analoguesound

If we assume that the review contains no comparison between the aforementioned work and other groups that absolutely cannot withstand the comparison, then I could conclude that the reviewer has truly grasped the value of the record in question. In my opinion, the comparison does not hold not only with the national bands you mentioned, namely Quella Vecchia Locanda (a band with good potential but too influenced by foreign styles) and Museo Rosenbach (a good, well-crafted work that ultimately becomes too pompous), but also with the "great British pioneers." I take full responsibility for everything I am saying; surely for you the scandal will be unbearable, but I believe that neither the Tulls, nor the Genesis, nor the KC could boast such verve, depth, or emotional sensitivity to conceive an album like "Il Paese Dei Balocchi." This is not a progressive rock album, guys, nor can it even be labeled as symphonic. It would be a serious mistake that only a neophyte of the genre with unclear ideas (many of us start with PFM, Banco, and Le Orme and end up considering them as the pinnacle when they actually correspond to the bottom, without realizing that the true gold of Italian progressive is to be sought elsewhere). "Il Paese Dei Balocchi" is an unrestrained flow of emotions and sound perceptions that no other album in the world, and I emphasize NO other album, can offer you. An album pervaded by authentic, absolutely original atmospheres, the result of extremely hard and highly sought-after work: consider that, to achieve the ideal ambiance, the band took advantage of the church of Sant'Euclide in Rome, located above the recording studio, and a string section that serves as a true double. A difficult concept to comprehend, but I am sure that by listening to the album you will understand what I mean. It is not an album for those who believe that making progressive music merely involves terrifying excursions in technique and instrumental skill; on the contrary, the essential guitar parts are never in the foreground but are absolutely necessary for the masterpiece. It’s largely an instrumental album, with very brief and barely hinted vocals, yet filled with a longing, an inner fragility, and unparalleled beauty. The principal instrument of the album is a superb Hammond C3, played in a truly innovative and original way, although there are also some rather unusual instruments, precious to the narration of the events (oboe and positive organ). Gentlemen, this is a great album. In fact, this is The Album. Preferring the overhyped groups over a band like this means unquestionably not having correctly framed the essence not just of progressive music, but of music in general.

[continua] to the final stage of the group. After dissolving the Paese Dei Balocchi, he became part of the Rovescio Della Medaglia. Let's just say that the Paese dei Balocchi album is an innate wonder; personally, I consider it the most beautiful album I have ever listened to, for its completeness, class, grit, suggestiveness, and the whirlwind of emotions it can provoke when listening to it, which is mistakenly classified among symphonic prog albums, and was released the year before "Contaminazione". In reality, it is a much more intimate and distinctive musical journey to be just a banal symphonic prog album. Listening to "Contaminazione" brings a sense of familiarity with the Paese Dei Balocchi. But who knows why?
Paloz claims that "La grande fuga" is the summary as well as the perfect conclusion to this misadventure of an album that "Contaminazione" is. In reality, Paloz hasn't listened to the album of the Paese, because if he had, he would certainly have realized that MANY PARTS of Contaminazione have been drawn from there! Let's take the second track of the Paese album; there is a very interesting Hammond organ section that has been shamelessly plagiarized by Franco Di Sabbatino in Contaminazione, specifically in "La Grande Fuga". The difference is that Il Paese Dei Balocchi opts for very original creative solutions, like natural reverbs, recordings made in a church to obtain a truly suggestive atmosphere, and the layering of the same Hammond organ part (C3 model to be precise) six times in a row with different settings, for a truly stunning effect. Franco Di Sabbatino, in that great pile of garbage that is "La Grande Fuga", limits himself, besides copying Bach, to plagiarizing the organ part by performing it on the minimoog, resulting in a COLOSSAL TACKINESS. A true disgrace. In pure new prog style. How to trivialize a masterpiece. Conclusion for enthusiasts of music in general and progressive music: there is indeed so much good music to listen to, don’t waste your time on this rubbish. Forget about Contaminazione. Listen to something else. Or listen to the album of the Paese Dei Balocchi; it will undoubtedly be a much more rewarding experience.

Paloz, I'm sorry if I take the liberty to desecrate this work that you believe is the pinnacle of progressive aestheticism. I find it, at best, a useless record. Il Rovescio released an incredible album in '71, La Bibbia, a hard rock reinterpretation of the Old Testament, from creation to the flood. An album recorded in just two hours with a stratospheric result and massive power. The following year, Il Rovescio locked themselves in the studio and refined their techniques. They produced "Io Come Io," a more effective but less spontaneous album than the previous one, considering that the first was recorded live and this is a studio work. A somewhat rough studio, but nonetheless an impactful album. Of great impact. Then we find ourselves in 1973, when Il Rovescio hires a COWARDLY keyboardist in my opinion, named Franco Di Sabbatino, and they end up with instruments and equipment up to their necks. I quote the cover notes of the album in question: "Their instrumentation is among the most interesting in Europe. The 6000-watt Mack voice system is quadrophonic and equivalent to 36-track amplifiers. The console is in fact a portable recording studio with filters, compressors, etc. The guitar, drums, and keyboards have 900-watt amplifiers. The keyboards consist of a vertical Hammond B organ, a harmonium, an Eminent for reproducing violins, two VCS synthesizers, a Harp 200 [probably an ARP], and two mini Moog synthesizers. The lighting system is also important. There are 50 lamps producing colors and special effects. On a special screen behind the band, slides and films are projected to create abstract musical effects." The band starts collaborating with the Argentine composer Luis Enriquez Bacalov, known as the notorious catastrophe of Italian progressive music. This composer already has two failures behind him: the Concerto Grosso No. 1 by New Trolls, a colossal flop, and Preludio Tema Variazioni e Canzona, which would be the ugliest album by Osanna, so ugly that even they struggle to consider it their own work. All of this material later becomes useful for the soundtrack of the film Milano Calibro 9, featuring Gastone Moschin, Barbara Bouchet, and Mario Adorf, a nice 70s crime film. Meanwhile, Bacalov's unstoppable fury is gearing up to prepare the future musical disaster: an album of "symphonic prog" with an impactful band like Il Rovescio Della Medaglia. So let’s be clear, Il Rovescio was truly a great hard prog band; they made spontaneous, raw music that had a great effect. Imagine such a band, polished, refined, all fixed up, making perfect music with an orchestra behind them based on the Well-Tempered Clavier by that sacred monster Johann Sebastian Bach. Imagine the ruin of a hard rock band reduced to making a... symphonic prog album. So, pay attention. When I say "symphonic prog album," I mean TWO BALLS LIKE THIS. You know, one of those pompous albums, filled with unnecessary, boring orchestral sections, with instrumental parts that have nothing original or spontaneous, tired stuff regurgitated by ELP, by Wendy/Walter Carlos, the perpetual and incessant rolling of Bach in his grave throughout the entire album, with banal, pathetic, silly, even stupid lyrics, and forgettable melodic lines? Good, you get an idea of what this album is, or rather this inflated balloon stuffed full of instruments that accumulate over and over again until it makes you nauseous. Do you remember Latte e Miele? Well, a kind of that. And it’s not over yet! Let’s get to the point. Where do you think the keyboardist Franco Di Sabbatino came from? Franco Di Sabbatino, this vile musician, came from a band that perhaps deserves much more attention than is usually given to "Contaminazione." Franco Di Sabbatino was the keyboardist for Il Paese Dei Balocchi in its terminal formation. What’s the result? That various parts of "Contaminazione" vaguely resemble that masterpiece by "Il Paese Dei Balocchi," which is truly an exceptional album in contrast to this one.

notification for "there": poor you.. it hurts, I know, getting too passionate about English prog, you end up closing yourself off in King Crimson and not listening to anything else.. what can I say, though, you have a future as a musicologist.. paloz, 2 for the review. Maybe you kept us on the edge of our seats to not ruin the surprise; for this bold yet clever choice I would have given 3, but you forgot to include the drummer in the lineup ;D The band in question is spectacular, coming from Milan; two of them, if I'm not mistaken, organist Valentino Galbusera and drummer Giampiero Nava, known to friends as Peo, came from the little dance/garage/beat band "I Puritani" (later this group evolved into the Dalton, which Mauro Pagani briefly joined.. I know it has nothing to do with it). They teamed up with guitarist Colledet, who wanted to explore the challenging paths of music and guitar, along with a very good bassist, I must say, an excellent pianist, and a great speaker and poet like that genius Paolo Carelli at the microphone, putting together this lively little formation, spanning from frenetic jazz to moments of pure hypnosis. At times, an obsession in abundance. This album is an acid trip, no doubt about it. After memorizing the entire text (as you have already mentioned, it's a kind of long poem, with flashes of science fiction and mysticism), you can enjoy a very fluid musical structure based on an intertwining of piano and organ that seem to never stop playing, a weaving that in turn connects with a truly free guitar. Strange seems an understatement. Once again, the Italians triumph with spontaneity, grit, and above all originality. Dear "there," if these insignificant Italian groups had enjoyed the same fortunate production and distribution as your beloved KC, the latter would have had to declare themselves defeated due to lack of class, I think, since forgive me if the charisma and depth of Carelli's verses are in no way comparable to the little poems of the visionary pfffft empty chatter pfffft prrrrr of the "poet" Sinfield. Mmm.. anyway, it remains a difficult album. Just to say, we were listening to it with a friend once, casually, it seemed he liked it, then towards the end of the album, in the most unsettling part of the whole work, he stands up and screams "Please take this record off, it's giving me anxiety..". So, a small tip for anyone wanting to get it.. to listen to it you must at least know how to listen to music. I mean listening, not just having it on in the background, let that be clear. You need to be able to put on a record and enjoy it from start to finish, without wrinkling your nose even once during the whole listening. A truly unique album. Soon you will get on a tram.

A masterpiece. The De De Lind are masters. Of course, Vito Paradiso may not have had a great voice, but those who criticize him forget that he was a singer-songwriter. Indeed, Vito Paradiso is charismatic and expressive. As a singer-songwriter should be. Did Battisti and De André have beautiful voices then? Vocal talents, haha, Demetrio Stratos, hats off to him, certainly, but he knew how to use his voice more than having a beautiful one. And excuse me, we talk about beautiful voices and then we bring up Tagliapietra? Nico Di Palo?! GIANNI LEONE?? Hey, have you ever heard Gianni Leone live? He hardly gets it right, guys... The fact is, I believe that if you weren't fixated on these fake aesthetics of voice and great Anglo-Saxon musical technique, but actually listened to the album properly, you would realize that the De De Lind, in addition to having a grit and spontaneity that "the comparison with the Anglo-Saxon" can only dream of from afar, they made quite personal music... sure, the album may not have lyrics—oh pardon, dead chatter like the mystical visions aka mental wankery of Mr. Peter Sinfield—but it has something more original and sophisticated, something aggressive (Fuga e Morte), descriptive (Paura Del Niente), and why not, evocative (Cimitero Di Guerra). Passages of flute evoke rural images, with sudden outbursts, gripping... Note that the lyrics are short rather than verbose and pompous, and never, and I emphasize NEVER trivial, indeed sometimes rather ambiguous. Think of the mysterious figure of Don Angelo the priest, accompanied by "two other black men... he had a lost gaze, he had a trembling voice." The De De Lind could boast the innate ability to wield a devastating musical instrument: silence. Of course, many of you will scoff at this point of mine. But do you really think it's easy to make an album like this? Do you think it’s simple to try to tame silence and subdue it in an album, transforming it into atmospheres that are sometimes cheerful, sometimes dark, sometimes distressing? A musician tells you that making music based on technique and melody is a thousand times easier (see Anglo-Saxon prog). Go ahead and create atmospheres like these, built with disproportionate refinement! This is "Io Non So Da Dove Vengo E Non So Dove Mai Andrò Uomo E' Il Nome Che Mi Han Dato," a masterpiece. A very underrated masterpiece, and you can see that from the comments of this review, you’re right, Christ, this album is a gem of rare splendor. I give it a 5, even though it’s little. It’s little for the quality of the music proposed by this group. And if until now you’ve disgusted and hated me down to the last comma, I can still absolve the De De Lind for their originality. Then you all take PFM, Le Orme, and Bernardo Lanzetti as your reference points, my God, then it says it all. It's not just me saying this, I mean, IT IS KNOWN that the first are the apotheosis of copying, that Le Orme are known to be a bad and free reinterpretation of ELP with a touch of extra poetry, and that Bernardo Lanzetti can be said to have brazenly pinched the craft and style from Peter Gabriel. Vocal comparison aside, go find pictures of PFM in the seventies and see how they acted live. Oh, I forgot, they must have made two pitiful albums with Acqua Fragile, always copying here and there... Closing parenthesis, oh my esteemed international progressive music critics, what great reference models you have, wow I can't tell you how much I envy you. At least the De De Lind have not plagiarized anyone. Banco and Cervello, to finish, I also like a lot but they definitely weren't the only ones in the seventies. Cheers.

moment alone.. limited boundaries of prog rock.. in some ways you are absolutely right.. but which prog rock are you talking about? the one with fairies, goblins, knights, witches, enchanted castles, and crimson king's courts, obviously, and all that dead chatter.. no, because fortunately in the seventies here in Italy music wasn't so de(s)cendent.

I got it just a few days ago, and I have to say I haven't listened to it very closely yet. I find it superfluous to assert, as others have, that side A is decidedly superior to side B, as is right in certain easy listening works of the seventies. Ah, when music was experienced on vinyl, just like with the 45, if you wanted to hear the flagship song, you put on side A, and the flip side was a potpourri, so to speak, ahahah... Cleverly, our Lucio and Giulio decided to feature two of the album's finest gems on the single: "La collina dei ciliegi" and "Il nostro caro angelo," a piece that, as has been mentioned many times, should be interpreted as a message against the Catholic Church. Now let's move on to the musicians: besides the good Lucio, busy on electric piano and guitars, there's the excellent Giampiero Reverberi on eminent (electronic strings), electric piano, and synthesizer. The rhythm section deserves special mention: Gianni Dall'Aglio on drums, and Bob Callero on bass. These are two of the musicians who would soon join an extraordinary formation of Italian progressive music, Il Volo (a sort of supergroup that also includes all the other session musicians of Battisti, namely Alberto Radius, Gabriele Lorenzi, Mario Lavezzi, and Vince Tempera, with the omnipresent Mogol as the lyricist). Of an evident jazz nature, the two are more than interesting and superb musicians. They are absolute superlatives. "Il Nostro Caro Angelo" boasts an incredible arrangement, folks, let me tell you, no shortage of musicians here. Moreover, the themes addressed in the album, starting from the cover, a fundamental component of a record (or at least it was so in the seventies; nowadays, let's not even go there, ah, the seventies), all the way to the lyrics, become more aggressive, anticonformist, and protest-oriented. Battisti takes jabs at a corrupt, decadent, and hyper-consumerist society, nostalgically praising what at the same time humiliates and honors man, that which has generated him from its womb and to which he is destined to return: the earth. Listening to the lyrics, it brings a smile once again to think of all those people convinced that Battisti and Mogol were right-wing sympathizers... or even militants. What naivety!

You’re right, pippocalippo. I’m from Bari and you’re perfectly correct. In Italy, the trick was in the production and distribution. I wouldn’t change a single second of UT or any of the records made at the Fonit Cetra auditorium and the like.. they sound as they should.. period.. the only thing that could change is indeed the production..
The DeDe Lind rock it.. I mean, just listen to how the DeDe Lind album was recorded, feel the drums, the rhythm section, and everything else, the reverbs on the guitar, the pauses, the flute solos, it’s like they recorded that album in the middle of a forest.. and at times it gives you chills.. a band like that in Abbey Road studios.. naaaaaa :D

Many. Very many. But Fripp, definitely not. What the hell has Fripp done in his life other than stripping down guitar technique based on his clumsiness with the instrument? Then there are other rumors, rumors that he is some great innovator (of absolute nonsense), and that he invented a "strange" effect called Frippertronics. So let's go to Wikipedia and read the description in ACADEMIC ITALIAN of this absurd effect, my goodness...
"A recording technique that allows the production of a soundscape from a single guitar using repeated overdubs. It was invented by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp (from whom it takes its name) by connecting two Revox reel-to-reel tape recorders. The sound produced by the guitar is recorded on the first recorder and sent to the second. From the second, it is sent back to the first in a kind of sonic 'ping-pong' where sounds continue to overlap and blend together as the musician plays. The result is a soundscape composed of sustained notes mixed with some barely hinted at, often improvised and therefore always different. A subsequent development of the Frippertronics is the 'Soundscapes' in which the two recorders are replaced by digital units that prolong and modify the original sound, creating an extremely wide expressive range."
Now, in my opinion, Fripp and Eno didn’t realize that the effect already existed for about a dozen years and was already called "Delay", and I find it ridiculous all the descriptive gymnastics used to explain the functionality of this phantom "Frippertronics." Soundscapes, what another load of nonsense creation, what does it take digitally to make a delay? You download CoolEdit Pro and it’s sorted, not creative genius from Fripp and dead chatter.
I don’t know how the hell you consider a genius a fool like him, but what if you had known Leonardo Da Vinci then? Okay, from a creative standpoint then... I think there are plenty of people who have contained themselves more than Fripp, who have certainly done many fewer things than him, but I believe also more beautiful than his entire body of work, predominantly made up of mellotron mishmashes and disjointed hypertechnicism where it's hard to even understand the notes. Then, if we want to talk about that act of goodwill he did towards the global community, with the founding of the "League of Crafty Guitarists," where he gathers a platoon of thirty or forty impaired guitarists and has them play two notes a minute for half an hour with just one finger, but in phase opposition, then... yes, he is truly a genius.
Well, I much prefer the little-known musician from the little-known band in the depths of Italian progressive rock who made only one record and DIGNIFIEDLY passed away leaving us perhaps a pearl of rare splendor, rather than the "uncontested genius" of this half-wit Robert Fripp who has been annoying us for decades with his musical tricks...

This is Progressive with a capital P. Inspired by the music from across the channel by Uriah Heep, Panna Fredda embarked on its musical journey, achieving a distinctive stylistic independence with brilliant success. The journey began with a lineup (which also included the likable Giorgio Brandi, who later joined Cugini di Campagna) and ended in the recording studio with a completely different group configuration, with only guitarist Angelo Giardinelli remaining as the last survivor of the original lineup (I believe this is enough to say that he is the standout element of the band). On drums, there’s a superb Roberto Balocco (who would soon join Capsicum Red with Canzian, who was not yet the bassist for Pooh). In my opinion, the album is an excellent demonstration that Italians had what it takes; kaleidoscopic, with splashes of purple, red, and lemon green, at times crepuscular and unsettling, the sound of Panna Fredda is acidic, raw, fat but simultaneously sharp as a knife blade from the very first seconds of listening, thanks to the clever use of a series of synthesizer effects quite unusual for the time, generated by technician Enzo Danna. Angelo Giardinelli’s booming voice stands out prominently amidst the grooves laid down by a driving rhythm section and an HAMMOND L100 played with the perfect taste of true cellar progressive, read also as the ONLY progressive worth listening to, to hell with all those bland laments like PFM, Locanda Delle Fate, Marillion, Pendragon, Dream Theater, which manage to be everything but tasteful music and all sound UNMISTAKABLY like a forced imitation of these wonders. It’s a pity that there’s still a stubbornness in Italy and around the world not to consider Progressive as a reference point in the entire musical landscape, so the only bland rubbish that can reach people’s ears are those aforementioned laments. The standout track of the album is definitely "Sole Rosso," alternative title for "Il Vento, La Luna e Pulcini Blu", a SCREAMING sonic bomb based on the intertwining of electronic effects, harpsichord, and classical guitar. Hardly any other bands, either Italian or foreign, have managed to achieve such a exquisite blend of sounds as this.