration with such diverse artists as Peter Gabriel, Manu Chao, the Flying Luttenbachers and some Senegalese and South American world music ensembles.

Corleone is a jazzcore band chiefly in the vein of John Zorn's most genre-grinding projects. Prodigal jazz soloing, askew rhythm interlockings and occasional electronic meddlings meet ever-present references to Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota soundtrack styles, African music forays, hip-hop assaults, Southern Italian folklore and more atmospheric episodes. Fantômas's well-known vocal terrorist Mike Patton, jazz accordion player Antonello Salis and noir bookwriter Carlo Lucarelli have some guest apparitions which contribute to enrich the style kaleidoscope of the record.

Though fiercely chaotic, "Wei Wu Wei"'s rich of complex structures and intrications and the classy musicianship of the Corleone crew often gives the album a much more refined (and really jazzy - they often sound actually more Tim Berne than John Zorn) taste than the one of most other iconoclast jazzcore bands. Most of all, Corleone don't take themselves seriously and every track is a very light, fancyful and hilarious surprise.


Tracklist:

1. Come si chiama?
2. Skit#1 "Emigrant Song"
3. Doverosi sballi
4. Skit#2 "Clarimachine"
5. Come Live Your Life With Me
6. Skit#3 "_"
7. Meglio un bombardino oggi, che un bombardino domani
8. Skit#4 "Ghost Ship"
9. 'U Riavulicchiu E I Ciancianedi
10. Skit#5 "Asterisco"
11. Armoniaca
12. Skit#6 "Pattern 21"
13. Tutto Diventerà Rosso
14. Skit#7 "T77"
15. Tromba L'oEil

Download (192 kbps)

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)

Gino D'Eliso: Ti ricordi Vienna? (RCA, 1977)

After having released his first record for Lucio Battisti's label Numero Uno, triestinian singer/songwriter Gino d'Eliso got together a full-blown disco orchestra for his second LP.
The music of "Ti ricordi Vienna?" is a very peculiar meeting of the decadent, dandyesque approach of glam-rock, Lucio Battisti's refinate pop, the bombastic grooves of disco music and mild Balkan nuances.

Though the lyrics aren't brilliant, the songs are all strikingly sophisticated and captivating. Super-funky basslines and energic italo-prog riffs wonderfully fuse with emphatic violin strokes and theatrical Hammond organ blows to create convoluted, multi-layered, mostly upbeat tunes.
Aside from the undeniable quality of the compositions, "Ti ricordi Vienna?"'s a very interesting work for an unique merger of influences configuring it as a bridge between times and places: Italian and Mediterranean pop sounds, the American disco trend, and a more far-seeing continental spleen.

The quality of the rip is very poor, but I really couldn't manage to get a better one.


Tracklist:

1. Bellezza normanna
2. Kajmac Calan
3. Il tamburello e l'eroe
4. Non saremo angeli
5. Fiesta messicana
6. Ti ricordi Vienna?
7. Tanto arriva domenica
8. Non basta la poesia
9. La notte di erasmo

Download (192 kbps)

Art Fleury: I luoghi del potere (Italian Records, 1980)

Art Fleury were a trio from Brescia devoted to a deeply suburban and experimental progressive rock. Though obviously in debt with King Crimson, especially for the guitar style, their attitude was much closer to more radical and nihilist bands such as Faust, The Residents or This Heat. Their influence is pretty evident on all of the four tracks which compose their debut album: heavily destructured narrations of the industrial gloom, merging tape material, atonal organ or orchestral puddles and restrained arpeggios, occasionally broken by convulsive prog-rock bursts.
The band had indeed more than some contacts with the left-wing R.I.O. scene, having opened several times for Henry Cow concerts and played together with Area and bands from L'Orchestra cooperative (Stormy Six, Art Bears, Etron Fou Leloublan and many more).

"I luoghi del potere" is a fascinating work, pervaded by a dreary, disillusioned mood which constitutes a strong and well-conceived critique of industrial and Cold War alienation. Besides being a masterpiece of Italian progressive rock, it's also one of the very few ones to show a very distinct post-punk leaning: it's an important document of the late-70s transitions.



Tracklist:

1. Uno spettro si aggira per le brigate Hans Eisler
2. Fabbrica rosa
3. E=mc² (la collina del timo)
4. La morte al lavoro

Download (256 kbps)

Madrigali Magri: Negarville [Wallace, 2000]

Madrigali Magri were a post-rock trio hailing from Nizza Monferrato, Piedmont. Their three LPs manifestly draw their inspiration from Slint: stripping away all of the post-hardcore elements in the stereotypical Louisville-sound formula, Madrigali Magri focus instead on destructured guitar wanderings and emptied-out landscapes, surrected by an obsessive, kraut-like drumming.
Vocals are deeply buried in the mix, often half-whispered and kept just to emphasize the murky, lazy mood of the guitar lines, which secretly cover desertic blues paths. The music of "Negarville" seems to come from the most dusty attics of the memory, and be forgotten in the very moment it is played (in a very post-rock way).
After the disbanding of Madrigali Magri, the guitarist Giambeppe Succi would team up with drummer Bruno Dorella (Wolfango, Ovo, Ronin) to form the post-rock/blues band Bachi da Pietra.


Tracklist:

1. Entro obliquo
2. Negarville
3. È un giorno normale
4. Porto dentro
5. Non hai mai pace
6. Un posto per un altro
7. Giorno è notte
8. Uomo ombra
9. Esco obliquo
10. Porte dell'inverno
11. Parti non mie

Download (160 kbps)

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)

24 Grana: K Album (La canzonetta, 2001)

24 Grana are one of the most original Italian bands to come out of the late Nineties. Starting for their first album "Loop" back in 1997, they fused dub and trip-hop tendencies with Neapolitan language. Ska/hip-hop influences and their relation with the Centri Sociali anarco-leftist area put them near Almamegretta and 99 Posse as the main representatives of a new "Southern" trend in Italian alternative music. A mild psychedelic mood in their first albums, a decisive rock attitude and a less ideologically-charged stance contributed in distinguishing them firmly nonetheless.

Their third studio album, "K album", marked a shift towards a more lucid pop-rock formula. The sound forsook many of its reggae-drawn elements and took a far-seeing indie electronic direction probably inspired by "Kid A" and Radiohead's new course.
The songs of the album alternate Italian and Neapolitan languages and though their sound had now become very "English" their Mediterranean roots are always present in their harmonies and melodies. The frequent use of melodic minor scales higlights both their link to the Neapolitan tradition and the lead guitarist's appreciation of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood's style.
Besides all comparisons, "K album" is an impressive collection of perfectly accomplished pop songs. Essential, though deep in their sound. Extremely varied, though always recognizable in style. Intensely inspired, nervous, urban and melancoholic.


Tracklist:

1. Pikkola kanzone per K
2. 'E kose ka spakkano
3. Kanzone doce
4. Kanzoneanarkika
5. Kanzone su un detenuto politico
6. Kanzone su Londra
7. Kanzone del pisello
8. Kevlar
9. Kanzone del fumo

Download (192 kbps)

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

Milanese composer Piero Milesi is probably best known for his work as the arranger of Fabrizio De André albums "Le nuvole" and "Anime salve". He is in fact one of the most prominent Italian artists in the field of electronic minimalism.
After having studied cello, he graduated in experimental and electronic composition in Milan conservatory. Then he joined the Gruppo Folk Internazionale entourage and got a degree in architecture with a thesis on the relations between space and sound.

"The Nuclear Observatory of Mr. Nanof" is his first work to be published by the quintessential American avant-prog label Cuneiform Records. It's the soundtrack of the homonym experimental film directed by Paolo Rosa and produced by Studio Azzurro. The film was a surreal exploration of an enormous graffiti engraved on the outside wall of Volterra mental hospital by resident Oreste Fernando Nannetti - a self-proclaimed "Astronautic Mineral Engineer of the Mental System" who referenced to himself as NANOF11 when talking about the author of the graffiti.
Milesi's music is extremely evocative. Though very repetitive, it subtly breaks the typical staticity of minimalist compositions. Thanks to a cautius use of the melodic element, it shows a mild linear evolution, while the soggy synth sounds give the music an autumnal, moisty mood. Circularity and fluctuation are not the key sensations created by the music, which rather arouses a sense of stagnation, claustrophobic idleness.


Tracklist:

1. Mr. Nanof's Tango
2. Tom Thumb
3. Between the Scale and the Apple
4. Scene of the Madmen
5. Waiting for the Fete
6. My Dad Had Two Mommies and Two Daddies
7. Graffiti
8. Towards the Tree in front of the House
9. The Procession
10. Three Figurations: The Braid, the Rhombus, the Star
11. The Presence of the City
12. Pantelleria
    
13. Questa non è la mia voce
14. Writing on the Glass
15. In the Car with Mr. Felsen
16. Let Ninusk Be
17. Waterfall

Download (160 kbps)

Mina: Tutto Mina (Warner, 2006)

Mina Anna Mazzini is the most famous Italian female pop singer ever. She owes her popularity to her frequent TV apparitions during the Sixties, to her stunning vocal personality and to the great songs many composers wrote for her in those years.
"Tutto Mina" is much probably the most complete collection featuring her Sixties hits. The styles range from easy-going r'n'r-inspired tracks ("Tintarella di luna", "Una zebra a pois", "Serafino campanaro", some of the first ones in Italy) to extraordinary and sophisticated love songs signed by some of the greatest Italian authors of that time ("Il cielo in una stanza" - Gino Paoli, "Stringimi forte i polsi" - Fiorenzo Carpi/Dario Fo, "Se telefonando" - Ennio Morricone/Maurizio Costanzo).
The impressing vocal performance in "Brava" - a song explicitly conceived to show Mina's thecnical ability - gives an account of the singer's personality as an interpreter. An Italian pop monument, for a good reason.

Tracklist:
CD 1:

1. Il cielo in una stanza
2. Tintarella di luna
3. Nessuno
4. Due note
5. È vero
6. Coriandoli
7. Piano
8. Una zebra a pois
9. La notte
10. Folle banderuola
11. Serafino campanaro
12. Le mille bolle blu
13. Vorrei sapere perché
14. Come sinfonia
15. Cubetti di ghiaccio
16. Sabato notte
17. Moliendo cafè
18. Renato
19. Eclisse twist
20. Prendi una matita
21. Stringimi forte i polsi
22. Chihuahua
23. Stessa spiaggia stesso mare

CD 2:

1. È l'uomo per me
2. Un buco nella sabbia
3. Un anno d'amore
4. Città vuota
5. Ora o mai più
6. Io sono quel che sono
7. L'ultima occasione
8. Soli
9. Brava
10. Una casa in cima al mondo
11. Ta ra ta ta
12. Se telefonando
13. Se tu non fossi qui
14. Breve amore
15. Mi sei scoppiato dentro il cuore
16. Se piangi se ridi
17. E se domani
18. L'immensità
19. Conversazione
20. Se c'è una cosa che mi fa impazzire
21. So che non è così
22. Sono come tu mi vuoi
23. La banda

Download:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Musica per bambini: Nascondino coll'assassino (La mia cantina, 1998)

Musica per bambini are the two Italo-Australian twins Manuel and Tim Bongiorni. The roots of their interest in music for children can be traced back to the age of seven, when they debuted with "children" versions of synth-pop classics (Depeche Mode, Duran Duran).
After having relocated to Italy in the end of the Eighties, they began working on a higly idiosyncratic music/theatre show merging pre-recorded backing tracks, gashed nursery rhymes, effected vocals and home-made scenographies.

"Nascondino con l'assassino" is the project's first official release. It's a mini-album featuring just nine tracks. which will unavodably fail to satisfy the majority. Approximative, ostentatiously unkempt, the music couples sick pseudo-folksongs with unpolished electronic beats and punk-metal guitars. It may resemble to a terrorist, mentally ill version of Üstmamò.
Though initially quite disturbing, the record quickly reveals the lucid design of its aesthetics and the limpid levity of its melodies. A curiosity: "La pianta dei chiodi" has the same strophe of XTC's "Sacrifical Bonfire" - the two songs are probably based on the same traditional.


Tracklist:

1. Tana per l'assassino
2. Il bosco di biscotti
3. Morte di una bambola di carta
4. Il lanciatore di coltelli
5. La pianta dei chiodi
6. Morte di un cavallo a dondolo
7. Betoniera
8. Canto popolare dei sacchi di cemento
9. Morte di un orsetto di pelouche

Download (256 kbps)

Musicanova: omonimo (Philips, 1978)

This is the first time I post two albums by the same band. I won't dwell on the presentation on the band therefore, having already talked about Musicanova for the album "Festa festa".
The album I'm posting today is Musicanova's second album, an almost miraculous collection of songs composed to renew the traditional music of Campania. The vocals are all in Neapolitan language and their interpretation is stunnigly keen and lively. The arrangements are complex, layered but always focused on the traditional styles: many tracks feature flute, violin and refinate rhythm guitar figures, and the overall sound is some sort of very cultured, inspired and ancient-sounding folk music. The presence of odd meters directly links to baroque music conceived for the dance, giving the songs a very astir and physical temper.
"Pizzica minore" opens on an impetuous zampogna-violin blast followed by an impressive vocal performance by Teresa Di Sio. "A la muntagna" is an apology of brigandage. It juxtaposes a tense, pastoral metaphore about sheep, wolves, hunters and robbers with a trampling, choral 15/8+9/8 strophe which recites:

Se n'è fujuto 'o rre Burbone
e n'è venuto n'ato cchiù putente:
cagna 'o guverno, cagna 'o padrone,
sulo pe' chi stà 'a sotto nun cagna niente.

The Borbone king fled away
Another one came, more powerful:
The government changes, the master changes,
Only for the lower ones nothing changes.

Tracklist:

1. Pizzica minore
2. Riturnella
3. A la muntagna
4. Siento mò che t'aggia dì
5. A' morte 'e Zì Frungillo
6. Tempo di carnevale
7. Ninna nanna per voce e mandoloncello
8. Canto allo scugnizzo
9. Tarantella finale

Download (~230 kbps)