On Roman Ruins Alvin Curran conducts the Iato Orchestra, a thirty-piece ensemble drawn from the improvising scene he has belonged to since he settled in Rome in the mid-1960s. Curran co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva there in 1966 with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum.

The line-up is unusually wide. There is a voice, Eleonora Bruni, five saxophones and clarinets, two trumpets and four trombones, viola, cello and harp, mandolin and accordion, the lap steel guitar of Mike Cooper and the electric guitar of Elio Martusciello, vibraphone, three basses and two drummers, among them Fabrizio Spera. Four musicians play electronics.

Full line-up: Alvin Curran (direction), Eleonora Bruni (voice), Biagio Orlandi (soprano sax), Errico De Fabritiis (alto and tenor sax), Alipio Carvalho Neto (tenor sax), Noel Taylor (clarinet), Alberto Popolla (bass clarinet), Ersilia Prosperi and Stefano Di Cicco (trumpet), Sebi Tramontana, Davide Piersanti, Enrica Vatteroni and Mario Camporeale (trombone), Tiziano Carone (viola), Luca Tilli (cello), Aurora Barbatelli (harp), Alexander “Zar” Caric (mandolin, voice), Luca Venitucci (accordion), Mike Cooper (lap steel guitar), Elio Martusciello (electric guitar), Antonia Gozzi, Simone Pappalardo, Franz Rosati and Riccardo Labarbera (electronics), Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone), Roberto Bellatalla and Gianfranco Tedeschi (double bass), Stefano Acunzo (electric bass), Fabrizio Spera and Cristiano De Fabritiis (drums).

CD in digipak on WE INSIST! Records. Cover photo by Alessandro Carpentieri.