An Italian prog classic. Colorful, ornate songs performed on a veritable army of instruments -- piano, harpsichord, organ, flute, violin, piccolo, bells, virtually every kind of guitar, something called a mandocello -- broken up by pretty vocal sections, and full of stylistic hairpin turns that somehow make perfect sense in context.
Track listing:
1. Appena un po
2. Generale!
3. Per un amico
4. Il banchetto
5. Geranio
More Italian prog:
Very good record indeed. Being an American, the first I heard of PFM was an LP called Photos of Ghosts-- mostly new recordings of these songs with new lyrics in English by Pete Sinfield, who was then co-writing with Greg Lake, and because of that connection, ELP's vanity label released three PFM albums and brought them over for a tour. There was another record soon after that called Chocolate Kings, with a different lyricist, a new singer, and more intricate guitar parts, kinda like if Hatfield and the North deliberately write a Genesis pastiche.
ReplyDeleteI've never listened to Chocolate Kings, I'll have to check that out, thanks!
DeleteHi do you have Anthony Meynell – Passengers On Trains (1995), thanks
ReplyDeleteNever heard of it, sorry
Deletemandolinny and I are of a mind on this. I will add that the sound on the first US issue of Photos was severely limited and compressed. It's refreashing the peel off that layer of film and hear the original full fidelity recording. Thx
ReplyDeleteWow, playing live they must have outnumbered their public more than once.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, thanks very much.
ok, let me get it straight..
ReplyDeletesince i'm italian, i'm telling you, i hate this record...
this band is awesome live, still now, even if their recent albums are awful, but i do really hate this record....
tooo symphonically romantic...
check out instead
L'ISOLA DI NIENTE
LIVE IN USA
if you're into original seventies heavy prog, two really beautiful records..
CHOCOLATE KINGS is a curious one, with BERNARDO LANZETTI on vocals, previously of ACQUA FRAGILE...
Acqua Fragile was considered a GENESIS rip off from the italian music press of the time, but PETER GABRIEL of Genesis in an interview with a frond of mine said that he loved them, and was wainting trepidantly for their new album..
JET LAG is really great if you're into diverse heavy fusion,
and PASSPARTU' too is very good, but if you cannot understand the very politically critical and surreal lyrics from GIANFRANCO MANFREDI, probably one of the finest liricist ion italy, you'll miss the whole point...
the rest of later PFM stuff, apart form the live albums, just ignore it...
on the contrary QUELLA VECCHIA LOCANDA released only two albums, but they're really MASTERPIECES of classical prog, not symphonic, but baroque heavy prog...
Lilith, unfortunately for me, from Italy