Sandro Brugnolini
Overground

Do you remember the theme song of the very first Tg2...? Certainly not me, since I wasn't there, but some of the reader users will undoubtedly have had the chance to listen live to what undeniably falls into the category of "great sonic experiments" carried out in our country: I am not exaggerating when I say this, especially since it's true that in the article which the Corriere della Sera dedicated to the nascent Tg of the second channel, there was explicit mention of that theme, a brilliant collage of avant-garde (and partly hand-made) electronics, while also mentioning its author: Sandro Brugnolini. A brief reference at the bottom of the page, nothing more, but enough to realize that the creator of that experiment was something more than just a composer of TV soundtracks. All future Italian newscasts owe something to that pioneering attempt to give shape to a musical fragment of stunning modernity (stunning even today, considering the era and the melodic, routine banality of other contemporary TV soundtracks).

Who is Sandro Brugnolini? Most remember him precisely as a Rai collaborator between the '60s and '70s, as a composer and music consultant (yes, it was a time when even expert musicologists could work behind the scenes and contribute to defining a product, the television one, still conceived as the result of a work of commitment and quality). But this obscure musician with jazz training (about whom rare and sparse information is known) also worked "on his own," if you can say that, ranging across multiple genres and shining as a true "cosmopolitan" of the new Italian music, even managing to record highly sought-after discographic jewels like this "Overground": the year is 1970; this masterpiece is the result of just two sessions on March 12 and 13, conducted between spontaneous creativity and sensational taste for arrangement, not a simple detail but a constitutive element of compositions that derive much of their value from the original instrumental choices adopted. It is an album that many have defined as "post-psychedelic", a label much too generic and, in any case, partly inadequate, given that what you hear here is an early, brilliant draft of the Jazz-Rock that, within a few years, would make converts among the most "progressive" minds in our country. I would unhesitatingly use the category of "avant-garde," because "Overground" - light years away from the contemporary late-Beat naiveties of future progressive groups - is above all an album capable of offering unthinkable and, nevertheless, boundless suggestions to enthusiasts of pre-Fusion like myself: the role of the guitar and the complexity of the textures (often made intricate by intelligent and targeted overdubs) leave little doubt about the artistic value of the work and the opportunity to reassess its historical significance.

"Overground" is an ideal snapshot of an era that, in just over half an hour, can condense the ferment of an Italian music scene eager to evolve, to leave behind the "adolescent" immaturity of the Sixties to meet the new Jazz with Davisian roots as well as the impulses, the emotion of a Hendrix here more than ever nearby. Recorded at the Dirmaphon studios in Rome, the album (printed in a limited edition of only 500 copies) features musicians of undeniable quality, destined for future notoriety in the alternative panorama and beyond: on bass is the future Perigeo (and one of the best session-men in our country) Giovanni Tommaso, on organ and piano Giorgio Carnini, on (gritty) lead guitar Silvano Chimenti, later in Morricone’s court for "My Name is Nobody" and "Four Flies on Grey Velvet". Drummer Enzo Restuccia and a second guitarist, Angelo Baroncini, contribute to the perfect execution of eight superb, perfectly calibrated and successful compositions: all compositions signed by Brugnolini, who nevertheless does not play on the album, except to make his presence felt in the cohesive wholesomeness of a fresh, original work despite the necessary, and cultured, citations (listen to the reprise of Hendrix's "Fire" tonal passages in the opening of "Cellulin"). Simply magnificent are the atmospheres, very Morricone-like and precursors of certain acoustic moments of Perigeo, in "Adire's Dream" and "Brain", between relaxed suspension and distressing, claustrophobic unease. Almost Bossa Nova is the stride of "Cirotil" (some titles vaguely seem like medicine names), far from the more than ever acid Rhythm & Blues of "Simanite" and the syncopated reverberation of "Amofen". "Alipid" heralds, albeit in another sound context, the Fusion of Perigeo’s "Genealogy", semiacoustic and excellent in its harmonic developments the delicate "Roxy".

These are five historic stars, for one of the rarest albums ever recorded in Italy, but absolutely to be rediscovered. I won’t go on too much this time, the emotion is all in the listening...