Cervello/Semiramis/Picchio Dal Pozzo/Celeste/Area

[Buddhabreath]

They do, just ordered the CD/DVD Hope it gets here...

[Buddhabreath]

Well, finally got the Cevello Live in Japan CD/DVD and it is excellent! The new young vocalist is superb. Excellent performance all around. Reminds how good this album is and it includes one of the most beautiful melodies ever created in any musical genre in my book:

[chalkpie]

Cervello Melos is pretty amazing. Such an eccentric angle at times yet so Italian, beautiful, odd, adventurous, creative. Absolute gem from Italy. I really need to spin it more.

[moecurlythanu]

^ I agree, but I don't think it will ever be among my real favorites from that sunny land.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Cervello Melos is pretty amazing. Such an eccentric angle at times yet so Italian, beautiful, odd, adventurous, creative. Absolute gem from Italy.

I've probably written this a dozen times in here already, but the "secret" to the mystery of Melos - as I hear it - is that it takes the established emotional and musical formula one step further, and a step which isn't first and foremost logical but consequential. Those manic outbursts are the result of complete artistic conviction and dedication to the core message of passion and coordinate restraint. The outcome is an extremely powerful recoe which never loses focus and always keeps attacking its target. That point in the middle of the title-track where the entire drive shifts and transitions almost seamlessly into a deeper harmonic chorus, voices underneath and Rusticci's frenetic guitar on top - this is serious stuff. It somehow -reminds- of other Italian greats of the day, still there's enough to set it positively apart.

To my ears, very little in Italian 70s rock could match this, other than the hyper-advanced ditties like Picchio, SSix and a few others.

[chalkpie]

^ nice insight Richard. I am spinning it again this morning while watching Bundesliga replay. Corrado's guitar solo in the title track is so frantic and crazy, sounds like he is about 3 bars ahead, yet it works beautifully and is absolutely rippin'! I absolutely see why you are such a big fan, this is one if those albums that you can become alnost obsessed if it bites you. I would have no qualms trying to fit this in my top 10 from Italy (or at least 15). Too bad the shipping prices on Discogs LPs from Italia are as much as the record itself. At least I own the CD. You have the vinyl Richard?

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ Franksterman, I got the 1991 vinyl reissue on Contempo with the flipout-leaf on the cover and the whole thing.

I think it was in 1994 that someone handed me the catalog of Swedish retailer Record Heaven, led by one ol' Johnny whom I believe is still running it (Spyros might know). Back then it was an actual physical roster of titles, an A4 light blue folder containing vinyl stuff most folks wouldn't have heard of no matter how alien they were. I actually think I've got it lying around somewhere still.

Anyway; I remember reacting to the fact that it sorted "Italian progressive" into a separate branch, as if derived inclusion not in or of but from the other items offered. Not a very long list, but it contained reissues from official labels like Contempo and Fonit Cetra along with a bootleg-series called Vedette which had, a.o., the Inferno by Metamorfosi. Now at this point I only knew P.F.M., Banco and SSix (through Un Biglietto del Tram), but I'd just got myself a proper income working at a daycare center () and spent almost an entire month's wages on a box of Italian "prog" reissues; Alluminogeni's (rather dull) Scolopendra, Museo Rosenbach's Zarathustra, the Reale Accademia di Musica, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Ricordi D'Infanzia, Osanna's Landscape of Life, IBdB's Sirio 2222 (which is a GREAT hard rock/psych record, if you haven't experienced it!) - and Melos by Cervello.

I recall liking the others well enough, but that Cervello made an impression of another kind entirely. I'd only recently come out of extreme acid-rock fandom and absolutely wanted for my 70s progressive discoveries to reach that same level of transcendent intensity and rawness. Prior to Melos I don't think I'd got there except for maybe the first High Tide record or something, but here was this insanely tight and desperately energetic Italian symphonic rock combo basically delivering all the goods - and the force to go with it.

Impact, is the proper word.

[chalkpie]

Onto Semiramis Dedicato. Wonderful.

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ It's fabulous, and especially when considering how their collective median age was something like 21 years. I mean, they must have been listening to interesting rock music from a very early age, being inspired enough to pursue it themselves, and then rehearse, create, record, produce. How on Earth do you do all that when you've still got pimples, go to high school and live in your mom's middle closet?

But it's less immediately esoteric, perfectionist and "authoritarian" than Melos. Beautiful still, of course.

[moecurlythanu]

I think it was in 1994 that someone handed me the catalog of Swedish retailer Record Heaven, led by one ol' Johnny whom I believe is still running it (Spyros might know). Back then it was an actual physical roster of titles, an A4 light blue folder containing vinyl stuff most folks wouldn't have heard of no matter how alien they were. I actually think I've got it lying around somewhere still.

Still regret not getting some of the Scandi titles in there at the time, although I've managed to pick up some of them in the meantime. Young and lacking funds, unfortunately.

[Scrotum Scissor]

^ True, and the section for used vinyls was always much larger than the one for reissues.

I think I've must have gotten hundreds of albums from Record Heaven, including a whole bunch of titles that weren't so expensive back then but do fetch a whole lot of moneys on the prog-hungry market now. It was here that I got the, uhm, absolutely legendary Le Souffle Noir by Didier Paquette, for instance.

However, they also sold me the first Univers Zero, Psynkopat, Ur Kaos, Zut Un Feu Rouge and a load of other racks that I'd never otherwise come across.

It was only about 1997 that they got heavily into CDs, IIRC.

[chalkpie]

^ Franksterman, I got the 1991 vinyl reissue on Contempo with the flipout-leaf on the cover and the whole thing.

I think it was in 1994 that someone handed me the catalog of Swedish retailer Record Heaven, led by one ol' Johnny whom I believe is still running it (Spyros might know). Back then it was an actual physical roster of titles, an A4 light blue folder containing vinyl stuff most folks wouldn't have heard of no matter how alien they were. I actually think I've got it lying around somewhere still.

Anyway; I remember reacting to the fact that it sorted "Italian progressive" into a separate branch, as if derived inclusion not in or of but from the other items offered. Not a very long list, but it contained reissues from official labels like Contempo and Fonit Cetra along with a bootleg-series called Vedette which had, a.o., the Inferno by Metamorfosi. Now at this point I only knew P.F.M., Banco and SSix (through Un Biglietto del Tram), but I'd just got myself a proper income working at a daycare center () and spent almost an entire month's wages on a box of Italian "prog" reissues; Alluminogeni's (rather dull) Scolopendra, Museo Rosenbach's Zarathustra, the Reale Accademia di Musica, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Ricordi D'Infanzia, Osanna's Landscape of Life, IBdB's Sirio 2222 (which is a GREAT hard rock/psych record, if you haven't experienced it!) - and Melos by Cervello.

I recall liking the others well enough, but that Cervello made an impression of another kind entirely. I'd only recently come out of extreme acid-rock fandom and absolutely wanted for my 70s progressive discoveries to reach that same level of transcendent intensity and rawness. Prior to Melos I don't think I'd got there except for maybe the first High Tide record or something, but here was this insanely tight and desperately energetic Italian symphonic rock combo basically delivering all the goods - and the force to go with it.

Impact, is the proper word.

Nice - maybe I'll look into a reissue at some point.

Regarding the Sirio album, I think I heard it once (possibly) but I definitely don't know it, so cheers for the rec.

Melos gets lumped into a special pile of Ital's such as Palepoli, Alusa Fallax (big, big fan of this one too), Semiramis, Picchio Dal Pazzo's classics including Zimmer, etc albums - sort of on the shoulder off the beaten path but very special and all very unique. Most of those would make a 'top whatever' RPI list for me I guess. There's others, but these are always very special listens that I savor when I pull them off the shelf.

[timehat]

I suppose I really need to check out Cervello. Celeste, Picchio, and especially Area are among my Italian (or overall, even) favorites, so if that's the kind of company they keep, I feel like I ought to hear this too!