MUSIC

Ambient … Fresh off the heels of their critically acclaimed collaboration album, Dolphin, UK jazz metro Greg Foat and Venetian electronic luminary Gigi Masin join forces once again for The Fish Factory Sessions, an exclusive release for RSD 2024.

The album was conceived as a tribute to the Holy Land of Ethiopia — the New Jerusalem, Zion Land. It takes the listener on a journey through diverse sounds and styles, revealing unique timbres, modern melodies, and both ancient and angelic songs. All of this is enriched with genuine and powerful lyrics, seamlessly integrated and blended in a spontaneous, simple, and natural way, transforming into a unifying and positive energy. A voluntary and curious musical project spreading Word, Sound, and Power.

One of the best Italian Library jams on the Edipan label. An inspired musical interpretation of mid '70s young America with spacey Funk/Breaks and strung-out Italian sounds of the period. An essential grail and top of the top dusty fingers / music producers / beat makers / sample hunters record.

Italian FunkY Library true classic! - What we have here is a Remigio Ducros and Luciano Simoncini (Arawak, Jason Black, etc.) sure shot and fantastic record for those who are into the classic Simoncini/Ducros sound and generally into the groovy Italian Library sounds. Very reminiscent of the "Accadde A.." and Jason Black recordings. What you can expect are tightly knitted and compressed drums, stoned flute sections, shouting horns, Fender Rhodes Piano, heavy basslines and that signature spacey Wah Wah guitar that's on all of the earlier Simoncini recordings. Variations on the Sgambetto - Sgambata theme from LA PALLA E' ROTONDA / stoned "Accadde A.." styled flute / amazing Hip-Hop beats / 'popping' percussion, Fender bass & piano etc. Daniela Casa is probably the girl playing all the Wah Wah and cosmic Fuzz distortions. Booming Italian Library production - loads of mellow grooves, samples and inspired beats. GREAT for DJs!

fully remastered from the original tapes** A mysterious sound aurora on the magical paths of the infinite universe of percussion, originally released in 1985 and then almost completley lost. Moon On The Water were a trio of percussionists based in Italy - David Searcy and Jonathan Scully, both American tympani players in the Scala Philarmonic Orchestra, with the legendary Italian jazz drummer Tiziano Tononi, who worked with everyone from Roberto Musci, to Muhal Richard Abrams, Pierre Favre (who later joined the group), Andrew Cyrille, Barre Phillips, and Steve Lacy. Drawing on a diversity of experience, joined collectively by a unified love of rhythm and sound, they assembled a percussion record of the highest order - an unclassifiable work which should be legendary, and leaves you confounded that it’s not.

Within the history of efforts dedicated to percussion, Moon On The Water’s debut stands apart. A singular work, made remarkable by the diversity and range of its sonorities and structures. The scope of its ambition is startling. Utilizing the full intellect, experience, and talent of its creators, it employs field recording against a stunning array of instrumentation - seemingly everything from which rhythm and resonant tone could be drawn. The result renders a remarkable effect. From the delicate pulse of nature, deep resonances and carefully placed tone, intricate structures and tempos as slow as they go, across its movements the album rewrites how composition for percussion should be understood, before giving way to consuming and ecstatic rhythms which reference the Brazilian tradition of Batucada, various trance and ritual traditions of Africa, and drum solos from Free Jazz and Rock. This is as good as percussion records get. A lost marvel - accessible while distinctly avant-garde. The throbbing pulse of creative joy, distilled onto two sides of wax.

Ecstatic elements of Japan ambient minimalism dialogue with contemporary music solutions (Varèse, Ligeti), in the stream of a harmonious fusion of ancient and modern. It’s a propitiatory ceremony of supernatural things that open portals of blissfulness, tribal and shamanic darkness, timeless jungles. Between amazon fires and African safaris, we float in the Asian rivers of meditation, lost in water games, echoes of caves and rocks in the night, synergies of frogs, birds, snakes, marimbas, chimes, gongs, and tubular woods.

The album also includes one of the sickest percussion jam we’ve heard from 1980’s Italy: the mystically-named In the Land of the Boo - Bam. Exploring a wide range of percussions, from mallet instruments to drums, the band tightly builds a hypnotic jam with a strong Mediterranean feeling, maybe partly provided by the «Tullio de Piscopo-esque» drumming pattern. As the song goes by, the vibe gets more and more shamanic, often changing directions before climaxing in an epic final. True uplifting trance music!

The explorer Walter Maioli makes his most amazing adventure, the journey to the center of the Earth. Retracing the exploits of the Platonic demiurge, he identifies in the cave the deepest meaning of myth. Primordial sounds, not shadows, are at the center of this magical path straddling geology and Paleolithic polyphony. The recordings between 1985 and 2002 capture the sonic imperceptibility of the great subterranean womb, investigate the secret dialogue between the trickling of pond waters and the faint percussive reverberation of stalactites and stalagtites. Rocky sediments are played as tubular organs, glockenspiels, xylophones or stone marimbas. Crystalline timbral variations and subtle microtonal passages recall the chimes of Tibetan gongs and bells, of the scales of Java and Bali. Amidst muffled pauses and silences, trills and rings, echoes and tremolos, hisses and pops of vibration, Maioli builds his most imaginative niche of sound, a magnetic and telluric chant that is pure symphony and archetypal synaesthesia. Co-produced with Holidays Records.

Don't let the name mislead you! The enigmatic M. Zalla is one of the numerous aliases of the italian maestro Piero Umiliani who, during his period of fascination for psychedelic and electronic atmospheres, started to compose a good number of musical portraits dedicated, as the title reveals, to the problems of his time. We are at the beginning of '70 and italians are worried by mafia, terrorism and social conflicts: so it has sense that the music choosen to represent this anxious problems has a sperimental nature; dark and disturbing, a sort of unicum in the long and extremly productive Umiliani career. And if, in 2015, titlesas “Mondo in Crisi”, “Problemi Sociali”, “Azione Sindacale”and “Mafia Oggi” sounds still sadly actual, it's even more surprising find that the music of “Problemi d'Oggi” (Today Problems) is projected on the future, sounding still alien and uniques. The record presents a various styles: Pink Floyd atmospheres (or Braen's Machine if you prefer...) and compositions characterized by a wide use of drum machines and synthetizer (MOOG and Sinthy). We just have to listen to the opening track “Produzione” to give sense to the words of Sean Canty (Demdike Stare) that defines it the first techno/trance track of the history; but between the grooves of this vinyl it's easy to find intuitions that many other artist and musicians – from Residents to Aphex Twin and Four Tet – will be able to catch during their carrers. So “Problemi d'Oggi” is released in 2015. Perfect timing!

Strut presents an exclusive new collaboration between UK jazz keyboardist Greg Foat and Venetian ambient / electronic maestro Gigi Masin on ‘Dolphin’. Recorded remotely during 2021-2022 the album took shape in the form of mutual compositions, gradually developed and embellished online. Final recording sessions took place at the majestic Chale Abbey Studios on the Isle Of Wight with Moses Boyd (drums), Tom Herbert (bass) and Siobhan Cosgrove (flute, clarinet) adding elements to several pieces. Tracks include the reflective, wistful single ‘Viento Calido’ and drifting ambient piece ‘Sabena’, a beautiful tribute to Gigi’s wife who sadly passed away during 2022. Greg Foat has recorded prolifically in recent years for Athens Of The North, Jazzman and Strut including acclaimed albums Symphonie Pacifique (2020) and The Mage (2019). Best known for his 1986 ambient masterpiece Wind and as a member of Gaussian Curve, Gigi Masin has enjoyed a revival in recent years through his Calypso album on R&S’s Apollo label and renewed touring. Dolphin represents Greg and Gigi’s first landmark recording collaboration together. “I first heard Gigi’s album Wind in 2016,” remembers Greg. “I was living in Miami and I heard it playing one Summer evening. Since then, it has always been in my mind to be able to record together.” Dolphin is mastered by Mark Ashfield at Cosmic Audio with newly commissioned artwork by Niul Foat. The LP comes as transparent vinyl in a thick card outer sleeve.

Drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti’s explorative percussions join Afro-Portuguese artist Nídia’s singular beat-making for an exciting new collaboration in dance music. From the first beat, listeners are drawn into a world where rhythm reigns supreme and movement is inevitable. The album explores a diverse yet universal musical language through syncopated drum patterns, pulsating marimba lines, and melodic interludes.

Back in print ! What exactly happened in the Italian underground / post punk scene 30 years ago, is not entirely clear. Therefore, this collection of 13 incredible tunes helps track down the feeling and focuses on the blurry images of a period that was mixing influences from the UK/USA scenes with a more national' approach to new music developments. The damage began in 1977 when a series of urban / suburban musical agitators, whether skilled or complete amateurs, decided to embrace instruments as weapons for a war against sonic stereotypes. Here's the result: a multiform sonic attack that marks the history of a movement that may have remained local in most cases but whose echo reflected the amazing creativity of a generation.

Marking what will inevitably be a holy grail moment for fans of Italian library music, and an inevitale revelation for anyone approaching it for the first time, the venerable Dialogo returns to their broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series with the first ever vinyl reissue of “Industria 2000”, an astounding 1974 LP created by the legendary Italian pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, under the moniker Jarrell. Regarded by many as one of the greatest experimental library records ever made - at times missable for the contemporaneous byproducts of studios like GRM or EMS, while doubly foreshadowing the synth infused soundtracks of John Carpenter and the idioms of Industrial music and Noise - it’s an immersive marvel that was years ahead of its time.
** Ltd. 300 copies, remastered edition, audiophile pressing. Perfect replica of the original packaging, newly remastered for optimal sound. ** Italy is a treasure trove of obscure and archival sounds. For decades, the products of its free-wheeling sonic cultures - spanning numerous musical genres - remained as sinfully overlooked, before being uncovered by devoted diggers and illuminated by numerous reissued initiatives. Recently, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, has led the charge into the shadows of Italy’s past, releasing a steady stream of holy grails, from the astounding Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai “Dimensioni Sonore” box set, issued in 2020, and a dedicated initiative to the work of Piero Umiliani, to a slew of coveted albums from the legendary Cramps catalog, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Their latest, the first ever reissue of “Industria 2000”, an astounding 1974 LP created by the legendary Italian pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, under the moniker Jarrell, joins their recent reissues of “Equinox” and “Solstitium”, to launch Dialogo’s broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series, one of the most coveted and rare bodies of library music ever laid to tape. Regarded by many to be among the best and most forward-thinking experimental efforts in the entire field, and among the only library records to have ever been offered the Creel Pone treatment, “Industria 2000” is an absolute marvel of wild, avant-garde electronics and synthesis, pushing toward glorious states of pure abstraction, threaded by unexpected anchors in pop. Issued in a beautiful, perfect replica highly limited vinyl edition, if ever there was a perfect introduction to the wonders of Italian library music, this is it!

Resting within the vast expanse of visionary albums produced in Italy during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, is the territory loosely categorised as Library music; recordings that were commissioned and owned by record labels, to be licensed for use within television programs, radio, and film, as stock. While Library music was produced in numerous countries during this period, nowhere was it more unique and groundbreaking than in Italy. Many of the country’s most noteworthy composers - Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Egisto Macchi, Bruno Nicolai, Sandro Brugnolini, etc. - used the context as an aggregator of radical experimentation and creative freedom, as well as a means to deliver forward-thinking music to broad audiences. Long coveted by diggers, samplers, and beat makers, these albums collectively represent one of the great treasure troves of 20th Century recorded sound: vast in its breath and endlessly adventurous and unpredictable in realisations of creative ambition.

Library music is notoriously mysterious. Its creators often worked in the shadows, with their music becoming far more familiar than the names of those who created it, something made that much more complex by the fact that composers often worked under numerous monikers and aliases, making it often impossible to know who truly made these astounding works. Among the most noteworthy of these figures was the pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, who in addition to leading numerous, highly regarded jazz bands during the 1960s, and recording with artists like Chet Baker, Bobby Jaspar, René Thomas, Buddy Collette, Conte Candoli, and Jacques Pelzer, produced a large body of library music across the 1970s and '80s under the names Amedeo Forte, Atmo, Konnell, Mantissa, Silva Savigni, and Jarrell. It was under the latter alias that he created the 1974 LP, “Industria 2000” for RCA’s now legendary “Original Cast” series. Over the years, this single gesture has become one of the most highly regarded experimental library records ever laid to tape, commanding eye watering prices on the secondary market.

Comprising twelve tracks centred around the process of synthesises, “Industria 2000” is thematically rooted around the environments and work in a mechanised and industrial world. Rather than the here and now, it seems to project itself into some imagined future, and in so doing embodies this notion by presenting a totality of music that is often years ahead of time and stands almost entirely on its own within the field of 1970s creativity. Ranging from hypnotic, minimal pieces like “Mondo Industriale” that foreshadow the work of John Carpenter by a handful of years; to wild, complex electroacoustic gestures like “Industria 2000”, “Meccanizzazione” and “Sala Macchine” that could easily be mistaken for the contemporaneous byproducts of experimental electronic studios like Groupe de Recherches Musicales GRM or Elektronmusikstudion EMS, the proto-industrial rhythmical textural assaults of “Energia Pesante” that prefigure numerous idioms of noise and underground electronic music by a decade or more, and wrenches thrown by pastoral, melodic pieces like “Lavoro Sereno”, and off-kilter, completely uncategorizable works like “Lavoro a Catena”. Once encountered in both its discrete moments and totality, there’s little question why it made the cut and passed the rigorous criteria for inclusion in Creel Pone’s incredible catalog of CDr reissues back in 2012.

An absolute marvel that’s remained almost entirely inaccessible on vinyl for decades, Jarrell’s “Industria 2000” is a true visionary release, transcending the perceived bounds of Italian library music as one of the greatest experimental works in the entire canon, as well as one of the most definitive artefacts of Amedeo Tommasi’s celebrated career. Joining Dialogo’s broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series, this beautifully produced, limited edition LP immaculately reproduces the original Italian press and marks it’s first appearance on vinyl in roughly 50 years. An engrossing listen from the first sounding to the last, this is a holy grail moment for fans of Italian library music, and an inevitable revelation for anyone approaching it for the first time.

Established in 1968 by Romano Di Bari, Canopo was the first brick in the building of Flippermusic, the leading production music library in Italy. Revived after decades of hiatus, the label is now devoted to the reissue of Flippermusic’s historic catalogue of the 1960s, 1970s and 80s for the first time since its original release onto vinyl, digitized and re-mastered from the original master tapes so that these legendary recordings can be heard once again. This classic Italian production music was all recorded in Rome recording studios by a heritage of composers including Alessandro Alessandroni, Amedeo Tommasi, Gerardo Iacoucci, Remigio Ducros, Romolo Grano, Daniela Casa, Piero Montanari and many more.

“Italiany Library Vaults” is a 12 track compilation bringing together the best tracks produced by Flippermusic in the first years of his activity. Ranging between different musical genres, it offers a wide range vision of this great musical legacy. This volume features a unique cover design, replica of the original albums published on Canopo label from late 60’s.

Following on from the stunning recording of her 1992 performance at the Berlin Parampara Festival (BT079), Black Truffle is pleased to continue its documentation of the work of Berlin-based Italian singer Amelia Cuni, one of the great contemporary exponents of dhrupad, the oldest surviving style of North Indian classical vocal music. Arriving in a gorgeous gatefold featuring stunning colour photographs of Cuni taken by legendary Australian fashion photographer Robyn Beeche (who resided in India from the early 90s), Mumbai. 04.02.1996 is a document of indescribable beauty and a moving testament to music’s ability to cross national and cultural borders. Beautifully recorded in concert at Vishweshwarayya Hall, Mumbai. 04.02.1996 presents expansive performances of three ragas stretching across four sides and almost one and a half hours of music. Beginning with the serene Raga Lalit, Cuni dwells for over twenty-five minutes on its opening alap movement, accompanied only by tanpura, her limpid yet full-bodied voice moving from graceful exposition in free tempo to increasingly rhythmically active variations, gradually spiralling upward in register. She is then joined by master pakwahaj player Manik Munde for the raga’s dhrupad and dhamar sections, the resonant tone of the drum and his constant invention with the complex 14-beat cycle serving as the perfect accompaniment for Cuni’s ecstatic melodic developments. On the more solemn Raga Bhairav, Cuni’s alap, again stretching out over a whole side, is particularly notable for its powerful held notes and mastery of microtonal movement of pitch. After Munde returns for another rhythmically intricate dhamar movement, the record ends with the buoyancy of the Raga Alhaiya Bilaval, whose mode has, for the Western listener, an unmistakably ‘major’ quality. The rapturous applause that greets the performance is reflected in a remarkable selection of press clippings contemporary with the recording, which demonstrate Cuni’s success with Indian critics.

Pianeti Sintetici presents AI-37, entitled ‘Space Opera’. Conceived by Italian artist Davide Perrone, the Pianeti Sintetici (“Synthetic Planets”) project hypothesises the creation of future synthetic worlds as told through sound. Although split across two parts, the album is a singular organism that narrates a journey of boundless cosmic exploration. A sonic tapestry woven of intergalactic atmospheres, Space Opera’s imaginative sound design contributes to a richly spatial and haptic experience. Taking place in the dimly lit crevices of deepest space, a swirling pool of chemical abstractions and extraterrestrial transmissions spumes out from the darkness. Elements weave through broad washes of drones and scintillating textures, contrasting a sparse backdrop with dense and multilayered passages. Composed with the use of modular synthesisers and intense audio manipulations, ‘Space Opera’ comes to life as an entity that transports the listener on an immersive journey into the mysteries of alien worlds.

This expansive double pack from Silentes finds each side of vinyl taken up by one long, ever-evolving piece of music based around one original. Gianluca Favaron & Stefano Gentile go first with their take on 'Landslide,' which goes from whirring machines sounds to brain cleansing sine waves and found sound abstraction. Dub techno don Rod Modell explores emptiness on 'Landslide' (Reworked) and Carl Michael Von Hausswolf's take is an eerie one with scratchy textures and filtered synth meanderings. Rod Modell then closes out with another rework of his own remix that will leave you adrift in space.

 

Roberto Cacciapaglia is an Italian composer and pianist who started out in the fertile Milan avant-garde scene of the 1970s, which included Franco Battiato, Giusto Pio, Lino Capra Vaccina, Francesco Messina, among others. After studying at the conservatory, he worked at RAI's Studio of Musical Phonology – an electronic music laboratory similar to NDR/WDR in Germany, GRM/IRCAM in France or BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Originally released in 1979, Sei Note In Logica (Six Notes In Logic) is Cacciapaglia's second album. While his debut, Sonanze, offers a series of ambient mini-soundtracks, Sei Note presents a singular, sinuous piece. The composition is based on a finite set of musical notes, yet this limitation is the point of departure for a grand tour of possible combinations and enthralling timbres (marimbas, strings, reeds and human voice).

Like Steve Reich's Music For 18 Musicians, the joyous experiment of Sei Note is grounded in constant variation. Often doubled by multiple instruments, non-repeating patterns are exquisitely layered, while electro-acoustic signals transform and further refract through visceral effects. Within this conceptual framework, Cacciapaglia does not so much juxtapose rigid dichotomies – acoustic vs. electronic, melodic vs. dissonant, simple vs. complex – as fuse them into an expansive whole.

What started as an inspired study in Minimalism becomes a bold feat of 20th century music. Sei Note In Logica is deeply sincere and, at the same time, quite playful. With one foot firmly planted in the past and the other steeped in technology, Cacciapaglia's influence can be heard in the work of Jim O'Rourke, Fennesz and Ben Vida.

If Paradise was half as nice…by Fabio De Luca Googling “paradise house”, the first results to pop up are an endless list of European b&b’s with whitewashed lime façades, all of them promising “…an unmatched travel experience a few steps from the sea”. Next, a little further down, are the institutional websites of a few select semi-luxury retirement homes (no photos shown, but lots of stock images of smiling nurses with reassuring looks). To find the “paradise house” we’re after, we have to scroll even further down. Much further down. It feels like yesterday, and at the same time it seems like a million years ago. The Eighties had just ended, and it was still unclear what to expect from the Nineties. Mobile phones that were not the size of a briefcase and did not cost as much as a car? A frightening economic crisis? The guitar-rock revival?! Certainly, the best place to observe that moment of transition was the dancefloor. Truly epochal transformations were happening there. From America, within a short distance one from the other, two revolutionary new musical styles had arrived: the first one sounded a bit like an “on a budget” version of the best Seventies disco-music – Philly sound made with a set of piano-bar keyboards! – the other was even more sparse, futuristic and extraterrestrial. It was a music with a quite distinct “physical” component, which at the same time, to be fully grasped, seemed to call for the knotty theories of certain French post-modern philosophers: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Paul Virilio... Both those genres – we would learn shortly after – were born in the black communities of Chicago and Detroit, although listening to those vinyl 12” (often wrapped in generic white covers, and with little indication in the label) you could not easily guess whether behind them there was a black boy from somewhere in the Usa, or a girl from Berlin, or a pale kid from a Cornish coastal town. Quickly, similar sounds began to show up from all corners of Europe. A thousand variations of the same intuition: leaner, less lean, happier, slightly less intoxicated, more broken, slower, faster, much faster... Boom! From the dancefloors – the London ones at least, whose chronicles we eagerly read every month in the pages of The Face and i-D – came tales of a new generation of clubbers who had completely stopped “dressing up” to go dancing; of hot tempered hooligans bursting into tears and hugging everyone under the strobe lights as the notes of Strings of Life rose up through the fumes of dry ice (certain “smiling” pills were also involved, sure). At this point, however, we must move on to Switzerland. In Switzerland, in the quiet and diligent town of Lugano, between the 1980s and 1990s there was a club called “Morandi”. Its hot night was on Wednesdays, when the audience also came from Milan, Como, Varese and Zurich. Legend goes that, one night, none less than Prince and Sheila E were spotted hiding among the sofas, on a day-off of the Italian dates of the Nude Tour… The Wednesday resident and superstar was an Italian dj with an exotic name: Don Carlos. The soundtrack he devised was a mixture of Chicago, Detroit, the most progressive R&B and certain forgotten classics of old disco music: practically, what the Paradise Garage in New York might have sounded like had it not closed in 1987. In between, Don Carlos also managed to squeeze in some tracks he had worked on in his studio on Lago Maggiore. One in particular: a track that was rather slow compared to the BPM in fashion at the time, but which was a perfect bridge between house and R&B. The title was Alone: Don Carlos would explain years later that it had to be intended both in the English meaning of “by itself” and like the Italian word meaning “halo”. That wasn’t the only double entendre about the song, anyway. Its own very deep nature was, indeed, double. On the one hand, Alone was built around an angelic keyboard pattern and a romantic piano riff that took you straight to heaven; on the other, it showcased enough electronic squelches (plus a sax part that sounded like it had been dissolved by acid rain) to pigeonhole the tune into the “junk modernity” section, aka the hallmark of all the most innovative sounds of the time: music that sounded like it was hand-crafted from the scraps of glittering overground pop. No one knows who was the first to call it “paradise house”, nor when it happened. Alternative definitions on the same topic one happened to hear included “ambient house”, “dream house”, “Mediterranean progressive”… but of course none were as good (and alluring) as “paradise house”. What is certain is that such inclination for sounds that were in equal measure angelic and neurotic, romantic and unaffective, quickly became the trademark of the second generation of Italian house. Music that seemed shyly equidistant from all the rhythmic and electronic revolutions that had happened up to that moment (“Music perfectly adept at going nowhere slowly” as noted by English journalist Craig McLean in a legendary field report for Blah Blah Blah magazine). Music that to a inattentive ear might have sounded as anonymous as a snapshot of a random group of passers-by at 10AM in the centre of any major city, but perfectly described the (slow) awakening in the real world after the universal love binge of the so-called Second Summer of Love. For a brief but unforgettable season, in Italy “paradise house” was the official soundtrack of interminable weekends spent inside the car, darting from one club to another, cutting the peninsula from North to centre, from East to West coast in pursuit of the latest after-hours disco, trading kilometres per hour with beats per minute: practically, a new New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night. This too was no small transformation, as well as a shock for an adult Italy that was encountering for the first time – thanks to its sons and daughters – the wild side of industrial modernity. The clubbers of the so-called “fuoriorario” scene were the balls gone mad in the pinball machine most feared by newspapers, magazines and TV pundits. What they did each and every weekend, apart from going crazy to the sound of the current white labels, was linking distant geographical points and non-places (thank you Marc Augé!) – old dance halls, farmhouses and business centres – transformed for one night into house music heaven. As Marco D’Eramo wrote in his 1995 essay on Chicago, Il maiale e il grattacielo: “Four-wheeled capitalism distorts our age-old image of the city, it allows the suburbs to be connected to each other, whereas before they were connected only by the centre (…) It makes possible a metropolitan area without a metropolis, without a city centre, without downtown. The periphery is no longer a periphery of any centre, but is self-centred”. “Paradise house” perfectly understood all of this and turned it into a sort of cyber-blues that didn’t even need words, and unexpectedly brought back a drop of melancholic (post?)-humanity within a world that by then – as we would wholly realise in the decades to come – was fully inhuman and heartless. A world where we were all alone, and surrounded by a sinister yellowish halo, like a neon at the end of its life cycle. But, for one night at least, happy.

Part of only a small and very much underground music scene in his hometown of Venice, Gigi Masin self released two modestly pressed LP's 'Wind' (1986) and 'Wind Collector' (1991) and appeared along side Charles Hayward for the Sub Rosa compilation LP "Les Nouvelles Musiques De Chambre Volume 2" (1988).

Having met with little commercial success in Italy at the time, Gigi Masin's solo albums remained for the most part totally unknown. His music has though in recent years, and seemingly by pure word of mouth, developed almost something of a cult following.

Gigi Masin's uniquely intricate and at times deeply emotive compositions take the listener into a realm of contemplation, a spellbound mind state where time and space appear to dissolve. His sparse and hypnotic often loop-based compositions seem to draw parallels with Detroit Techno's earliest beginnings, all at once conjuring those same feelings of both melancholic longing and ecstatic joy.

With access to Masin's large body of work, far greater than that of the handful of released recordings, Music From Memory's new compilation covers a period of over 30 years, from the mid 1980's up until recent works . Including seventeen compositions, most of which have remained unreleased or unavailable until now, 'Talk To The Sea' aims to shine a light on Gigi Masin's unique and heartfelt talent. This is electronic music from the soul."

It is a human and artistic adventure made up of craftsmanship, passion, and continuous exchanges between high culture and pop tensions, that of Italo-House. A story of laboratories, sound workshops where the fascination for new technologies and the infinite possibilities they offered, is often mixed with the rigour for classical scores, the result of academic studies at the Conservatory. A story that is then intertwined with that of the balere, the places for dancing and socialising, where dance was not only an opportunity to stage a whirlwind pursuit of hedonism, but was born out of the desire to make a community, to meet, to discover a new family, that of the night, often more welcoming than the original one. It is also the concretisation of a dream, that of being able to ‘reconstruct’ an identity that did not taste of belonging, but of exoticism, of gazes turned towards the Afro-American culture, the one that derived from funk, soul, r'n'b, lived at times with the Salgarian spirit of ‘travelling without moving’.
Italian house was the first, anticipating the irruption of the digital scenarios that have forever changed ‘making art’, to redefine, to redraw a map that did not exist, that of the ‘young’ sound that shifted its creative trajectories from the megalopolises overseas (with all their urban poetics) to the Italian province, inside recording studios where a group of young maniacs of machines, mixers, synths, appropriated a language that was not their own and declined it by opening their minds, demonstrating, that indeed, anything is possible. They studied patterns that came from afar, they applied to those patterns the natural force of moving with sensuality, they showed that they knew perfectly how to build what rappers, a few years later, would call ‘The Perfect Rhythm’. They sought it out in the endless nights of discotheques, of dance halls, from the glitziest ones that would set the standard for Ibizan nightlife to the after-hours clubs on the outskirts of small towns. They succeeded in defining a syntax that, shortly afterwards, would mark, with its influence, the advent of what would become ‘club culture’. So many theme songs, often created for the occasion, rhythmic and melodic sequences packaged with the awareness that there are codified rules that can enhance ‘body language’. Sequences that, often, with their authors, would then fly to New York in search of the splendid voice to hire for a turn in the recording studio, to give the song that definitive and planetary dimension that has, with great ease, spanned the decades.
Authentic musicians, for the most part, those of the Italian house wave, often masters of the orchestra, other times electronic experimenters who were more familiar with the obscure and very, very underground rock clubs of new wave, with the distortions of post-punk, which had opened the ‘doors of perception’ in sound, rather than with the glittering clubs of the ‘original’ disco.
Music of mixture, in short, the representation of an aspiration, as one would say a few decades later, ‘glocal’, the maximum of localisation meets the maximum of globalisation. The airy crystalline openings, the national romanticism, the song that is tinged with black atmospheres, that wanders through the unfrequented streets of the ghetto and comes out with the strength of sentimentality that, in its best expressions, succeeds in making the liberating joy of dance a tactile experience. 

Ltd. 300 copies, remastered edition, audiophile pressing. Perfect replica of the original packaging, newly remastered for optimal sound. ** The first-ever reissue of Gianni Marchetti's 1978 LP "Solstitium", released as part of RCA's venerable "Original Cast" series in a handful of promo copies only, sits among the most rare and enigmatic artifacts of Italian library music, it is heralded by collectors as one of the greatest free-standing gestures in the entire genre.

Long coveted by diggers, samplers, and beat makers, Library Music has, over the decades, remained one of the great, unheralded treasure troves within the history of recorded music. A relic of the golden age of the record industry, this body of recordings was almost entirely commissioned and owned by record labels, to be licensed for use within television programs, radio, and film - stock or background music. Despite the obvious limitations of the context, particularly in Italy, many composers found a way to write, produce, and record albums which, while heard by few for what they were, ranked among the most interesting and ambitious works of their era. Within these, there is arguably no better example than Gianni Marchetti's astounding "Solstitium".

The output of RCA's Original Cast stands apart in the history of modern Italian music, as it produced one of the most collectible and varied catalogs of instrumental music of its time. The purpose of the creation of this label was to present a catalogue mostly related to film soundtracks, original music and theme songs presented in television broadcasts or documentaries. During the late '60s until the early '80s the imprint released some of the best film scores and library music by legendary figures such as Bruno Nicolai, Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Mario Migliardi, Franco Micalizzi, Mario Molino, Gianni Oddi, and of course Gianni Marchetti.

If ever there was an LP to expand the notions of Library music’s vast potential and scope, Gianni Marchetti’s Solstitium has to be it. Nearly 50 years on, it feels as fresh and forward thinking as anything that has come since.

Ltd. 300 copies, remastered edition, audiophile pressing. Perfect replica of the original packaging, newly remastered for optimal sound. ** "Equinox", Gianni Marchetti's 1977 twin album of "Solstitium", released in a handful of promo copies by RCA in their renowned "Original Cast" series, takes us on a journey through the author's groovier and wilder temperament, feeling as fresh and surprising today as the day it was made, offering immediate understanding of the reasons why it has remained one of his most sought after - and virtually impossible to find - titles over the decades.

Long coveted by diggers, samplers, and beat makers, Library Music has, over the decades, remained one of the great, unheralded treasure troves within the history of recorded music. A relic of the golden age of the record industry, this body of recordings was almost entirely commissioned and owned by record labels, to be licensed for use within television programs, radio, and film - stock or background music. Despite the obvious limitations of the context, particularly in Italy, many composers found a way to write, produce, and record albums which, while heard by few for what they were, ranked among the most interesting and ambitious works of their era. Within these, there is arguably no better example than Gianni Marchetti's astounding "Equinox".

The output of RCA's Original Cast stands apart in the history of modern Italian music, as it produced one of the most collectible and varied catalogs of instrumental music of its time. The purpose of the creation of this label was to present a catalogue mostly related to film soundtracks, original music and theme songs presented in television broadcasts or documentaries. During the late '60s until the early '80s the imprint released some of the best film scores and library music by legendary figures such as Bruno Nicolai, Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Mario Migliardi, Franco Micalizzi, Mario Molino, Gianni Oddi - and of course Gianni Marchetti.

Flirting with the cinematic through its depth of emotiveness and scale, dynamics ding behind an aural shroud, is a stunning and ambitious, freestanding work which, had it been made in another context, would likely have been celebrated for decades, far and wide. Absolutely engrossing and creatively challenging at every turn.

Soundtrack of the late seventies, early eighties with particular attention to vintage instrumentation and the hard and pure approach that distinguishes the elegance and refinement of this composer, musician, able to make us relive echoes of the past while remaining comfortably seated on the sofa of our home. Alberto Bazzoli amazes with this new test. There are elements of great importance in Missori, a set of tracks that become a dedication to the city of Milan. An album that is a sort of introspective concept capable of narrating, musically, the events of an ordinary employee in the gray city of northern Italy. An album from which you can perceive an underlying melancholy perpetuated through moments of great class, where the taste for the past comes out in all its splendor. Alberto Bazzoli, founder of the label L’amor mio non muore and keyboardist on Baustelle’s latest tour, delivers to listeners an Italian cross-section of rare beauty where all the elements in the field are essential parts of a whole that smells of emotional amarcord capable of finding, in the lost, the key to understanding the modern complexity of living.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1619206400/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://albertobazzolimusica.bandcamp.com/album/missori">MISSORI by Alberto Bazzoli</a></iframe>

First vinyl edition of the album Rhetorical Islands, originally released by Giuseppe Ielasi in 2012 as a limited-edition CD on his Senufo Editions label, with recordings made in 2011 as a commission for l’Audible Festival, Paris. The album’s ten tracks have neither titles nor accompanying text, standing for themselves as what Ielasi himself has called “isolated sound worlds”. They are nonetheless unparalleled in their plasticity, acoustic events with a rare degree of tangibility. Ielasi evokes physical objects, some of which seem to have been constructed out of paper and cardboard, others based on a mechanics of elastic materials. Of course these objects are hallucinations, and precisely because Ielasi constructs them so masterfully there’s no need for any further information. Here’s to everyone creating their very own sculptures while listening to Rhetorical Islands! The front and back cover features 0.058, a work on paper by the artists Thomas & Renée Rapedius. They make sculptures whose form and artistic inspiration are defined by their materials. Like Ielasi’s acoustic islands, their impact derives from self-referentiality, resulting in paradoxical objects that embody both a detailed material study and a potential for free association.

“I Racconti di Aretusa” is the result of the encounter between Lino Capra Vaccina, a legend of Italian minimalism, and Mai Mai Mai, the alias of Toni Cutrone, a key international figure in the avant-garde/drone scene. A work that weaves together experimentation and Mediterranean echoes, creating a sonic journey of rare intensity. The collaboration was born during an artistic residency for the Ortigia Sound System (Syracuse, Sicily), a festival dedicated to the dialogue between traditional sounds and electronic research. The project took shape in an evocative location: the Church of Gesù e Maria in Ortigia, a place of extraordinary beauty whose acoustics imparted an almost mystical depth to the creative process. For two weeks, the two artists composed and recorded the album within this sacred setting, allowing the environment itself to influence the sounds and amplify their spiritual dimension. The final result was then refined by the work of Rabih Beaini, who handled the mixing at Morphine Raum Studio, and Matt Bordin, responsible for the mastering at Outside Inside Studio.

Lino Capra Vaccina, a pioneer of sound experimentation and co-founder of historic formations such as Aktuala and Telaio Magnetico (with Franco Battiato), brought to the project a refined and meditative musical sensibility. His use of vibraphone and piano creates hypnotic and ethereal atmospheres, built on deep resonances and soundscapes suspended in time. Engaging in dialogue with this aesthetic is Mai Mai Mai’s sonic language, which reinterprets and transforms the acoustic material through layered drones, hypnotic rhythms, and manipulated samples, constructing a dense and enveloping sonic universe. The result is a work that transcends time and space, a sonic passage oscillating between the sacred and the profane, between ritual and contemporaneity. Vaccina’s ancestral percussion merges with Mai Mai Mai’s electronic textures and distortions, giving life to a dialogue rich in tension and suggestion. At the same time, the location itself acts as an active element of the composition, almost as if it were an additional instrument capable of capturing and conveying the spiritual resonance of the place. The album's title is a tribute to the nymph Aretusa, a symbol of Syracuse, whose myth intertwines with water and the memory of distant times. This evocation becomes the key to understanding the entire project: just as the waters of Aretusa’s fountain preserve forgotten stories, so this album explores layers of sound and musical memory, revealing new possibilities for listening and interpretation.

“I Racconti di Aretusa” perfectly embolie Baccano’s vision: to restore a dimension of research to sound, fostering dialogue between artists from different eras and languages in a work that is not merely an encounter between past and present, but a true act of sonic rewriting. Though originating from distant musical worlds, Vaccina and Mai Mai Mai find common ground in experimentation and timbral exploration, shaping an album that reflects their artistic depth and visionary affinity.

Dig deeper into the realm of italian jazz/funk libraries with this sought after holy grail ! Originally released in 1977 this collaboration has all the elements of the cinematic golden era, plus some amazing orchestral moments with walking basslines and lushy horn arrangements