A. R. Luciani's Allarme Ecologico (1973), at last

I had been dying to hear this one for so many years, since I first discovered A.R. Luciani's trilogy series with Melchiori, and I was so excited when last month it finally became available-- until I listened to it.  Mostly it's in the classical modern music vein, but not as inspired and creative as so much else he created.  There's just not a lot to hang on to.  You can see on the right I've posted a lot from him already, notably my rip of his oceanic work.  His discography, probably incomplete, on discogs.

Really, it's an odd mix of dissonant atonal Hitchcock Psycho-like music, classical borrowings, the usual Stravinsky cameos, plus a couple of relatively generic soundtracky theme songs.

Ultima Migrazione:





The music on Difacimento della Natura is great-- minus the odd sewer bubbling sounds in the background, perhaps a fatberg of wetwipes:

Ugo Fusco's Visioni Musicali from 1972

Currently selling for 650 euros from Italy (big surprise!); in terms of artistic merit it can hardly be worth a few dollars, which is why it's useful to be able to hear it.  Pretty much by the numbers library music with the occasional nonskinny dip into more experimental sounds, as on the Catene Montana track:





I would've been willing to pay a lot for the record (not that much though!) just on the strength of the previously posted masterpiece, put out under the aka of Echettio from 1976.

Back to Marchetti with Little America

I posted before his Solstitium masterpiece, and the brilliant AO number 15 (recently reuploaded), then the hugely rare Gimmick, but his other libraries proved disappointing, and so is this one released in 1978.  Unfortunately there is one LP still outstanding from this period called Iris, for sale in the hundreds of euros, as is this.  Database info here.  Most of the music is ridiculously simple, reaching a nadir with the track about Disneyland.  As dumb as Disney itself in fact.

The best composition imho is called Westport:





Altogether disappointing, thank god I saved the hundreds of euros, but I feel sorry for the guy who bought this.

Library Composer Puccio Roelens

Recall Puccio Roelens' album Rock Satellite (1977) which was the same as the April Orchestra 13 posted here in the RCA series.  We surely loved that one and didn't blame them for releasing it twice, indeed, even more releases would not have been undesirable.

Quickly, the first 2 albums from Roelens included in this package from 1969 and 1971 are for me ordinary garbage, though occasionally an interesting melody rises up from the green bin's composting & recarbonizing contents.  But in 1976 with Research of Sound [sic] we get to the funky fusion we love so dearly.  The track called Relaxation absolutely kills me with its typical 70s lounge-hound sound:





Starting with that argeggiated harp intro augmented by gentle electric guitar phrases, the melody turns into a lovely flute legato under orchestral string clouds above, all in the key of F major, but at the end of the verse the suspended C7 chord resolves to the D major tonal, a classic, classic seventies songwriting move, evoking the warmth of summer somehow since the 'correct' chord would've been D minor (to stay with the F tone).  The minor becoming its major always feels warmer or smoother.  It's analogous to what happens at the end of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," that Jimmy Webb classic, where F major resolves to D major.  In that song, it evokes the feeling that he has arrived to his destination whereas the C suspended chords imply the journeying.  Not to detract from the flute's melody in the above sample, which is gorgeous.

The 1980 Balance LP is somewhat more fuzacky, somewhat predictably given the later year.  A track called Barbecue:





Subsequently I found out he made one more interesting album under the aka Jay Richford.
I sure hope I have all his late 70s albums, if not, someone let me know. These are all well worth collecting.

Sposito's 1986 Strumentali: Genere Pop Elettronico: the missing piece

One of the Christmas presents for myself I mentioned last month, I had to buy it when it finally after many years showed up for sale.  With this hopefully we complete his discography at least until 1990.  To recap, there was the initial outta-outer-space Cosmo Graffiti with its gorgeous asteroid impacts, then the more disappointing (to me) Denebolo soundtrack, quickly followed by my favourite the Reflections of Light which I've listened to over and over, and the trilogy of Strumentali, of which Eudosso was the best so far.  The post for Sirens was viewed thousands of times over btw, like Aaltonen-Donner's Strings record.  And to think this is all started with the casual suggestion of a commenter!  God bless those useful tips off the street-- and keep 'em coming too....

So this is the first entry in the trilogy from 1986, and surprisingly to me, the most disappointing of  them all.  I'm not at all sure why.  The music is the same, electronic keyboards with highly varied styles rendering it quite non-homogeneous overall but in the end, it lacks a bit of punch, not quite worth the immense excitement I felt when it came to the purchase, and the arrival on my snowy doormat.  A good example of the contents is the little wolf theme:





But this is the best composition, I feel.

Well, the hunt is part of the fun isn't it...

In the next week I'm going to post some more library rarities I recently found, some that are absolutely shockingly expensive, despite their usually generic or mediocre quality.  Not surprisingly they are also all from Italia.  Perhaps the Italians could use some of that extra money to clean up their streets of garbage.  Or rather get the mafia to do a better job of it.  But there'll be a gem here and there, guaranteed.

Back to the Jan Wallgren: Club Jazz 9 1973, Love Chant 1977, and Ballade an Der Ruhr 1980

We encountered the Swedish jazz series in connection with jazz musician and composer Eje Thelin.  As well, the 1973 album from Wallgren called Steel Bend Rock I posted 'Sometime ago' as Chick would say.

The first side of Club Jazz 9 features the full band of the Wallgrens Orkester led of course by keyboardist Jan Wallgren, and the compositions all run into each other forming a nice 20-minute long suite.  For those like me who have become long on experience but short on attention this is a waste following the first 1 or 2 minutes, so I chopped it up where I could at the intermissions, of which there are two, called Mellanspels.  Then I went back and recorded an excerpt from the best composition called Love Chant:





Notice the strong Charlie Mingus influence here, with the minor chord progression, the bowed playing of the bass, even the title of the song, and by the time you get to the end you will hear many more resemblances provided you know your Mingus.  The ending too is stunning, going on for more than a minute with chord after crashing chord.  Sadly it then runs on into the next solo piano intermission, which mars the dramatic effect somewhat.  No long improvisations a la Nordjazz Quintet.  Altogether, a very strong first side.

Side b is completely forgettable dixieland jazz from the Ove Linds Sextett a style which child molester Woody Allen was fluent at, but which I've mentioned before I absolutely abhor and have to turn off within seconds.

Side A recorded at Radiohusets Studio 4, Stockholm, January 9, 1973.
Side B recorded at Radiohusets Studio 4, Stockholm, February 6, 1973.

Subsequently I was surprised to see Wallgren recycled all this material for a 1977 release appropriately enough called Love Chant but played by himself on acoustic piano accompanied by bass and drums.  This is not entirely successful in my view, especially on head to head comparison with the orchestra, but you can decide for yourself.

The 1980 album is almost purely improvised acoustic contemporary jazz and not too interesting for me, I just threw it in because I had it.

Wow!! look at the hirsute guy, bottom right!!!
That stuff is just priceless...

US Compass, 1970

By request, a normal rock album with some ur-pre-protoprog elements, typical of that awkward tween stage between psych and prog, with mostly generic songs: horn rock, country ballads, blues tracks, and a little bit of experimentation.