★Cramps Records
Tic & Tac
Yellow vinyl / 180 grams, limited and numbered edition 300 copies. Following the tragic passing of the legendary Demetrio Stratos in 1979, the band Area wisely chose to forgo vocals (save for a few backing harmonies) on this album, as no one could ever replace the "maestro della voce". While this instrumental album may not push boundaries like its predecessors, it showcases a commendable blend of talent, with each musician shining brightly, particularly the remarkable bass work by Ares Tavolazzi…
Gelato Metropolitano
“I was born in the sun of a big country that free maybe never was, a big country of happy people, of big forests and big cities.” This is how Alberto Camerini's second album opens, and it is clear from the outset that one is dealing with something not easy to categorize, wild, but equally enveloping and fascinating. The overall sound, while diverse, retains its own continuity and comes across as a blend of Brazilian sounds, singer-songwriter songwriting, and DIY bedroom electronics, with Camerin…
Microphone
At long last, after decades out of print, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, dives into the legendary catalog of Cramps, bringing forth the first ever vinyl reissue of David Tudor’s legendary LP, "Microphone", part of an ongoing initiative dedicated to bring the imprint’s seminal output back into the light. Still mind-blowing nearly half a century after it was first released, now complete with a new English translation of the album’s original liner notes, this is just about as exciting as reissue…
Rock' 80 (LP)
2024 Restock * First ever vinyl repress. Limited to 500 copies, 180 gr. Transparent Vinyl. Replica of the original, with printed inner * In November 1979, at the Palalido in Milan, the metropolitan response to the famous Bologna Rock, a festival that, a few months earlier, had effectively sanctioned the birth of the new Italian Rock, was staged. A dozen Punk/New Wave bands and the like - almost all of them perfectly unknown, except for the star Skiantos, fresh from a contract with Cramps, Gianni…
Opus Avantra Box
The long-standing Italian imprint, ARTIS Records, returns with one of its most ambitious releases to date, the towering “Opus Avantra Box Collection” by Opus Avantra , a stunning Deluxe Box set which includes no less than five LPs, six CDs, two 7" records, a DVD, a book and various ephemera, offering a thrilling retrospective of one of the most singular bands to emerge from Italy's movement of Prog and “Rock in Opposition”. Ambitious, experimental, and wholly uncategorizable in the ways that few…
Cantare la voce
* 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * Reissue of a 1978 LP out on Cramps Records. Demetrio Stratos's research into the field of phonetic and experimental poetry led to his freeing his voice every naturalistic restraint, restoring its depth and dimension. The result of this can be heard in the two recordings of his compositions "Metrodora" and "Cantare la Voce" where what sounds like an instrument is in fact his voice.
Giro Di Valzer Per Domani
Temporary nicer price * 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * Originally released in 1975 on Cramps. This is Arti E Mestieri's second album. More dynamic and inspired than their debut title, The sound has not changed much in comparison to the previous album, but it is slightly less raw and vocals prevent from getting much focus on instrumental prowess. Arguably, there is less space for brass instrument and more vocalized sections. Drums are usually more aggressive and fast than …
Caution Radiation Area
Temporary nicer price * 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * Area's second album takes its cues from the most serious side of early-'70s British progressive rock, particularly Soft Machine and King Crimson. There's a high-voltage, at times furious energy to the quasi-jazz-rock fusion, with keyboards showing some influence from Miles Davis fusion records, and the guitars wheeling off lines with a busy anxiety. Despite some sinister progressions and overlays of electronic squiggles…
Crac!
Temporary nicer price 700 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl * “Crac!” is Area’s third album, released in 1974 and one of the strongest in their revolutionary canon of political artfulness. The previous album had received some mixed opinions after the explosive debut; Crac! is a departure in style from both of those two records—in a way, more compact and sleek if that is possible to think of with Area. In that aspect, this is the most “accessible” version of the band, and not surpri…
Maledetti (Maudits) - Color LP
Temporary nicer price ** 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl ** 1976 was a year of flux and change. For the recording of the fifth Area album, the core membership of Stratos, Fariselli, Tofani and Tavolazzi were present, but drummer Capiozzo only appears on about half of the album, replaced on various tracks by either Walter Calloni or Paul Lytton. Steve Lacy augments the band, as do several other studio musicians (including a string quartet). Perhaps it was the contributions of t…
Arbeit Macht Frei
Temporary nicer price * 500 copies, numbered edition. Clear Splatter Vinyl *Appearing as it did in 1973, Area's debut album must have sounded to the average Italian pop critics like the end of the world. Issued on the Cramps label, the album highlighted Area's early sound, which featured overt folk melodies, Canterbury Scene prog rock, acid psychedelia, and vanguard jazz all filtered through a particularly Italian sensibility. Those who came to love PFM later will not be able to handle the beaut…
L'Internazionale
* Clear Vinyl * Nice and quality reissue of shis Area's 7" was distributed in the left-winged movement/circuit, as the money from sales financed the legal costs of the trial against the Italian writer and anarchist Giovanni Marini, caught up in Italy's Strategy of Tension and unjustly convicted of the murder. The B-side, Citazione Da George L. Jackson is a strong denunciation against the inhumane conditions of prisoners and inspired by Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson, a com…
L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin
* Yellow Vinyl * A great Area 7", quality replica of their L'Abbattimento Dello Zeppelin first single. Kick-ass free-form music recorded in the glorious year of 1973 in Milan, Italy. Blow-out with blasting sax solos played by Victor Edouard Busnello, and a kicking Demetrio Stratos on these two extraordinary tracks
Antropofagia
Tip! An outstanding recording, and an unjustly neglected contribution to prepared piano performance by Area member Patrizio Fariselli issued on Cramps in 1977 (in the legendary "DIVerso" series), a record with energy that's somewhere between John Cage and Cecil Taylor! At times, Patrizio Fariselli plays with a great sensitivity to silence – letting it emerge with as much force as his well-placed work on the keys of the piano. But at other times, he comes off with a full, frenzied sound that's re…
Tilt
Temporary nicer price * Remastered, 180 gram, Blue Vinyl * Tilt is the amazing debut album by a band whose members were not newbies at all. The six musicians' combined former experiences had led them to the roads of jazz and prog rock (even the very young, masterful drummer Furio Chirico had played in The Trip's last two albums) for some time, so their expertise was quite obvious and quite impressive as well by the time "Tilt" introduced Arti + Mestieri to the eyes of the world. The jazz-rock o…
Cheap imitation
* 180Gr Purple Vinyl. edition of 500* Reissue of an LP originally on the Cramps Nova Musicha imprint. The music is a "cheap imitation" of Erik Satie. Nice meandering piano music played by John Cage himself. Registered at Center for Contemporary Music of Mills College in Oakland, California, Cheap Imitation is a piece for solo piano by John Cage, composed in 1969. It is an indeterminate piece created using the I Ching and based, rhythmically, on Socrate by Erik Satie; it consists almost exclusive…
Indicazioni
* 45th Anniversary, 180 gr. Red Vinyl. From the original master tapes *First vinyl reissue of this super-rare NWW-listed 1978 album from experimental/avant-garde progressive key figure. Indicazioni is Paolo Tofani's first solo album, released in 1977 once he left Area to pursue a spiritual and even more musically experimental quest. The record was released on Cramps Records' "DIVerso" series, which explored unusual territories and included, among others, Demetrio Stratos' solo albums - looking m…
Non Ce N'È Per Nessuno
* 180 gr. Red Vinyl. Digitally remastered * Originally released in 1977. "Rocchi's second album for Cramps simplifies the songwriting of his earlier A Fuoco, lining eight tracks of remarkable depth and complexity. The sound, compared to the beginning, becomes more full-bodied, the songs expand and the structures benefit from valuable musicians such as Ricky Belloni on guitars, Eugenio Pezza on piano, organ and Mellotron, Paolo Tofani from Area on guitar and synthesizer.
le Milleuna, pièce per Danza di Valeria Magli
This is easily the most frightening and naked recording by Greek vocalist Demetrio Stratos, scripted by poet Nanni Balestrini and later choreographed by Valeri Magli after his death. The text of Le Milleluna was 100 words, all beginning with the letter "s" and all of which had some sexual allusion or connotation. The show that Stratos performed was completely free of all academic exploration. Instead, he had internalized each of these words for an articulation original to the performance of the …
Concerto All Elfo 1978
* 500 copies, 180 gr. Blue vinyl *The lost live album by the late great Demetrio Stratos, Area's vocalist and leader. Recorded back in 1978, this album has been the missing title in the remastered reissue series on Cramps.