Il Balletto di Bronzo took form in Naples in the late sixties under the name I Battitori Selvaggi. The first line up featured Marco Cecioni (vocals, guitar), Michele Cupaiuolo (bass), Giancarlo Stinga (drums) and Lino Ajello (guitar). Their debut album, entitled Sirio 2222, was released in 1970 and sounds quite different from their best-known prog work Ys from 1972 since keyboards wizard and vocalist Gianni Leone joined only in 1971 along with bassist Vito Manzari, leading the band in a completely new musical direction...
On Sirio 2222 you can find many beat and psychedelic influences while the lyrics mainly deal with the counterculturals values of hippies and their way of life always on the road... The music is definitively guitar driven and you can listen to some echoes of Jimi Hendrix ("Un posto", "Girotondo"), Canned Heat ("Eh Eh Ah Ah"), Animals, Yardbirds or The Who ("Neve calda", "Ma ti aspetterò", "Ti risveglierai con me") mixed with a strong melodic flavour. The best moments on this album, in my opinion, are the romantic "Meditazione", an interesting effort to blend classical music with rock, and "Incantesimo", a "psychedelic enchantment" trying to blend blues with fairy tales imagery... Good also the long "Missione Sirio 2222" that tells in music and words the wreckage of a spaceship: a strange kind of "psychedelic suite" with peculiar oriental influences.
On the whole "Sirio 2222", although perhaps in some way naive and derivative, could be an interesting album for psychedelic rock lovers... Nonetheless I think it's not an essential one in a prog collection...
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In 2013, more than forty years after the release of Il Balletto di Bronzo’s debut album Sirio 2222 two members of original line up met again and started to work on a new project, just for the pleasure of playing music and develop new ideas, under the name Il Balletto di Bronzo di Lino Ajello & Marco Cecioni to differentiate it from the new incarnation of the band led by Gianni Leone and focused on Ys’ heritage and Gianni Leone’s solo works. Anyway, for this new project the aim of the musicians was not to play prog but songs in the hippie, psychedelic vein of Sirio 2222 although with an updated sound and taste...
The new album was released in 2016 on the independent label Suoni dal Sud - No Music No Life. It’s entitled Cuma 2016 DC and for the recording sessions Marco Cecioni (vocals, guitar) and Lino Ajello (lead guitar) gathered around them younger musicians and old friends such as Alessandro Stellano (bass, guitar, vocals), Francesco Del Prete (drums), Alfonso Mocerino (drums), Alessandro Crescenzo (keyboards), Adriana Salomone (backing vocals), Gianni Leone (vocals, keyboards) and Tony Guido (keyboards).
The art cover and the drawings in the booklet by Marco Cecioni try to reflect the content of the album, a good mix of art pop and psychedelia, hard rock and melody. The track list unfold without fillers, the songwriting is good, some pieces are powerful and straightforward (like “Bivio acido”) some others more leaning to Italian canzone d’autore where artists such as Max Gazzé (in “Una meta” or “Figlio dei fiori”) or Zucchero (in “Big Mama”) could come to mind. I particularly enjoyed “Ordine disordine” that mixes hard rock and Mediterranean flavours, the dreamy “Pirati” and the new version of “Neve calda” from Sirio 2222... Also interesting “Vorrei essere un Deejay (Eivissa)”, a reflection about the new dancing habits of the youth and their sense of freedom. But, of course, if you are looking for another Ys I fear you will be highly disappointed.
On the whole, a good album but far from essential in a prog collection.
You can listen to the complete album HERE
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