FLYING PAINTINGS

In 2008 Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno, one of the many one shot bands of the Italian progressive scene of the early seventies, came to life again on the initiative of singer and guitarist Luciano Regoli and in 2010 they released a new album on the independent label BTF, “Il pittore volante” (The flying painter). Along with Luciano Regoli the line-up on this work features the veterans Roberto Gardin (bass, guitar), Nanni Civitenga (bass, guitar, keyboards), Walter Martino (drums) and some prestigious guest musicians as Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, Lino Vairetti, Nicola Di Staso, Maurizio Pariotti and Carl Verheyen to name just a few. Anyway “Il pittore volante” is mainly the brainchild of Luciano Regoli who wrote the music and lyrics and conceived it as a concept album inspired by a book of the same title, a kind of travelogue that he wrote and published some years ago and that he dedicated to the late Iginio Gonni, a painter and a friend, who died in 2003. The basic idea was that of an old painter who flies and looks at his life from above. In the booklet you can find not only the lyrics but also a picture for every piece painted by Luciano Regoli himself. As for the music, the overall sound is not stuck in the seventies and in this work you can perceive even metal influences along with a more typical Italian progressive style. Well, during the nineties Luciano Regoli had been a member of the prog metal band DGM and he doesn’t disown this experience...

The opener “Il cambiamento” (The change) tells of a spiritual metamorphosis. It starts softly with a mystical atmosphere, then hard guitar riffs and harmonica introduce the change... “It happened in those days / Something revolted inside me / Fast as a blizzard... Alone in that room I fell asleep / Dark dreams / Alone in that room I woke up in discomfort... Ah! I was changing and I didn’t want it / But I was coming to life again / Yes! I was coming to life again...”.

“Il vecchio” (The old man) begins with a piano solo introduction. It’s a tense, melancholic track depicting the meeting with an old friend who has just had a stroke... “They had cut off his hair / That old madman was trudging up the hill / Marked by the paralysis that had darkened his mind, his limbs, his fingers / I remember him just a few months before / Enormous, disdainful, with a magnificent beard...They had cut off his hair...”.

“Il fuoco” (The fire) features a duet with sweet, dreamy female vocals and an ethereal, suggestive nocturnal atmosphere. The lyrics and music depict fire as a metaphor of fear before a natural impending event, a fire burning false fairy tales, pains, fears, desires and thoughts... “The night was over there, in front of me / Some rocks were burning / Above me gentle wings were flying away / They were flying high, they moved the air with a dull noise / So I followed them, with the light behind my shoulders / Towards dark clouds...”.

“Eagle Mountain” is a long, complex track that tells about a journey through the desert in North America. A good acoustic guitar intro by Nicola Di Staso (former member of Libra and in the line-up of Daemonia) leads to new horizons and spectacular panoramas where two friends enjoy the quiet, strange atmosphere of the desert until, in the middle of a magnificent, silent landscape, they find an old truck. There’s a sudden change in mood. The truck stands still but the engine is running, the driver is naked and... dead! “He let us stare at him while the night was falling in us / The day after in a café people were whispering about him / But the air was clear / We went out / I switched the engine on...”.

“La mente” (The mind) features a dark, nervous mood. It’s a kind of dive into madness and the lyrics draw images that seem to come from a Stephen King novel. An enormous wasp trying to enter the room, an agoraphobic scene in the subway... “My God! What is happening to me? I’m alone, with my only enemy / I’m alone, with my ego...”.

“L’uomo nuovo” (The new man) is another beautiful track. It was arranged by Claudio Simonetti and it seems conceived as a thriller score. It is about fear, the fear that a man has to overcome to reach knowledge... “At the beginning of the tunnel, under the subway / That noise of water running, under the subway tunnel / I paid attention but I couldn’t understand the origin of that noise...”.

“Le anime” (The souls) features a slow pace and a haunting mood. It depicts a nocturnal landscape. It’s midnight on Elba Island and while the protagonist walks back home along a narrow street he can see the people that used to live there when he was a child and that now are nothing but shadows... “They can’t see me / But I recognize them all...”.

“Raoul” is set in Paris. It’s a complex piece that starts as a strange mix of hard rock and Italian melody (a particular blend between Aerosmith and Quartetto Cetra I dare say), then the rhythm calms down and the atmosphere becomes dramatic. The music and lyrics depict a drunken clochard that’s sleeping under cardboard... “What made him still appear as a man was just a name / That name tattooed on his wrist / Only that name, Raoul...”.

“La spiaggia” (The beach) is set in Portugal. It’s an amazing short ballad featuring a swirling flute and a vocal style that could recall the Italian minstrel Angelo Branduardi. It tells of a strange meeting on a solitary beach on the Atlantic Ocean with a threatening sea that seems like dog on a chain, desperately barking because it couldn’t go any further, blocked by the high cliffs... “I felt as if I couldn’t breathe on the beach / The rocks behind me and the thundering sea in front of me / All night long with that dull noise...”. A good finale for an excellent album.

From Rock Progressivo Italiano: An introduction to Italian Progressive Rock

 

You can listen to the complete album HERE

 

La Nuova Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno: Il pittore volante (2010). Other opinions:

Jim Russell: A well rounded album which perhaps could be accused of trying to put too many ingredients in one dish, but I'm sure that some of these ideas have been percolating for years and restraint/minimalist considerations were not among the goals of the project. Thank goodness for that, as musical extroversion is usually put to great effect by RPI bands! "Il Pittore Volante" offers great variety, superb musicianship, and gorgeous packaging/artwork. This is one of the most interesting releases of 2010 and should make some end of year lists... (read the complete review HERE)

 

CRYSTAL DREAMS

Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno were a band of the Italian prog scene of the early seventies. The line-up featured Luciano Regoli (vocals, acoustic guitar), Nanni Civitenga (guitar), Stefano Piermarioli (keyboards), Damaso Grassi (flute, sax), Manlio Zacchia (bass) and Francesco Froggio Francica (drums, percussion). They came from Rome and released only one album. Anyway, the musicians were also involved in other projects, for instance singer Luciano Regoli came from a previous experience in a band called Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray (that never released an album) with future Goblin leader Claudio Simonetti and, after RRR disbanded, he and guitarist Nanni Civitenga played in another band called Samadhi...

“Per... un mondo di cristallo” (For... A crystal world) is a concept album based on a story by Marina Comin, who wrote the lyrics. The music and words try to describe the feelings of an astronaut who comes back to Earth and finds only desolation and ruins... The planet where he had lived before his space journey does not exist anymore, around him there’s nothing (“Nulla”). The first track is a short introduction dominated by a church-like organ then, on the second track, acoustic guitar and flute greet the astronaut’s awakening. The protagonist climbs onto a rock (“Su una rupe”) and realizes that he’s living a kind of nightmare because everything around him is dead now... The music is complex, with shifting tempos... “Men, if you could climb on this rock and see what you have done... You would have thought more about what you were doing...”. Then anguish and fear, it’s as if the world was falling down and the protagonist remembers the happy days of his past “like a tree that is using its roots...”. Here the music is uneasy and it reminds me of Il Balletto di Bronzo’s “Ys” (“Il mondo cade su di me”), then turns into a “jazz mood” (“Nel mio quartiere”).

inner sleeve

The second part of the album begins with a dramatic atmosphere, a threatening unsmiling shadow is rising on the horizon. When the protagonist realizes that the merciless shadow is “humankind” the rhythm turns into tarantella... The lost world was nothing but a puppet show, a stage where men were acting like marionettes (“Un palco di marionette”). The music here describes the madness of humankind in a perfect mix of a wide range of moods and rhythms. The final track is dreamy, with acoustic guitar and flute in the forefront... Now the protagonist has nothing in his mind but crystal dreams (“Sogni di cristallo”) that melt back into the mist...

On the whole a very good album, with a beautiful art cover. Perhaps it’s not flawless (the lyrics are a little bit naïve and the vocal parts are not “impeccable”) but it’s really worth listening to... If you like bands as BMS, Le Orme or Il Balletto di Bronzo this album will be an excellent addition to your collection!

From Rock Progressivo Italiano: An introduction to Italian Progressive Rock

 

You can listen to the complete album HERE