Italian Experimental Progressive
To Allen Ginsberg
Regarded as the link between Italian acid folk, Library music and Krautrock, Living Music was a collective of Italian Musicians, artists and poets active in the counterculture and student movement of Rome in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Taking their name and concept from the New York experimental theatre group ‘Living Theatre’ husband and wife duo Umberto Santucci (jazz critic, graphic designer (Brainticket) and photographer, library composer) and Gianfranca Montedoro (Jazz and rock singer, m…
Come un Vecchio Incensiere all'Alba di un Villaggio Deserto
The Sorrenti brothers' musical careers, Jenny and Alan Sorrenti, have three elements in common at least: the unconventional use of the voice as an instrument, a wonderful debut album (respectively, the eponymous Saint Just's LP and "Aria") and the subsequent 'second album syndrome' that depicted their sophomore efforts as inferior to their predecessors, by an unfair and demeaning comparison. Sorrenti's voice and relatively sparse instrumental accompaniment are remarkable in how much they accompl…
Free Love
"Free Love", the only LP ever released by Kaleidon, is one of the many 'forgotten ones' from the Italian progressive rock era. The title "Free Love" takes its name from the eponymous band, 3/5 of which were North American musicians living in Italy. Free Love released two 45rpm's in 1970; the first one, "Sandy / Temple of Stone", highlights the remarkable ability of each individual component, if we also consider their young age. The second single contains the theme of the movie western "Roy Colt …
Terra In Bocca
This is an absolute treat! A very important, outwardly "weird and wild" work as some of the 73-74 period Italian albums would become, "Terra in bocca" is a sort of rock-opera concept album, basically consisting of two long suites, each occupying an entire side of the LP. Full of tension from the first to the last moment and beautifully produced, this record had everything it takes to make I Giganti rise above the crowded Italian pop scene of the early '70s, but the subject chosen as concept - th…
Trusciant
The second and last Il Baricentro album reinforces the jazz-fusion trend that had already been dominantly relevant for the band's debut effort. Here, in "Trusciant", it is quite clear that the combo led by the Boccuzzi brothers has a strong focus on the funky jazz framework that was at the moment functioning in the limelight of American NE and NW coasts' musical scenes. The resulting sonic amalgam is adequately augmented with an exotic swing by two guest percussionists, which help Il Baricentro …
Il Grande Gioco
"Il grande gioco", the only LP released by the Rome-based band Albero Motore in 1974, already issued by AMS Records on CD papersleeve format, is now also reissued on vinyl with a cover that faithfully reproduces the original one, including the inner LP envelope with photos, credits and lyrics. The group's brief career lasted about three years, from 1972 to the breakup that occurred shortly after the release of the 7-inch "Messico Lontano / Mandrake". "Il grande gioco" was published in the same y…
Fetus
"Fetus is an album beyond all definition. It's a masterpiece of daring and wild risks that work every single time. Battiato takes us through eight uniquely super-detailed songs that tug at the heart strings as no other experimental record ever could." Jim O' Rourke. Franco Battiato is often heralded as Italy's answer to Brian Eno. A quizzical composer/lyricist, Battiato turned pop music upside down in the early '70s with three classic LPs – Fetus, Pollution and Sulle Corde Di Aries – that for…
Suspiria - 40th anniversary box
** 300 copies only, sold out at source ** Goblin, Dario Argento, Suspiria. Never as in this case any possible noun or adjective is superfluous, in an effort to describe with words what can be simply addressed to, in the end, with just a single essential term: Masterpiece. Even more than with the previous "Profondo Rosso" (1975), it is with "Suspiria" (1977) that the legendary bound between the Argento and Goblin reached its peak, to a level that has never been reached before to date.Four d…
1978 Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano
1978 Gli dei se ne vanno, gli arrabbiati restano! ("The gods depart, the angry remain!") is the sixth album of the Jazz fusion band Area and was released in 1978, as the title says. It is the first album without guitarist Paolo Tofani, and it is also the first album whose lyrics were not written by Gianni Sassi. Also, noticeably it is the only album in which Demetrio Stratos is credited as a composer.Area has stripped their sound a bit. Not drastically, but the experimental, avant-garde and fusi…
Frammenti da Antico Adagio
Antico Adagio was originally intended to be a double album, but was eventually scaled back to a single disc, and this is the unreleased album from the 1978 session. Before an aberrant idea of progress and workaholic ethic ludicrously sped up our daily lives, even in the hectic city of Milan it was possible to “play slowly” – with no pressure, simply following the path your art was showing you. After a classic artistic journey and an experimental stint with Aktuala and other brilliant fel…
Vision's Fugitives
Franco Falsini's Sensations' Fix are one of the most mysterious and enthralling entities to come out of the rich italian 70's prog rock scene. Unless many of their contemporaries such as PFM, Le Orme or Osanna, which leaned heavily on the British sound of prog giants Emerson Lake & Palmer, Genesis or Soft Machine, Sensations'Fix music was always more akin to the experimental tendencies of German krautrock bands like Neu!, Can, Amon Duul II or the more adventurous directions those musicians took …
Quinta Dimensione
Superb and obscure Italian soundtrack featuring psychedelic mood music from the obscure RAI television program "... Con Un Colpo Di Bacchetta." centered around the 'Extra Sensory perception' phenomenon, released by an equally obscure group from Genoa, formed by students in 1978 and released this album and a single for the Eleven label (Franco Leprino) the same year. A trully bizzare effort of Avant Garde weirdness, Classical education, acoustic mysticism and deep experimentation, which breaks an…
Mirage
Truly obscure electronic/cosmic LP from the late 70's, Mirage is a rather unknown but now cult album released by Francesco Cabiati back in the 1979. It's a sci-fi cinematic electronic trip for long synthezised srings, melodic flavored sequences. It features some prog tinged arrengements but the general atmopshere tends to be relaxed if not goofy and kitschy (by moments). The self title track is an efficient spacey electronic improv but it could be perceived as a disappointed piece for fans of ce…
Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo
Limited repress LP edition. Originally published in 1979 by the legendary Gianni Sassi's Cramps Records label, as part of a series curated by Franco Battiato, the long-awaited "Prati Bagnati del Monte Analogo" has finally made available by Die Schachtel in a repackaged deluxe edition (both LP and CD), fully remastered (by Giuseppe Ielasi) from the original Cramps tapes, and complete with 3 extra tracks (in the CD edition) dug from Francesco Messina's archives.
Produced by Franco Battiato…
Cincinnato (1974)
Incredible italian avant/free progressive album from the historic early Seventies finally rediscovered and dusted off the vaults !!! After a very long time, BTF distributes one of the rarest italian progressive albums of all time: Cincinnato, a masterwork recording originally released back in 1974 and never before reissued on LP! Featuring some great progressive and jazz-rock tracks and an incredible 20-minutes long suite. This is a superb release and the ultimate collector's item of the italian…
Clic
CD edition. There is no figure in Italian music, nor within the country’s shimmering, expansive avant-garde, who demands the respect and awe offered to Franco Battiato. He is the beginning and the end. An artist whose output, stretching across six decades, is so diverse and singular, that it defies any concrete definition - darting from psychedelic Prog, definitive gestures in the history of Minimalism, to the heights of explicit Pop. Like many of his contemporaries, Battiato’s journey toward av…
La Casa Del Lago
"La casa del lago" came out just a year after Saint Just's eponymous debut album; in 1973 the band were a very special trio, consisting of Jenny Sorrenti (voice), Antonio Verde (guitar) and Robert Fix (saxophone). They had a contract with Harvest (as well as Jenny's brother Alan Sorrenti, who debuted with "Aria" the previous year), and managed to stand out in the vast Italian pop scene of the early '70s.Unlike many other musical realities, they had a concrete support from the record label…
Live in Montreux
Founded in the Italy centre town of Ancona, Agorà curiously debuted with a live album instead of a studio one: they played an almost-instrumental typical jazz-rock, and they were invited to play at the famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland (a place that is most remembered for the fire that inspired Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water"). That's where "Live in Montreux" was recorded, a four-track LP, one of which has been cut in two parts on the two sides of the album.Music, as specified in t…
Voci
2008 re-release. Finally available in vinyl edition, the debut album of acclaimed keyboarder Luciano Basso, originally from 1976. This is a highly appreciated instrumental effort, being cited by The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music as one of the best-ever examples of classically-influenced progressive rock, comparing it to the work of such renowned bands as Focus, Clearlight and even Pink Floyd. Voci is one of the few (and probably the best) Italian records dealing with electronics, re…
Il Miele Dei Pianeti Le Isole Le Api
After a series of albums that were quite similar in their general style, one can sense something is afoot with this one. This would be a transitional album, however it would be the next one where Claudio Rocchi really started to throw a 'U-turn' at his fans, to use his own words. Here Rocchi, helped by members of the band Aktuala, would begin to pull the mystical, improvisational drone-folk back from the edges of space and reassert a more deliberate song structure here and there. We still have t…