From: borella@cs.ucdavis.edu (Mike Borella)
Newsgroups: alt.music.progressive
Subject: Italian article: part I
Date: 12 Oct 1992 14:46:57 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


This is the first of a three part article on the Italian progressive
music of the 70's on up.  It was written about a year ago by a friend of mine.

-Mike Borella

-------------------------

                 The Italian Scene.... Part One

     As far as progressive music goes, my personal favorite is
definitely the Italian scene of the 70's.  Probably at no other
time in history was there such an outflow of incredibly innovative
music than in 1970's Italy.  The Italians were in large, huge fans
of progressive music - in fact, Genesis were a warmly welcomed
crowd favorite.  Although many English bands were popular in Italy
in the early seventies, none were bigger than Van Der Graaf
Generator, who were nearly mobbed during their first tour of the
country.  Although misfortune befell them in the mid seventies,
(for more information, see the VDGG interview with David Jackson in
Ptolemaic Terrascope's last two issues - write me for more info, I
believe I gave the address a couple of articles ago.) Van Der Graaf
were huge crowd pleasers eventually playing to a crowd in Rome of
about 40,000 fans!  Its hard to believe that a band of the talent
of VDGG were as accessible to that many people.
     
     Anyway, this will be the first of a multi-part article on the
Italian progressive scene, in order to introduce you to a type of
progressive music that is hardly classifiable and rarely too
similar to any of the English bands that influenced them.  I shall
try and start with the common ones and get more obscure.  For other
information on the scene consult Alan Freeman's magnificent article
in Audion #15, (I believe there are back issues available from
Wayside) this article helped immensely in turning me on to the many
one-shot wonders that were prevalent in Italy in the seventies.  As
for finding them, Syn-phonic has an immense backlog of most of
these, and Wayside also carries many of the newer reissues.
     
     The Italian CD reissue surge is an incredible phenomena.
Before it began you would have had to pay huge amounts of money for
the LPs - much more than what you can pay ($18-$23) for the CDs. 
The quality of sound is often startling, all of them being
remastered for CD with a golden touch - none of them I would
classify under 'Good Sound.'  And of Course, The Music is all
rather amazing...
     
     For those of you not familiar with bands that sing in non-
English languages, you may find most of these bands a little hard
to swallow at first.  If you are new to progressive music, I would
recommend that you start with most of the bands that are more
commonly discussed on this net.  Keep in mind that most of this
music is an acquired taste (like good beer), but the more you
listen to it the better it gets.  If you're uncertain about any of
this music, be sure to listen to it before you run out and drop
$18+ on a CD.  Another note, my comparisons to more familiar bands
are only meant to be a pointer to those only familiar with the more
common bands and are not to label the bands as "Genesis" copies or
the like. Onward....
     
     Most of you should be familiar with Premiata Forneria Marconi
(PFM) through the Manticore releases "Photos of Ghosts"(1973) and
"The World Became The World."(1975).  These, their third and fifth
releases chronologically, are rather inferior remakes, in my
opinion, of their second and fourth LPs, "Per Un Amico"(1972) and
"L'Isola Di Niente"(1974).  To make them more 'accessible' to a
'larger audience', (something that ruins progressive music to no
end) the Italian vocals on Nos. 2 and 4 were replaced with rather
'unnatural' sounding English vocals on the Manticore releases, thus
taking away some of the magic inherent in the Italian releases.  In
summary, "Per Un Amico" and "L'Isola Di Niente" as well as their
first, "Storia Di Un Minuto"(1972) are all virtual classics of
progressive music, obviously influenced by early King Crimson and
Genesis yet sounding nothing like them.  The instrumentation is
superb with fluid guitar, highly original synthesizer sounds (at a
time when innovation was at its prime), beautiful violin and flute,
and ethereal vocals that are so important to the music, that
replacing them with English vocals becomes a detriment.  Subsequent
albums saw a change in style (mainly for the worse), although "Live
In The USA" aka "Cook", and "Chocolate Kings" are worth a listen. 
My recommendations are for "Per Un Amico" and "L'Isola Di Niente."
    
    Some may also be familiar with Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso (later
Banco) who also released two albums on Manticore, the self-titled
"Banco"(1975) and "As In A Last Supper"(1976).  Again the English
vocals don't work as well here, the former being English versions
of songs from their first three albums "Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso"
(1972), "Darwin!"(1972) and "Io Sono Nato Libero"(1973)   The
latter is an English version of their fourth "Come In Un'Ultima
Cena" (1975).  Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso's first three are
definitely classics, with a strong baroque feel, dual keyboards,
extremely complicated arrangements, and a strong vocal presence
(you may like him or you may not.)  They definitely take a little
getting used to, although your patience will definitely reveal
three beautifully crafted masterpieces.  "Garafano Rosso" (1974)
and "...Di Terra" are mid period albums, almost all instrumental
that delve into a more neo-classical realm and are best left for
the more explorative.  Later albums including "Canto Di Primavera"
and the live "Capolinea" are rather poor, the latter including some
horrible horn parts.  I'd stick with the first three for starters.
     
     For Emerson, Lake, and Palmer fans, who like the three man
classical-rock format style will undoubtedly love Le Orme, who's
Nice, ELP, Trace, and Ekseption similarities are evident.
Although similar, in my opinion Le Orme were the best of the genre
who mixed the pompous classical rock of the Nice with the elegance
and sophistication of the Italians.  Although their first two
albums are rare 60's beat-music ones - and are unavailable as
reissues as of yet, Le Orme's best albums starting with "Collage"
are the ones that followed, all featuring incredible statements for
the three-man band format and are highly recommended to any lover
of progressive music.  Also great are their 4th through 6th
including the classics "Uomo Di Pezza", "Felona E Serona" (who's
English version had lyrics by Peter Hammill), and their opus
"Contrappunti."  Others are supposedly slightly inferior yet are
all worthy of exploration.  I'll list the rest in my last Italian
article in which I will try to list a complete discography of
bands.
     
     Next up are the progressive fusion band Osanna.  What I mean
by fusion in this sense is the fusion of many different styles of
music in which this fantastic band move from genre to genre with
ease.  Their first three are masterpieces in their own right.  The
superb "L'Uomo" in which heavy rock and spacey jazz are only a few
of the styles included, the soundtrack "Milano Calibro 9" and their
best "Palepoli" which is so bizarre and complex, beginners may be
too dazzled by the array of styles presented.  "Palepoli" has just
been released on CD as has fourth (which I haven't heard)
"Landscape of Life."  Progressive (as opposed to popular) opinion
warns me to stay away from "Suddance" although I haven't heard this
either.

     Related to Osanna are the numerous offshoots including Uno and
Cervello which I will get to later on in subsequent parts, the
former not having been reissued yet.  One I have heard is Citta
Frontale's magnificent "El Tor" which is vocal progressive music at
its best in which I cannot draw comparisons because of its
uniqueness.  The musicianship is superb and the only band that may
have anything in common is, well, Osanna!

     Probably one of the most famous in progressive circles, Il
Balleto Di Bronzo has three albums out, one of them posthumous. 
Their first "Sirio 2222", a rather average album of Hendrix-esque
psychedelic rock may be of no interest to progressive fans yet
their second, the widely regarded as superb "Ys" is a no miss.  As
reviewed before briefly I just want to elaborate that if you like
jams that climax in incredible splendor and keyboards that compare
to some of Wakeman or Stewart's best works, I think you may like
this one.  Although incredibly haunting, if you like dark works
don't miss this one.  I offer these quotes in support:  Audion 
(speaking of the Italian band, Semiramis) "... in the genre only
one album I can think of surpasses it - Il Balletto di Bronzo's
'Ys'", Syn-Phonic of Ys "may be the very best ever and who's to
argue" and Wayside (speaking of Sirio 2222) "...who would next
record the classic Ys."  If these leading lights of prog music ever
influence your music buying tastes, than you can probably see where
I'm coming from....

Until next time, 
Mike McLatchey