Soave Italy Vinyl & CDs

Review: It's reductive to say that Dr. Steven T. Birchall's 1973 album is an exercise in academic electronica. Nevertheless, when the heads who don't already know get wind of the fact he used an EMS Putney (AKA a VCS-3), Ampex MM-1000 16 trk, DBX noise reduction, SpectraSonics Console, Studer A80 Recorder, Eventide Clockworks, Instant Phaser, Cooper Time Cube and EMT Reverb to achieve this stunner there's bound to be some note taking.
Plucked from a more innocent period in synthesised production, yet also one that was far more complex in terms of what was needed to achieve forward-thinking sounds, after pressing play you can't help but picture Birchall as some mad genius surrounded by vast arrays of machines, wires, plugs and intermittently blinking lights. In truth, the finished product is every bit that cosmic and explorative, a true testament to how much people back then thought the future would sound. Yet it's also very much a human feeling thing when heard today, its analogous tones both naive and familiar.

Review: Arturo Stalteri might be best known to many as a Philip Glass collaborator (Circles) and avid (and talented) adapter of Brian Eno's works. In truth, the former member of Italian avant-prog-rockers Pierrot Lunaire has amassed a pretty extensive body of music that's well worth spending some time pouring over, not least because he seems to throw himself into some pretty conceptual ideas.

This 1979 album was put together when he returned to Rome after two months in India, and while this might raise 21st Century eyebrows in a cultural appropriation way, when you press play nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, it seems to overflow with exoticism, but the largely-organ and piano driven ambient work here doesn't belong in any specific place. Instead, it just has the same sense of fantastical adventure that comes with finding somewhere new.