Italian Prog

The Spaghetti Epic 4 made by The Samurai Of Prog is the continuation of a series of settings or reinterpretations of some Spaghetti Westerns.
Fourth part of The Spaghetti Epic is now released by The Samurai Of Prog. And listening to albums made by them means listening to excellent progressive rock songs dedicated to the golden era of the genre. A tribute to the progressive rock bands of the Seventies. Retro prog in full glory! And of course with lots of Mellotrons, Hammond organs and Minimoogs! Together with the many sound fragments of gunshots, locomotives, and saloon piano parts you certainly get back in the time when the famous Spaghetti Westerns were made. Using instruments such as trumpet, banjo, flute and viola gives the album a Western atmosphere…

Roberto "Juri" Camisasca, from near Milan, despite a very limited discography can be considered a cult figure among Italian rogressive music followers, especially fans of Franco Battiato and fans of Italian prog that blazed it's own path rather than following 'traditional' English style progressive rock. In 1974, Battiato joined his friend Roberto "Juri" Camisasca (they met while serving in the army) to play VCS3 and keyboards and co-produce the latter's debut album, La finestra dentro ("the window inside"). The result was something slightly different from early seventies' Battiato classics like Fetus (1972) and Pollution (1972): the driving forces here are Camisasca's excellent acid-folk songwriting and his unique, thrilling voice Juri strongly influenced by his collaboration with Franco Battiato, who signed Juri to the label and produced the LP, also playing the VCS3 synth on it.

Undoubtedly one of the more adventurous, Area were also a very important band on the seventies Italian prog scene, their first four albums in particular come highly recommended and essential listening to anyone discovering the RPI genre.
In 1978 Area left the independent label Cramps and released their first album for a major, CGD, "1978 Gli Dei Se Ne Vanno, Gli Arrabbiati Restano!" (1978, the gods are going away, the angry people remain). In that year Italian post '68 protest movements were losing strength after ten years of hopes and contradictions and the members of the band, one of the most committed on the Italian scene, went through a period of personal crises too…

Multinational ensemble THE SAMURAI OF PROG was formed as a project lead by Finland-based Italian composer and bassist Marco Bernard. He's been active in the Finnish Association for Progressive Music since 1995, and have been involved in their Colossus Magazine since 1996 - and instrumental in the Colossus series of theme albums they have created in cooperation with French label Musea Records. It was for a contribution to one of those projects that The Samurai of Prog was born, and joining Bernard as permanent members we find US artist Steve UNRUH and Finnish drummer Kimmo Pörsti. Besides this core trio, the philosophy of this band appears to be to involve additional musicians as needed and wanted, and their debut effort Undercover from 2011 bears testimony to that line of thinking, with a list of guest appearances impressive in length, scope as well as quality.

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.

Vlad is the third studio album by Italian prog rock band Magia Nera. Magia Nera come from La Spezia (Italy) and their roots date back to the late sixties under the name Nuova Esperienza. In 1969 they changed their name into Magia Nera (Black Magic), inspired by the sounds of bands such as Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple and started playing covers and composing original material. In the early seventies the band had a good live activity on the local scene and took part with a good success to some music festivals such as the Free Festival Pop of Bottagna. When all was ready for a deal with the label Magma Records something went wrong and the band split up without recording anything … More than forty years later Magia Nera reunited with almost all the original members to complete what they had left behind. In 2017 Magia Nera finally released their debut album.

Although GRUPPO AUTONOMO SUONATORI – or G.A.S. – has existed well over two decades by now, no sooner than last summer they released their debut album via Black Widow. And a very fine RPI album it is. The musicianship is excellent and so is the production. Stylistically the band could be taken as a prime example of the very faithful contemporary representation of the classic Italian prog…