Among our favourite reissue labels working today, the venerable Dialogo returns in 2024 with a deep dive into the glorious shadows of Italian library music with the first ever vinyl reissue of Gianni Marchetti’s 1978 LP “Solstitium”, among the rarest and most mysterious artefacts of the field. An immersive, joyous listen, marked by a rare sense of artistry - so imagistic that it almost becomes a film unto itself - this absolute stunner, fully remastered and issued in a replica vinyl edition, launches Dialogo’s broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series, and leaves us anxiously awaiting what comes next.

Italy is a treasure trove of obscure and archival sounds. For decades, the products of its free-wheeling sonic cultures - spanning numerous musical genres - remained sinfully overlooked, before being uncovered by devoted diggers and illuminated by numerous reissue initiatives. Recently, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, has led the charge into the shadows of Italy’s past, releasing a steady stream of holy grails, from the astounding Ennio Morricone & Bruno Nicolai Dimensioni Sonore box set, issued in 2020, and a dedicated initiative to the work of Piero Umiliani, to a slew of coveted albums from the legendary Cramps catalog, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Resting within the vast expanse of visionary albums produced in Italy during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, is the territory loosely categorised as Library music; recordings that were commissioned and owned by record labels, to be licensed for use within television programs, radio, and film, as stock. While Library music was produced in numerous countries during this period, nowhere was it more unique and groundbreaking than in Italy. Many of the country’s most noteworthy composers - Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Egisto Macchi, Bruno Nicolai, Sandro Brugnolini, etc. - used the context as an aggregator of radical experimentation and creative freedom, as well as a means to deliver radical forward-thinking music to broad audiences. Long coveted by diggers, samplers, and beat makers, these albums collectively represent one of the great treasure troves of 20th century music: vast in its breadth and endlessly adventurous and unpredictable in realisations of creative ambition.

Library music is notoriously mysterious. Its creators often worked in the shadows, with their music becoming far more familiar than the names of those who created it. Among these was the Italian composer and songwriter, Gianni Marchetti (1933-2012), about whom very little biographical information is known, despite his having created roughly forty soundtrack and library music releases over the course of his career. Celebrated for his collaborations with Piero Ciampi, Mogol, Bobby Solo, and others, it was during the 1970s, composing for RCA’s newly founded, and now legendary, “Original Cast” series - an arm of the label solely dedicated to creating top notch soundtracks and library music - that Marchetti truly came into his own. Among the most celebrated of these releases is his 1978 LP “Solstitium”, an album which, like its creator, is shrouded in mystery.

Comprising eight gloriously composed pieces, each unlocking ethereal, imagistic glimpses of Italy in unexpected ways - like jumping in a car cruising through the country’s many landscapes and temperamental shades - Marchetti covers a remarkable amount of ground over the duration of “Solstitium”, drawing upon driving rhythms and heavy grooves, lush string arrangements, intoxicating jazz lines, and piano meandering, while retaining a clear sense of cohesion throughout. Driven by compositional rigour and a sprawling sonic palette, it’s an album glorious in its discrete moments, as much as its whole, as though it’s a soundtrack from a film that has yet to be made, and for which an image would inevitably defer to the power of the sounds, rather than the other way around.

While long retaining holy grail status amongst deep diggers of Italian Library music and soundtracks, given its scarcity and the mystery that surrounds both the album and its composer, this first ever reissue of Gianni Marchetti’s 1978 LP, “Solstitium”, quickly reveals one of the great, unheralded masterpieces of Italian Library music. Once again, Dialogo has done the world a great service, reintroducing a rare sense of artistry to the world.