I Giganti
Terra In Bocca

If we asked an enthusiast of Italian music who the Giganti are, they would answer without even thinking: that beat band that in the sixties made "Mettete dei fiori nei vostri cannoni."

The same question posed to a foreign enthusiast would have the answer: the progressive group that recorded "Terra in bocca."

Both answers are correct, the well-known Italian band, famous for vocal harmonies characterized by the deep bass voice of drummer Enrico Maria Papes, was the creator in 1971 of an extraordinary record that marked the end of their career. It was a concept album on the theme of the mafia, with sides occupied by two long suites, each divided into six chapters, telling the story (written by Piero De Rossi) of a farmer rebelling against the powerful families who have a monopoly over water in his small Sicilian town. He will find water for everyone but only from the pit dug to bury his son killed in retaliation.

Already the cover in the Cramps style, the alternative label founded by that prominent figure Gianni Sassi, warns us that there is something new with the Giganti: the photo of the group attached to the shoe of a corpse lying on the ground with the other foot bare. And the very subtitle of the album, "Poesia di un delitto" (Poetry of a crime), brands this work as uncomfortable and will remain boycotted after its publication, which in some ways will cause the breakup of the group that in 1967 was already censored for the song "Io e il Presidente."

The Giganti was primarily a group of singers, all potentially soloists, and in this album, they rely on friends to reproduce the musical complexity of the work, so each will have a "double." The bassist Sergio De Martino, who is the lead singer, is joined by Ares Tavolazzi from Area, guitarist Mino De Martino by the talented Marcello Della Casa from Latte e Miele, drummer Enrico Maria Papas by Ellade Bandini, keyboardist Checco Marsella by maestro Vince Tempera. And the music? The first suite opens with swift keyboard fugues and openings with the Mellotron typical of progressive, but soon the soul of this album is revealed: the Italian song that makes the atmosphere very unique to our ears due to the rather strange combination of two forms of expression distant in those years.

Lungo e disteso t'hanno trovato
Con quattro colpi piantati nel petto
A tradimento t'hanno sparato
Senza neanche darti il sospetto

And we are ready to follow this musical story made of successful moments and others less so, with alternating sequences of gloomy progressive on keyboard and vocal melodies à la (pardon the reference) Neri per caso, like the refrain "Tu pieno di sole/ lei bianca di sale" that repeatedly returns throughout the record. Harmonies mainly conducted by the splendid voice of Sergio De Martino, while Papes' distinctive deep voice is less used as a soloist except for a few narrated interludes.

An album that had a difficult history: practically immediately boycotted and little understood by fans disoriented by the lack of real songs, ended up in oblivion also following the disbandment of the group. The subsequent CD reissues in 1989 and 1993 by Vinyl Magic always presented some differences from the original. In 2000, it was instead reissued by the much-appreciated Akarma, always attentive to the progressive phenomenon of the seventies.

And this is a particular progressive, much less derivative of the English one and enhanced by the combination with the tradition of Italian singer-songwriter music. Rediscover it.