Bruno Castiglia E I Bisonti
Occhi Di Sole b/w Crudele

Analyzing the socio-economic context of Italy in the '60s, it seems difficult to believe that our music market was one of the largest in the world. Singles (known as 45s) had print runs (and sales) that often exceeded one million copies, with exceptional cases like "La Bambola" by Patty Pravo selling over 8 million copies. This drove a myriad of medium and minor groups, whose chances of recording their own material multiplied dramatically, to the extent that there exists a series of bands that released a couple of singles and then quickly returned to oblivion, from where they had emerged.
Among them, I Bisonti of Bruno Castiglia recorded their first single "Con Le Mie Lacrime" in 1967, a cover of the song "As Tears Go By" by the Rolling Stones, which Jagger and Richards' band had released in Italian just a year earlier. Buoyed by this success, they returned to the studio, and in the spring of 1968, they released this second 45 RPM for the small label City. The A-side song, "Occhi Di Sole", is an exercise in Italian melodic beat-pop, with slightly harder sounds than usual, which does not bring the group the hoped-for fame and does not remotely express Castiglia's true creative vein; the vinyl label reads "Shake lento di Mucci - Friggero – Gatti", and on a site dedicated to Italian beat, it is summarily dismissed as "A song in the 'rotonda sul mare' style."
On the B-side, however, we find the surprising "Crudele", in my opinion, one of the greatest psych-garage tracks ever heard on the face of the planet... where the Bisonti grind all the British power-blues (with Stones and Who leading the way) to then mix it with the sticky sounds of the UK-made psychedelia and assault it with savage American-garage rampages, that owe nothing to the Texan scene (13th Floor Elevator) or the northwest scene (The Sonics).

See for yourself.