Over the last couple of decades, the wildly singular and ambitious contexts of Italian experimental and underground music from the 1970s and 80s - having lately remained unknown beyond the country's borders - have emerged into global consciousness of adventurous listeners as some of the most creative outpourings to have occurred anywhere on the globe during that period. For the most part, the attention has centered around artists associated with explicit avant-gardism, Minimalism, and prog. In reality, there was so much more, a truth illuminated by “...In The Box”, Spittle Records’ incredible 2016 expansive, triple LP survey of Confusional Quartet, one of the most original and unique bands that Italy has ever produced. Comprising nearly all of their output from 1980 and 1981 - their 1980 self-titled LP, a 12” repress of their 1981 self-titled 10" EP, and their 1981 triple-7" flexi disc “Documentario”, along with previously unreleased bonus tracks - it remains one of the great, unclassifiable bodies of recording made in its era.

Formed in Bologna during 1978, Confusional Quartet, nearly half a century on, remains one of the most radical and unclassifiable projects to have ever emerged from Italy, bridging the wilder reaches of prog with a mixture of instrumental avant-gardism and experimentalism, threaded by aspects of early electronica, post-punk, and no wave. Approaching a radically democratic approach to influences and references, over the course of a single full-length, a mini album, and a handful of singles, released between 1980 and 1981, they sculpted a music from countless cultural and music touchstones from their country, producing a sound that was entirely of its time and place, while sounding like nothing else.

One of the hallmarks of Confusional Quartet - the quartet of Lucio Ardito on bass, Gianni Cuoghi on drums, Enrico Serotti on guitar, and Marco Bertoni on keyboards - all of whom were still in their teens when they began, was their embracing of an entirely instrumental music - no vocals, and thus stripped of any explicit social comment - which set them apart from most of the creative bubbling that flowered from the advent of punk. With each member a clear, towering talent in their own right, the project effortlessly drew upon prog and jazz, while threading their music with a striking irreverence taken from the underground, sculpting a wild and wonderful middle ground between bands like Devo, DNA, The Contortions, and Magma, while nodding toward the joyous mayhem of 50s and 60s rock & roll and a healthy and playful dose of kitsch.

Moving through almost their entire recorded output from the early 80s, “...In The Box” - Spittle’s incredible triple LP survey of Confusional Quartet - emerges as a strange, multifaceted journey through the wondrous possibilities of rock & roll, drawing together driving rhythms and heavy riffs with wonky but virtuosic movements, unexpected interventions of sound collage, the deepest grooves of jazz, hints toward Italy’s incredible history of library and soundtrack music, and peppered with occasional nods toward early electronica, post-punk, and no wave, culminating as one of the most singular bodies of recording that ever was.

Truly visionary and near indefinable in both its discrete moments and totality - entirely sidestepping genre and idiom - Confusional Quartet’s “...In The Box” remains one of the most striking releases of the last ten years or more, bringing this astounding musical project by a handful of Bolognese teens, into the wider consciousness for the first time.