Res Gesta

Based in Palermo, Italy, Homunculus Res is an often breezy group whose music harks back to the pop side of the '60s-'70s Canterbury sound and early Italian prog of the same era, with suitably retro elements but also the compositional complexity and production touches one would expect from a 21st century release on the Milan-based avant-prog AltrOck label. The Sicilian band centers around a core of musicians including guitarist/vocalist Dario D'Alessandro (who also plays keyboards), keyboardists David Di Giovanni and Federico Cardaci, drummer Daniele Di Giovanni, bassist Domenico Salamone, and flutist Dario Lo Cicero.

Another wonderful band on the ever-growing excellent AltRock label, Homunculus Res is a Sicilian band centered around songwriter/guitarist/keyboardist Dario D'Alessandro. Other members currently include keyboardists David Di Giovanni and Federico Cardaci, bassist Domenico Salamone, flutist Dario Lo Cicero, and drummer Daniele Di Giovanni. A featured guest on the band's debut is Yugen keyboardist Paolo "Ske" Botta.
The primary inspiration for the band is Picchio Dal Pozzo, the best Canterbury-influenced Italian band from the 1970s. They seem likewise, as did Picchio Dal Pozzo, to derive inspiration from other Canterbury bands, particularly Caravan and Soft Machine…

Homunculus Res, a fantastic Italian prog band with strong Canterbury Scene elements is back with a new album, after their phenomenal work from 2020 "Andiamo in Giro di Notte e ci Consumiamo nel Fuoco". "Ecco l'impero dei doppi sensi" is the name of the new album, and here, the band successfully brings a combination of Canterbury that perfectly implements elements of psychedelia, tinged with jazz and progressive, but also gives a dose of pop from the sixties. Ironic and oblique, evocative but also meticulous, the compositions represent a perfect union of the aforementioned styles. All these are elements of fundamental importance for the sonic alchemy of the band. A production where pop, prog rock and jazz sensibilities are combined with a pinch of avant-garde with that sound that is typically English, but a dose of RPI also appears. The album is cleverly constructed, basically like a journey through time from the late sixties to the mid- seventies. It is important to say that the band found a perfect compositional balance and presented a transitional style between pop cheerfulness and hippie-psychedelic lightness.

This is the third album by Sicilian art rockers Homunculus Res. It is a 2018 work that exquisitely mixed Canterbury style stylish technical and Italian singing. Although skillful meter is intertwined, with its own style with translucency as a warm heart, the wind instruments of flute, clarinet, oboe, horn etc are exchanged for guitar and vintage synth, and Melotron and charming female vocal are added. Including lyrics, the poetic deepening aiming for Canterbury spiritual increased. Hat off with precise content recorded by members close to 20 including Yao Paolo Botta.

Canadian classic rock guitarist Rik Emmett (ex-Triumph) and his new band RESolution9 released a new album RES 9 on Provogue on November 11, 2016. The members of RESolution9 are from Rik's touring quartet: Dave Dunlop on guitar, Steve Skingley on bass, and Paul DeLong on drums, with Dave and Steve co-producing the project. Much of the album was recorded and mixed at Mississauga's famed MetalWorks Studios, where Rik enjoyed a profoundly comfortable re-connectivity to his own roots. RES 9 features guest appearances by Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, Dream Theater singer James LaBrie, and as an added bonus, a new track with Rik's former Triumph bandmates Gil Moore and Mike Levine!

Homunculus Res hail from Palermo and in 2013 released an interesting début album on the independent label Altr0ck/Fading Records with a line up featuring Dario D'Alessandro (guitar, vocals, minimoog, glockenspiel, percussion), Davide Di Giovanni (piano, organ, keyboards, drums, percussion, acoustic guitar, vocals), Daniele Di Giovanni (drums, percussion, acoustic guitar, vocals), Domenico Salamone (bass), Mauro Turdo (guitar), Federico Cardaci (minimoog, organ) and Dario Lo Cicero (flute) plus some guests and a special guest such as keyboardist Paolo Botta from Yugen, Not A Good Sign and Ske.

This disc is a wonderful way to showcase Leif Ove Andsnes’ pianistic talents in contemporary music; not a genre usually associated with him. It is much more than just an exercise in virtuosity, though it takes a real virtuoso to make these at times knotty works sound as spontaneous as they do here. The program is well balanced, too, beginning and ending with solo pieces by the Dane Bent Sørensen that frame two major piano concertos. Eight selections from Kurtág’s continuing series of miniature “games,” forms the disc’s midpoint. Not all the works presented are of equal quality, though. I found the two Sorensen pieces rather slight in comparison with the other works and have not completely made up my mind about Dalbavie’s Piano Concerto. There is no doubt, however, that Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto and the Kurtág Játékok selections are masterpieces that have gained a foothold in the late twentieth-century repertoire.