Post-Osanna band Uno with their one-off from 1974

 

UNO:

Formed from the ashes of Osanna when the band split in 1974 by Elio D'Anna and Danilo Rustici along with drummer Enzo Vallicelli (from Hellza Poppin, who had played with Osage Tribe and Claudio Rocchi), Uno was a much-hyped band that went to England to record their first and only album with help from lyricist N.J.Sedwick and singer Liza Strike (of The dark side of the moon fame).

The album is not far from late Osanna style (Landscape of life-era), with four English-sung tracks and three in Italian, with songs like I cani e la volpe in evidence, but didn't reach the success the band hoped.

An English sung version of the album was released abroad, with a nice surreal cover designed by Hipgnosis (again a link with Pink Floyd), but didn't attract much interest.

The three-piece band worked well in studio but couldn't get satisfying results when playing live, so the help from Danilo Rustici's brother Corrado Rustici (from Cervello) on guitar and bass was requested for live appearances. From this expanded line-up came the inspiration for a new band, called Nova.

Enzo Vallicelli has kept playing (and still does it now, under his surname of Vince Vallicelli) as an appreciated blues drummer.

Hopefully everyone is familiar with ultrahigh-energy Italian Mahavishnu-like fusion band Nova too, which is just brilliant, especially 1975's Blink but also 1977's Wings of Love.

Interesting they mention Dark Side of the Moon, because I always though Goodbye Friend is a little bit too much of a homage or less gratuitously a copycat of The Great Gig in the Sky:

The most progressive track is 11 minutes long and called Uno Nel Tutti, it doesn't rise to the level of Il Baricentro or Banco or Gramigna, but it's still great, reminds me a lot of famed French proggers Pulsar, with the strong aforementioned Pink Floyd spacey influence:

Amazing cover graphics too!