Tallarita/Tommasini
Ispirazioni e Circostanze

In the vast landscape of Italian prog, where musical exploration and experimentation reached very exciting heights, there are albums that deeply marked a generation during the '70s. It is likely that this happened because music and society were changing at an impressive speed... this union lasted for a little less than a decade and was idyllic until something broke. There are hundreds of high-quality musical projects that emerged all over the peninsula between 1971 and 1979, some of which are precious gems relegated to a much deeper concept of underground than what is usually used, while others are presumably historical artifacts not yet recovered. In this musical scene, in the city of Rome, a band named Ut produced 2 albums: "Homo" in 1974 and "La Strada Era Bella" in 1976, which can specifically be categorized as melodic pop progressive. They achieved rather modest popularity, but the musical qualities of the members were of excellent level. Specifically, two of them, Franco Tallarita and Adriano Tommasini, respectively the bassist and drummer of the band, also took the path of what could today be defined as a side project by simply naming it after their surnames. There is no detailed information about this work, partly because it is an extremely rare album (today it reaches remarkable prices) that never had any objective feedback from the public. Printed by the label "Erre Records" (the same that produced Ut's albums, by the way), solely based on the title "Ispirazioni e Circostanze," one might deduce it is the result of an artistic collaboration between the two musicians aimed at sound experimentation to try to take a different, decidedly more particular and intricate path compared to the band of origin. The album, printed only on vinyl, is composed of 12 tracks, with authorship credited to Tommasini on side A and Tallarita on side B. Not attributable to a specific genre as it ranges from jazz to funk, psychedelic, and prog, the album is entirely instrumental and has the peculiarity of flowing and fading evenly despite being primarily based on experimentation. Personally, I love this work because it conveys an immense sense of calmness and relaxation in which various moments of musical elegance emerge. I am hopeful that I have intrigued some reader, in the hope of sparking interest in this album, hoping that it will one day be reissued and not left in oblivion.