Rediscovered from the labyrinthine archives of Canopo’s library label, Sound stands as a vivid testament to the restless brilliance of Paolo Ferrara. Released in 1974, the album works as a kind of sonic alchemy: rare groove, frenzied rhythm, bossa-touched themes, and acid funk stompers shimmer through every cut, carrying the unmistakable electric charge of Italy’s cinematic landscape. Ferrara’s compositional pulse lands somewhere between dance floor urgency and feverish studio experimentation, fusing the tactile with the visionary.

Each track unfurls its own miniature universe. There’s a percussive heft underpinning bossa motifs and psychedelic flourishes, all rendered with orchestral breadth and a daring sense of play. As the album moves, listeners encounter not mere genre exercises but living, breathing sound worlds. Ferrara’s arrangements surge with vitality - strings arch and fall, jazz-informed rhythm sections skitter and shift, and the occasional run of sly modal harmony offers just the right splash of color. It’s the kind of record that predicts library music’s later mythos, refusing the background and insisting on the foreground with each groove.

Cinematic to its marrow, Sound lays bare the creative excesses of 1970s Italian soundtrack culture without irony or apology. Ferrara makes no secret of his affection for funk and film, leveraging each as both medium and message. Yet the album never succumbs to the kitschy excesses that dog some library releases. Instead, there’s an exquisite tension in the way Ferrara welds together his influences: acid-fried jazz beside lush symphonic gestures, pulsing rhythm shockwaves cresting into psychedelic abstraction.

Long overshadowed by the big names of Italian cine-jazz, Sound has finally reemerged, newly remastered and impossibly fresh. In our digital age of instantaneous consumption, Ferrara’s work urges listeners to linger, to mine the corners where chaos and order meet. Sound isn’t nostalgia; it’s resurrection. This is the pulse of a singular mind unafraid to animate the ghost of an era with its own shivering vitality. As the rare grooves, bossa swings, and funk currents collide, Paolo Ferrara’s Sound commands attention – not for what it quotes, but for what it invents.