Friday, April 09, 2010

Sensazioni - "Doctor Faust Suite" {Italy} [1981]

It amazes me that there are still true progressive gems out there to be shared, not yet released to cd, not well known. I wonder just how bottomless the pit is, of 70s albums in this genre, or when we will finally start scraping the bottom of that barrel. One thing I do know is we're close to the end when it comes to St Pierre et Miquelon progressive bands.

Regarding Italy, here is a true late progressive treasure which to my knowledge is not out generally for the fans. It is mostly memorable for a fantastic side-long track, which recounts the famous story of Dr. Faust in symphonic style, beautiful arrangements with string synths, guitars and piano, a dark atmosphere, reminiscent of masters Banco in the way the themes are worked and redeveloped throughout. Starting out with three notes of a minor scale then an augmented fourth, very atmospherically it moves into some mysterious sounds, some piano invention, then some sung passages... A gritty uptempo end part full of minor seconds harkens back to the energy of Banco's Darwinian album. How odd, to hear this true-blue prog in 1981 Italia! I guess this band exchanged their afterlife in posterity for the ability to write great music -- exactly the opposite of most pop bands. Their curse was to write advanced music no one would like, at least no one but maybe a couple thousand in a population of almost 7 billion now.
A couple of tracks are poppish or discoish in a way that reminds me of Il Volo's albums, still some progressive elements pull us fans back from the edge of nausea, well, maybe some of you will require antiemetics on the third track. A fourth track of reflections of autumn really hits the spot in good songwriting. The last track incorporating some 80s beats makes me feel sad since the band was really trying to come up with a single style of radio-friendly unit style-shifting song.
Fabulous side-long though all in all makes this worth a listen or twenty.

Doctor Faust Suite...

16 comments:

Tristan Stefan said...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HH91HBFQ

Unknown said...

where fif you dig this up,man?
this was on my wantlist for a long time,a real winner!

so much thanks stefan!

lou said...

obrigado
from Portugal

Anonymous said...

Hi Isabel

The great track is a true killer !

Have you the tracklist please ?

Thank you very much!

sosgotcha

isabelbc said...

hi Phil,
Maybe Tristan can help us...
Here we can see the cover back but seems impossible read it http://trieste.olx.it/doctor-faust-suite-vinile-33-progressive-le-sensazioni-iid-10997545
Cheers,
Isabel

website: http://www.lesensazioni.it

Unknown said...

Also note: http://italianprogrock.com/album.php?id=586

Side 1 was the 20 minute title suite, four shorter tracks. From the pictures I can make out a little...

1. Doctor Faust Suite
2. Sensazione ???
3. Riflessioni d'autunno
4. Lenta un'???
5. Giocchi d'??

Aside from 1 and 3, it's guesswork, and since I don't know Italian, I could be way off.

Anonymous said...

new link

http://lix.in/-7d51a8

the saucer people said...

I am probably going to make myself highly unpopular but I actually look out for late seventies/early eighties records that are generally labelled 'progressive' and have vague disco/dance crossover as they often blow away the actual disco/dance tracks of the same era. The sad thing is that they are rejected by both camps 'too disco for the progheads and too prog for the discoheads' so often this music gets overlooked....

Anyone know any more prog albums that had one, two or more disco-ish dance-ish tracks (The two 1979 Can albums, the Amon Duul II 'Spainards & Spacemen' as well as the 1979 Guru Guru Sun Band are very good examples of this micro-genre and no suprise they are considered almost heretical releases by the kosmischeheads...me, I think they have their own charm ;) *now wait for the bricks to fly in my direction* ;)

Misongod said...

can someone be so kind and reup this one?
Thanks in advance
Dom

isabelbc said...

olá Dom,

link http://lix.in/-7d51a8 nos comentários está funcionando ;)

Isabel :o)

Misongod said...

Olá Isabel.
O problema é que não consigo extrair as duas primeiras faixas. Fiz o download pelo RS e pelo MEGA,e em ambos diz: Não compativel. Estranho...
Obrigado pela resposta.

isabelbc said...

olá Dom,
aqui um novo link, especialmente para você! ;p
http://uploadmirrors.com/download/1AJWS3AO/ProgNotFrog-Sensazioni-DoctorFaustSuite_ita_81_.rar
bom fim de semana querido amigo
Isabel :o)

Misongod said...

Olá Isabel.
Muito obrigado.
Saudações
Dom

Anonymous said...

Could you reupload this one again? Thanks in advance!

isabelbc said...

new link http://netkups.com/?d=9d0aefec43447

Anonymous said...

pleassssseeeeee isabel, new link,
muchas gracias amiga

att. Manuel

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