AUTUMNAL COLOURS

Cooperativa del Latte were formed in the mid nineties in the province of Gorizia and in 1998 released a beautiful début album, “Il risveglio” (The awakening), on the independent label Mellow Records. The line-up features Gabriele Benfatto (guitars, vocals), Claudio Farneti (flute, drums, percussion), Sergio Contin (bass, vocals) and Pierluigi Piccoli (piano, keyboards) and their sound largely draws upon 1970’s influences but despite the vintage sounds the song-writing is good and rich in ideas. I had the chance to see them live on stage, opening a concert for Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, and I was favourably impressed. I think that the excellent art work by Ivan Crico, a painter and writer born in Gorizia, perfectly describes in autumnal colours the reflective, crepuscular mood of this work...

The opener “Verso i cancelli della memoria” (Towards the gates of memory) is a kind of dive into the past for a swim against the tide, against the doubts of an empty reality. A church-like organ sets the atmosphere, then the rhythm takes off... “Running after myths of wind / Looking for a living star / Overcoming a world of falsity and appearances... Listening to the silent voice of a timeless truth...”.

“Contemplazione” (Contemplation) is a long, melancholic track that begins softly, with a simple, nocturnal acoustic guitar arpeggio, then a light turns on and soaring thoughts begin to fly in the wind... A sudden change in rhythm and the call of an ancient time rises from dreamy organ chords inviting you to set your mind free... “Who do you think your greatest enemy is? / It’s your own home, it’s your own body / It’s your own mind, it’s you / Free yourself from the monsters fed by your pride and your stupid vanity / What is the road you think will lead you to the Right? / Even your brain is getting lost on the paths of solitude...”.

Cooperativa del Latte

“Notte volante” (Flying night) begins on the dreamy notes of a flute and of an acoustic guitar... “I’ve been walking for you / In the nights of dream / Among breathing plants I followed the road smelling of forest / Towards far bonfires / I was still sane...”. In dreams you can even play with death but remember that dreams could turn to nightmares... “Now there’s nothing but pain / Just powder shut in a little box / You are my death / I live for you just because you know how to make me laugh...”.

The cathartic “Il respiro dell’alba” (The breath of the dawn) is introduced by a delicate pattern featuring piano and flute. The vocals are just whispered... “I would like to go down to the stream / In the early morning silence / When everything comes to a new life / To find again the warmth of life in the cool water...”. The references to Le Orme are strong and in the second part of this piece there’s even a particular vinyl sound...

“Tentazioni” (Temptations) is more aggressive and complex and also features some jazzy passages. Love can be deceitful and cruel, your unfaithful lover could make you fall into the breath of an icy abyss... “Your hand pushes me in the mud / Setting your thighs free for a new trick...”.

“Maggio” (May) is a short instrumental introduction to the beautiful last track, “Indagazione strutturale” (Structural investigation). This piece has a strong Renaissance flavour and starts “a cappella”... “Like a tree in the forest of time or a cloud living in the sundown / I’m looking for something I feel I belong to...”. The lyrics are about the eternal search for knowledge while the music could recall some works of Angelo Branduardi with some “deep red” acoustic passages... “I feel the weight of my pride / But I’m walking with the curious pace of man... Before all knowledge I feel my heart pulsing...”.

From the book Rock Progressivo Italiano: an introduction to Italian Progressive Rock

 

You can listen in streaming to the complete album HERE

 

THE REBUS OF THE FAUN

Il Fauno di Marmo come from the province of Gorizia and began life in 2001 under the name of The Rebus. Since then the band have been very active in the local live scene, releasing two self-produced albums, The Rebus (2002) and Acroterius (2005). In 2012 they signed a deal with the independent label from Verona Andromeda Relix and changed their name into Il Fauno di Marmo, taking the place of another project of the same name bound to Andromeda Relix and formed by Erik Spedicato (drums), Roberto Vanni (guitar), Massimo Cavallari (keyboards) and Roberto Galli (bass) who split up after recording only one track, a Haikara's cover released in 2009 on a tribute album to Finnish Progressive Rock by Musea Records, Tuonen Tytar II. Well, the owner of the label, Gianni Della Cioppa, liked the name (inspired by an Italian TV miniseries from the seventies based upon the novel The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne) and, with the consent of all the people involved, gave it as a legacy to the band he had just enrolled that heartily accepted the new brand.

Il Fauno di Marmo 2013

Finally, in 2013 this new version of Il Fauno di Marmo (formerly known as The Rebus) released their first official album titled Canti, racconti e battaglie (Song, tales and battles) with a line up featuring Luca Sterle (vocals, flute), Valerio Colella (guitars, kazoo, backing vocals), Alberto Ballaré (bass, backing vocals), Francesco Bonavita (organ, piano, Moog, Mellotron, clavinet, bandoneon) and Luca Carboni (drums). During the recording sessions they were helped by some guests such as Simone D'Eusanio (violin), Alessandro Serravalle (guitar – from Garden Wall), Federica Sterle (vocals) and Andrea Tomasin (percussion) that contributed to enrich the sound and the result in my opinion is really good. The packaging features a nice artwork by Francesca Capone that in some way tries to capture the spirit of this work and represents a magical flower with a long stem and very deep roots. In fact, this album is the fruit of many years of hard work and musical passion and you can feel that passion from start to finish. Of course, the band's sources of inspiration are apparent and range from Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull to the old masters of the Italian progressive rock scene of the seventies but the song-writing is good and the band reveal a great personality.

The opener “Benvenuti al circo” (Welcome to the circus) comes from the repertoire of Il Treno degli Specchi, Luca and Federica Sterle's previous band that was active in the nineties but never had the chance to record an album. The music perfectly fits the lyrics and features many changes in rhythm and mood. It's about circus animals abuse... “You go to the circus and you're so happy / In your mind you have nothing but entertainment / But there's someone who's trembling in fear / Beaten, bloody and in pain... Welcome to the circus of horrors!...”. Well, animals aren’t actors or circus clowns. Yet this piece depicts a circus where the animals are forced to perform silly, confusing tricks under the threat of physical punishment and tremble at the sound of a whip. While going to the circus may be a favourite pastime for many adults and children, the harsh treatment of animals here is condemned without mercy.. “How many many people can understand that an animal can feel pain?... There's so much sadness in their heart / Man is just a vile traitor...”.

The following “Madre natura” (Mother Nature) is a joyful track that recalls Jethro Tull and depicts a timeless ritual dance in honour of Mother Nature. There are children playing and people dancing in a ring, hand in hand, while the music conjures up a strong sense of positivity. Sun rays break through the sky while incense smells soar and spread all around... “Mother Nature, listen to us if you can / Look at your children, they know what is hope...”. You can find a first version of this piece on The Rebus' eponymous album from 2002.

The long, complex epic “Hop Frog” is another track composed by Luca Sterle in the nineties that here comes to a new life thanks to the contribute of all the musicians involved. It was inspired by Hop-Frog, a tale by Edgar Allan Poe set in the court of an imaginary country. It tells about the vendetta of the king's fool, a deform dwarf called Hop Frog, who, during a masked ball, with his last jester's trick sets fire to the king and his ministers dressed up in ourang-outangs costumes... “Burn, burn vile king / Burn, burn into the fire / Burn, burn vile king / In Hop Frog's stake...”. “I now see distinctly.” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors, - a king who does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who abet him in the outrage. As from myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester – And this is my last jest.

“Magic Kazoo” is a psychedelic track featuring an exotic flavour. It invites you to take a trip on a very strang spaceship and set off on an interstellar musical journey, through dazzling star lights and asteroids dancing in a ring, towards a new reality... “Maybe it's just an imagine / A voice will call me back / Maybe it's nothing but an imagine / A voice will speak to me...”.

Next comes “Nova Res”, a beautiful instrumental piece that blends psychedelia, sweet melodic lines and Latin rock. It leads to “Non mollare mai” (Never give up), a bright track full of positive energy that invites you to fight for what is really important in your life, searching for a way out from the darkness of a personal crises by leaving behind false solutions such as booze or drugs.

“La battaglia di Kosovo-Polje” (The battle of Kosovo-Polje) is a new version of a piece from The Rebus' previous album, Acroterius. It features strong ethnic influences and a martial atmosphere. It tells about the battle fought in 1389 between the Serbian army led by prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic and the invading troops of the Ottoman Empire. This battle is also known as the Battle of Blackbird's Field and is particularly important to Serbian history, tradition, and national identity... “Prince Lazar, what a silence! / Kosovo Polje cries for your people / The blackbirds are flying over the corpses / Men are dying for their Motherland / The invaders are the winners / And the crescent moon is high in the sky...”.

“Un villaggio, un'illusione” (A village, an illusion) is a nice Quella Vecchia Locanda's cover that the band interpret here with passion. It leads to conclusive epic “Dorian Gray”, inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The music and lyrics depict a troubled man who has sold his soul in exchange of eternal beauty. But Death and remorse haunt him... “If you look at your portrait / You are upset, Dorian Gray / It's like a spell that blurs reality / A damned soul is growing inside you / You innocence is lost / What way will you choose? / Diabulus ita est / Demoni vocant te / That's Death behind you...”. A wonderful finale for a very interesting album!

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Il-Fauno-di-Marmo-ex-The-Rebus/156572561065610 

FRIULI - VENEZIA GIULIA

Until 1918 Trento, Bolzano, Gorizia and Trieste were part of the Austro–Hungarian Empire. So, now we cross an inmaginary bridge and go to TRIESTE, the far east of Northern Italy, on the border with Slovenia, a city loved by the Irish writer James Joyce who taught English here between 1904 and 1920. From Trieste, that now is the capital of the Italian autonomous region FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA, there comes Gino D’Eliso (MySpace), a singer-songwriter who in 1976 released a very interesting album with strong prog influences, Il mare. He is still active today and is working on a new album.

This city is also home to composer and guitarist Alfredo Lacosegliaz, who in the late seventies played in a short-lived project called Ensemble Havadià closely related to the Stormy Six’s label L’Orchestra. He’s still active with a solo career and a new project called the Alfredo Lacosegliaz Patchwork Ensemble (Official Website) that should be of interest to prog folk lovers. In 2010 they released an album called Pan duro and in 2011 another interesting one, Hypnos.

The most famous contemporary prog band from Trieste are Rhapsody Of Fire (Official Website), influenced by heavy metal and classical music. There are also other interesting prog bands here such as the metal influenced Sinestesia (MySpace) and Notturna (MySpace) or the more original J’Accuse..! (MySpace) who in 2008 released an excellent debut album on Mellow Records, Abbandono del tempo e delle forme.

Other local prog bands and artists are the prog-pop Proteo (MySpace), the “klezmer prog” Passover (MySpace), the neo prog of the young multi instrumentalist and composer Luigi De Santi (ReverbNation), the experimental solo project of composer Sandro Glavina called L’Uomo e l’Ombra (ReverbNation), the prog-jazz Funambolique (MySpace) and Frequency On Border (MySpace) and the heavier Soundrise (MySpace).

Not far from Trieste heading north along the border with Slovenia we reach GORIZIA, on the banks of the river Isonzo, home to Cooperativa del Latte, the psychedelic I Salici (Reverbnation) and a very interesting emerging band called Il Fauno di Marmo (Facebook), formrly known as The Rebus (MySpace). We can now cross the old border between Austria-Hungary and Italy and go to UDINE which in the past gave us a project called Nascita della Sfera. The current prog scene of this city features bands such as the jazz-rock Assolo di Bongo (Official Website) and So What (MySpace), the classically influenced Quasar Lux Symphoniae (Official Website), the folk prog La Munglesa (MySpace), the metal influenced Syderal Overdrive (MySpace), the instrumental jazz folk Démodé (MySpace), the the psychedelic Aiperion (MySpace) and Haab Cycle (MySpace), who were born from the ashes of another psychedelic band called Astral Loom (MySpace).

South of Udine, there is Cervignano del Friuli, near the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Aquileia, home to the neo prog Linea Nazca (MySpace) and two metal influenced bands, the young Azure Agony (MySpace) and the veterans Garden Wall (MySpace), a band that have been active since the late eighties. In 2011 Garden Wall released a very interesting new album on Lizard Records, Assurdo.

We conclude our visit to Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Pordenone with the symphonic prog band Barrock (Official Website), the prog jazz pianist Remo Anzovino (Official Website) who in his latest album Igloo collaborated with PFM’s drummer Franz Di Cioccio, the jazz prog Iz Quartet (Facebook), the psychedelic Iperico (MySpace), the experimental, raw Inter Nos (MySpace), the prog metal Pathosray (MySpace) and the folk prog Tarantàs (MySpace) and Orchestra Cortile (MySpace).