Les Doubles Faces — Addio Città (1967)

from 60’s Italian Beat Resurrection 6

Continuing in the garage vein, here’s something a little more polished—an Italian beat track from Les Doubles Faces… great garage organ sounds and haunting backup vocals singing “addio città” — “goodbye city.”

Righeira — Vamos a la playa

from Righeira (1983)

An epic Italo-disco track from 1983, from the Turin-based duo Righeira. Sounds totally carefree, but the lyrics are actually about the fallout of a nuclear bomb:

Vamos a la playa / Let’s go to the beach
todos con sombrero. / everyone with a hat.
El viento radiactivo / the radioactive wind
despeina los cabellos. / messes up your hair.

Vamos a la playa, / Let’s go to the beach
al fin el mar es limpio. / finally the sea is clean.
No más peces hediondos, / No more stinking fish,
sino agua fluorescente. / but fluorescent waters.

An odd choice for the discoteca… and this, three years before actual radioactive winds blew to Italy from Chernobyl. (The video is also worth a look, if you have a high tolerance for neon.)

Roberto Cacciapaglia — My Time

from The Ann Steel Album (1979)

This song is the best thing I’ve heard in months. It’s from a one-off collaboration between American-born model Ann Steel, who sings like a beautiful robot, and Roberto Cacciapaglia, a Milanese pianist, composer and computer music scholar. The chugging electronic beats he created here are hypnotizingly good. Pre-natal Stereolab.

Stored on the shelves of my memory / My thoughts are in perfect array
My life runs smooth like a highway / billboards show me the way
My way of life has the glamour / of an artificial neon ad
I need overwhelming information / for a complete shopping list
Acrylic colours oscillate my eyes / when i walk down a drugstore aisle

Stored on the shelves of my memory / My thoughts are in perfect array
I learn do it yourself cybernetics / While I’m jogging on a rolling tray
I love my weekends in the pure air / On the heights of the Eiffel tower
My time my time I love my time

Massara — Margherita (1979)

Today we’ve got a special double feature — one song, two ways. The first (and original) track is the Italian dancefloor hit ‘Margherita,’ aka ‘Daisy’… which repackages the “he loves me, he loves me not” children’s rhyme into an orgiastic italo-disco blow-out.

The genius behind this anthem was Pino Massara, an Italian composer and producer who wrote songs for some of the leading men and ladies of Italian music—Mina, Adriano Celentano and Nicola Arigliano among them. (This track actually samples Celentano’s 1968 hit ‘Azzurro,’ which Pino did not write.)

What I would give to be in a Milanese disco circa 1979, knowing Italians’ love for sing-alongs… pazzesco.

(Stay tuned for part two…)

Guido & Maurizio De Angelis — Speed Fever

from Formula uno, febbre della velocità (Speed Fever) (1979)

More robotic De Angelis beat magic from the soundtrack to Speed Fever, a Formula 1 documentary.

Guido & Maurizio De Angelis — Black Inferno

from Atlantis Interceptors soundtrack (1983)

What do you get when you combine Rambo-style macho men with machine guns, the Lost Continent of Atlantis, radioactivity, and Italo disco? Why this message in a bottle from 1983, of course! The remarkably prolific De Angelis brothers composed this track for the Italian sci-fi film I Predatori di Atlantide aka Atlantis Interceptors. And it is a doozy. As you listen, imagine this:

Two Vietnam-vets and several scientists face an extraordinary battle for survival against descendants of Atlantis’ original race, when the Lost Continent emerges in the Caribbean following radioactive leakage from a sunken Russian nuclear submarine. Calling themselves “Interceptors”, the murderous Atlanteans set about reclaiming the world by killing everyone and destroying everything in sight. It is up to Mike, Washington and Dr. Cathy Rollins to uncover the secret behind their existence and use it against them in order to stop the interceptors’ apocalyptic rampage.

This post courtesy of a tip the other day from follower Captain Entropy, who says “My favorite Italo disco track from the soundtrack of one of my favorite films.”

Get it at Egg City Radio.

Rete 105 — Vacanze (Instrumental) (1983)

This is Italy at its funky best—when the ol’ boot starts tapping on the disco floor. These are the DJs of Milan’s Radio Studio 105 aka Rete 105 singing a cover of the 1982hit ‘Vacances j’oublie tout,’ by French group Elegance. Doesn’t this kinda make you wish you were chilling with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer in the VIP room… doing what VIPs do? Too cool.

I’m posting this track also to showcase the TERRIFIC blog YING/YANGS, where you should head tout de suite. It’s home to so many alluring posts you’re sure to waste lots of time there discovering tracks like this. Also check out his sexy Japanese comps…what led me there in the first place. Thank you YING/YANGS!

Cube — Two Heads are Better Than One (1982)

Ready, set, dance. Very catchy synth-driven Italo-disco from Bologna in the early 80s. The trio is Englishman Paul Griffiths on guitar and vocals, backed by his Italian buddies Rudy Trevisi and Serse Mai, who play everything else, mostly stuff requiring a plug.

Gigliola Cinquetti — La Pioggia (The Rain) (1969)

Italian pop with an identity crisis, from a girl from fair Verona, Gigliola Cinquetti. She hit the big time when she was just 16, taking first place at San Remo in 1964.

Five years later she sung this bizarre track, ‘La Pioggia,’ which alternates stylistically between polka, circus music, 60s beat and spy movie soundtrack, but she lost out to the Roman Elvis wanna-be, Bobby Solo, with his track ‘Zingara’ (Gypsy).

Chrisma — Aurora B.

from Hibernation (1979)

More from Chrisma, this time more glammy synth-pop than minimalist rock, with a Lynch-style video to match. Be warned that the video is slightly spicy.

Chrisma — C-Rock

from Chinese Restaurant (1977)

Electrifying Italian New Wave performed by the husband-and-wife team Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser. (Chris-Ma, get it?) The duo formed in 1976 in Milan, and relocated to London shortly thereafter, where they teamed up with the producer Vangelis (who scored Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire).

Working with Vangelis and his brother Nico, they recorded this debut. This song isn’t terribly complex but it’s what it leaves out that makes it so epic. A bare-bones masterpiece with pared-down drums (the high-hat trill is great) and muted electric guitar. Sounds almost Krautrock-like in its simplicity. The stage antics, however, were not so elegant:

During the promotional tour for Chinese Restaurant, Maurizio was known to perform a trick onstage in which he appeared to cut off his finger with a razor. The trick, referred to as a “finger job,” attracted considerable press attention.

On their next album, Hibernation, they whipped out the hairspray and the glam jams. More to come…stay tuned.

Their website isn’t pretty to look at but it has plenty of information if you want to dig deeper. (These two Chinese Restaurant promo shots are from there).

Confusional Quartet — Beguine sulla Luna

from Confusional Quartet LP (1980)

I can’t for the life of me remember how this album ended up on my computer, but the fact is, it did. It’s a bizarre Italian prog/new-wave/jazz group from Bologna, who performed in white jumpsuits.

This number sounds like a slow, spacy rumba. In fact, it’s a beguine (on the moon), as the title indicates—a combination of latin folk dance and French ballroom dance popular in the 1930s, hailing from the Caribbean. Cole Porter has a tune called ‘Begin the Beguine,’ for starters, sung here by the lovely Sardinian singer Lia Origoni.

Edoardo Vianello — Guarda Come Dondolo (1962)

Italian pop star Edoardo Vianello is the musical version of a bottle of suntan lotion. In the 60s at least, he seemed to be living in some sort of eternal summer. So many of his hits are odes to tanning, the beach and the mare — like ‘Abbronzatissima’ (‘Very Tan’), ‘Prendiamo In Affitto Una Barca’ (‘Let’s Rent A Boat’) or ‘Pinne fucile ed occhiali’ (‘Fins, speargun and goggles’).

This track came out in the summer of ‘62 as a b-side to ‘Pinne fucile ed occhiali’ and hit big in its own right. Produced by none other than Ennio Morricone. The video is just as classic…just look at that pathetic twist he’s doing. Too endearing.

frosty — “Celsius Drop” Cocktail Hour

Allow me to recommend the soundtrack to your next martini-sipping session—this jet-setting mix from dublab’s frosty.

These selections have been shaken and stirred to provide the perfect audio accompaniment for your next social gathering. Whether you’re dancing on moon beams or beyond these are hi-fi cuts to float you higher. Please pour yourself a stiff drink, hit the play button and swim in these sounds.

I also have to give frosty huge accolades for including Edoardo Vianello’s ‘Guarda Come Dondolo,’ a classic of Italian kitsch. Of course he did. Stay tuned for a classic video…

Mina — Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) (1967)

Yeah, you’ve heard Nancy Sinatra’s version of ‘Bang Bang’ (actually Cher’s second single)…

But have you heard it sung by the pop goddess of The Boot, la voce every Italian knows, Mina? Rocking a silver Jetsons dress down a runway of slinky guitars?

Well then, you’re in for a treat…

BANG BANG! Io sparo a te… BANG BANG! Tu spari a me… BANG BANG! E vincerà… BANG BANG! Chi al cuore colpirà…