Italian Prog

are you italian? do you speak it? does this help in enjoying his less experimental works?

i hear he still sells out arenas in italy?

I don't speak Italian - I can just barely make out things at the best of times - I am thinking of the musical writing, and so don't know what to make of Mr. Battiato's lyrics. It wouldn't be bad to know, though! I think it's great if he does sell out arenas in Italy.

I can see what you mean about the PFM album - I've heard people comment on their lack of a really commanding lead vocalist. I've never found that a problem, and do find them quite hooky. I hear you about the pressing, though. The Italian version isn't that expensive in a remastered edition that I think sounds quite good (it's lacking one song ("Old Rain") that was only on "Photos of Ghosts" and maybe as a b-side somewhere, though I may be wrong in thinking so) . "River of Life" and "Mr. 9 till 5" were my favourite songs from "Photos of Ghosts". "Chocolate Kings" is a pretty rocking, catchy PFM record - you might like that one better. Not everyone likes Bernardo Lanzetti's singing, it seems, but it does stand out. I think "Come ti va..." is pretty hooky, too, but it's later and straighter rock than the older albums, so some progressive fans might not like it that much.

repeat

all Area and solo Demetri Stratos solo albums

Amen.

I'm not really interested in what Battiato is doing now (and yes, he's still selling out arenas) but I quite like his early 80's synth pop albums. Its mostly light euro-pop, not really interesting music-wise, but the lyrics are a completely different matter: really clever, ironic, detached observations on modern life and political frenzies. He was (and still is) a very different kind of Italian artist: while most of our singers were devoted to some kind of old style marxism or simply were preparing themselves to the oncoming revolution, Battiato was much more layered and complex: like mixing together Borges, Gurdjeff, Thomas Mann and Flash Gordon. Intellectual but with a funny twist - no academic pedantry here.
He was interested in middle age mysticism and sufism (many accused him of being a "reactionary"), reacted against dehumanized modern society and at the same time despised any violently revolutionary dream (in Italy there was a strong terrorist movement) - always with a funny, slightly ironic and provocative touch.
He consciously chose pop music as a way to express himself in a more biting way, and again he was right: "La voce del padrone" was the first Italian lp to sell more than 1 million copies.

But you have to know Italian language to enjoy it properly... :-)

I wonder how differently I would think of different artists and groups if I could understand the texts more closely - most of the Canadian progressive groups I like are francophone*, so this holds true even for music from my own country (at least I can roughly translate French, but all nuance is lost on me).

The only RDM album I have is "Contamination" - I wasn't completely sold on it, but I keep meaning to give it another chance. I think it had struck me as somewhat uneven / lumpy between the "classical" and "pop" parts, but it's not like it was "Concerto for Group and Orchestra" or anything. I'd bought it because of Luis Bacalov's arrangements. What is "io Come io" like?

area, osanna, banco - these are good places to start?

but what i wanted to say! is that il balletto di bronzo's "ys" is great, but "sirio 2222" is greater! and it's not really prog at all so i don't even know why i'm discussing it here!

http://static.metal-archives.com/images/2/3/2/2/23229.jpg

that's a personal favorite. the one after it (living mask) is even more bizarre. like the 80s legendary pink dots doing jacula covers.

It's like these guys only sing in Italian.

Italy's Semiramis gave the world the scariest ablum cover:

http://www.italianprog.com/pictures/semiramis1.jpg

ho ho ho

So is Italian prog ever going to undergo a major hipster revival? Or did it already and I just wasn't paying attention?

...because it would be awesome to have some readily-available deluxe remasters of some of this stuff.

i dunno about deluxe, but itaprog stuff tends to stay available. syn-phonic has a ton of it.

Oh, I have a lot of this stuff, but it would just be awesome to have shinier versions and more coverage of it in general. Like, if there were an Italoprog equivalent of Kraut/Japrocksampler.

(Things seem to already be sort of like that in Japan -- I went pretty prog-crazy during my vacation there. Even an average-sized Tower Records would have a decent selection of albums by Area, Goblin, PFM, etc. as well as pretty much all other europrog. And the prog branch of Disk Union in Tokyo -- holy shit. MAGMA NECKTIES! But I digress.)

Saw on Forcedexposure that early demoes for Ys by Baletto di Bronzo had just been released on cd and lp.

Been trying to find remasters of Area material since there were suddenly reviews in Record Collector of the lps sometime last year. Still not come across any & the previous Cramps cds are very quiet and probably late 80s judging by the sound.

Noticed there was an encyclopaedia type book of Italian prog being advertised here http://www.italianprog.com/welcome.htm
but unfortunately the link to btf.it seems to be dead. shame that was a really good cheapish source for Italian prog with reasonable p+p

So is Italian prog ever going to undergo a major hipster revival?

This still needs to happen.
I've been picking up a lot of Italian 70s stuff in the last couple of years, some of the "one shot" bands are incredible, especially Maxophone and Semiramis.

Been living in Rome the last half year, and trying to buy almost only Italian music. Franco Battiato's first few albums (especially 'Fetus') have been absolute favorites for many years, and I really liked Balletto di Bronzo and Goblin, but generally I'm more familiar with weird soundtrack/sound library/Morricone stuff and a little Italo Disco, and random acts like Krisma. I knew Le Orme by one album, so took a chance on an 11-CD set of their albums, and I think they remain the best of what I've tested of the 60s/70s scene. Especially surprised by how great the 1979 album 'Florian' is--reminds me a lot of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, always a good thing in my book. Also a "supergroup" (I'm told) called Carnascialia is pretty cool in a similar vein of mining antiquarian instrumentation toward modern ends.

Unfortunately just couldn't get into Area--actually exchanged the couple of albums I picked up. Weirdly, I do like the Demetrio Stratos album 'Cantare le Voce,' which is incredibly weird vocal warbling. I like some Fabrizio De Andre, Claudio Lolli, some New Trolls, Ibis, Osanna, Alan Sorrenti, Renato Zero, Jumbo, Sensations Fix, Latte e Miele. But I hate to say it--nothing has just blown me away. A lot of it makes even fairly middling Krautrock seem really strong, or French rock--maybe I'm just looking in the wrong directions. I think to some degree its the vocal/melodic traditions that I just don't dig--a lot of guys who really, really can't sing belting it out with tuneless conviction and a sort of emotional drama that isn't my style. I'm assuming the lyrics are awful, but fortunately I don't speak Italian so I'm spared drama on that front.

The one thing that remains unbelievable to me is that the proto-Gruppo d'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza group The Feed Back hasn't been reissued. That album is one of the very best things Mutant Sounds has ever shared.

I've got a week left in the country--can anybody point me to what I'm missing? Is there anyone even close to Franco Battiato out there to be found?

Wish Julian Cope would do an Italian book. Could do with something like that, would like something that gave a set of atmospheric reviews of material.

I may have a semi definitive list of essential stuff somewhere. I got somebody to give me one when i was looking into the scene in the middle of the last decade.

yeah, found this and the date I had for it was 2004. Btf.it might be about the best place to be buying things from. think prices are reasonably cheap as was p+p. think there's a link to a website which is the source of an encyclopedia type book on the scene there too
http://www.italianprog.com/index.htm
there's also this one http://www.italianprogrock.com/artists.php

list is this
Alphataurus - Same
Apoteosi - Same
Atlantide - Frencesco Ti Ricordi
Bambibanda E Melodie - Same
Blocco Mentale - Poa
Califfi - Fiore Di Metallo
Campo Di Marte - Same
Citta Frontale - El Tor
Circus 2000 - Same and An Escape From A Box
Dalton - Riflessioni-Idea I'nfinito
Duello Madre - Same
Edgar Allan Poe - Generazioni (Storia Di Sempre)
Electric Frankenstein - What Me Worry?
Flea - Topi O Uomini
Formula 3 - All Albums
Garybaldi - Nuda and Astrolabio
I Giganti - Terra In Bocca
Locanda Delle Fate - Forse Le Lucciole Si Amano Piu
Maxophone - Same
Murple - I Sono Murple
Museo Rosenbach - Zarathustra
Nouva Idea - All Albums
Osage Tribe - Arrow Head
Osanna - L'Oumo and Palepoli
Il Paese Di Balocchi - Same
Panna Freda - Uno
Planetarium - Infinity
Quella Vecchia Locanda - Same (stay of their 2nd)
Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno - Per...Un Mondo Di Cristallo
I Raminghi - Il Lungo Cammino Dei Raminghi
Ricordi D'infanzia - Io Uomo
Il Rovescio Della Medaglia - All Albums
Samadhi - Same
Semiramis - Dedicato A Frazz
I Teoremi - Same
The Trip - All Albums
L'Uovo Di Colombo - Same

That's about sums it up...

Stevo

who are you excited to see at FARFEST this year?

When is somebody going to remaster the Area stuff? Been waiting for somebody to do so since getting the Caution Radiation Area in the old Cramps version about 10 years ago.
Just had a track come on my walkman way too quiet and had me thinking I was probably missing a lot of the details. & a couple of years back a couple of review sections had several titles mentioned, think it was Record Collector and possibly Shindig, but I couldn't find any mention of an actual release & I did ask on nearly every forum that might cover them to no answer.

Was there an Akarma box set on them some years ago & if so what was the sound on that like?

this sensations fix reissue is the bomb!

Anyone heard if the actual albums (Sensations Fix) are getting reissued? I never managed to track down the Italian Prog box sets that contain them, when I was living in Italy, and they're crazy expensive now elsewhere. Definitely one of the very best Italian Prog bands--but unfortunately to large degree because they don't sound much like Italian Prog.

Probably find somebody wanting to if this compi, which I need to pick up, is successful. I'm not sure if I've heard of anybody doing much Italian prog recently. Would check either ESoteric or Sunbeam, probably Repertoire too.

it isn't even very prog, let alone italian prog ... but it is beautiful

Look at these awesome guys miming in a quarry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAWQVkLyv3A

I finally got the Italianprog book by Augusto Croce for Xmas. NOT given it a very thorough look yet. ONe drawback is that they don't give bandname translations which would be very useful.
BUt seems to be pretty good and allows me to know more about a musical sub genre taht I've been interested in for a couple of decades.
I think I was consciously looking for something exploring what could be done with music without having the pretentious doggerel I was thinking was typical of stuff sung in English, which may not be true anyway. & other European scenes than the German one. I think I picked up on some French stuff at the same time and possibly some Scandinavian though not sure if taht does fit in there on the timeline have certainly picked up some since.
Would really love a copy of taht Scandinavian progressive rock book that was around 20 years ago. Haven't looked into that in years so not sure if it got reprinted, I know I had missed it by a short period back then.

Anyway I picked up a bunch of titlles from teh scene which were really great.
Balletto di Bronzo
Semiramis
Cervello
Biglietto Per L'Inferno
Metamorfosi
Banco Di muttuo Succorso
Osanna
PFM's 1st 2
and a few others.

NIce stuff

Wasn't aware there were so many books about these regions.

Scandinavian one was Encyclopaedia of Swedish progressive rock which doesn't seem to have been reprinted since.
Shame wish I'd realised it was going oop at the time.
Now still trying to work out what I need from Italy. There's a number of lps on Spotify which gives a bit of a pointer.
& the btf.it site though I think that used to be better layer out for working out what was Italian prog of the era. Now seems to have lost categories being grouped together.

Sometimes I think that the original lineup of Jacula only made one album is one of the saddest "what could have been" things ever

Plenty of reviews here! Negotiate with caution, many reviewers will be coming at it from oblique angles.
http://www.progarchives.com/subgenre.asp?style=28

I first heard this music when the public library was getting rid of some of their LP collection for a quarter each. Evidently Toronto had a certain audience for this genre, PFM even recorded their live album here.
The reason why this genre never got "hipster" attention is that, unlike the best German rock of the same period, it was mostly heavily indebted to the Anglo-American prog and fusion bands. Unlike with Can and Faust, say, I find it hard to imagine a PFM or Banco fan who doesn't at least appreciate Yes, Genesis and VDGG. (My idea of a musical hipster is maybe indebted to the 1995 Spin Alternative Music Guide, where both of those German acts are written up, but there are frequent put-downs of all sorts of "prog" in those and other entries.)

I don't see any mention of Picchio dal Pozzo in this thread so I gotta shout them out. They were probably the most Canterburyish Italian prog band; think the best aspects of Hatfield and the North, Henry Cow, Gong, and Zappa all mixed up in a blender. Would recommend their 1976 self-titled and 1980's Abbiamo Tutti I Suoi Problemi if you're remotely into any of those artists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU0B-K-Me1Q

listening to pierrot lunaire's gudrun for the first time in my life -- i only heard of it like an hour ago -- and imagining how the world would be changed if the paul morley if 1978-79 had hyper-valorised PL in place of faust

This album is tite!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCVQtLAQbT8

Banco's self-titled English-language album appears to have been re-released on streaming under the title Blue Anthems, but I literally could not find any reason online why the title had been changed, or announcement of a reissue.

xp that Andrea Tich is hella tite, thanks!