IL SISTEMA

Initially the order of the day here is scratchy, reckless and noisy instrumentals driven by waves of Hammond organ, rattling drumwork and heavy distorting murky bass, with just the occasional unhinged, melancholic and slightly brooding vocal. As the compilation progresses, you get deranged and dark psychedelic pop/rockers, sophisticated improvisations involving flute and saxophone as more members joined the original trio (bringing us closer to the RPI trademarks Italian bands would start incorporating), grand ambitious progressive works and occasionally some very naughty grooves that will have your foot tapping in no time!

Two numbers are especially dirty, offering plenty of pelvis swiveling wonderful sexy noise to lead your 60's gothic lady to the dancefloor - `Dinamica E Cibernetica' has a hugely dramatic quaking cymbal, murky underwater bass and imposing church organ intro before a twisting, noisy and reckless guitar thrashing groove tears the piece apart. `Sangue Sulle Ruote' is begging to be included on a compilation of rare Italian prog singles, with its wild howling devilish almost Hendrix- like vocals, filthy alternating bass grooves, darting unhinged flute and ragged saxophone not unlike from Delirium's third album. Simply killer stuff, with heaps of grit and mud to get under your nails here. Maddening percussion and machine gun rattling drumwork wraps around some spooky spiraling Hammond tension and stalking crumbling bass in `Lugubre', plenty of deep dark psych terror in this one! One of my favourites on the disc, `Flautando', is a brief light-footed and tasteful catchy melodic jazzy number with trilling flute and Hammond so warm and comforting it could be served in a saucer to your cat.

Of course it's the longer pieces here that will draw the most attention from progressive fans. Ten minute opener `Il Viaggio Senza Andata' is all confident repetitive take-charge drumming tornadoes, distorted plodding bass and cooking thick oven-hot Hammond runs, very cool stuff indeed as I listen with my sunglasses on and nod my head in approval, stroking my chin where a beard should be. The messy and totally addictive `I Pensieri Del Mattino' is a strange one - drawled Jimi Hendrix-like vocals, a bass line that attempts to break into `Day Tripper' by the Beatles on several occasions, all competing in a range of speeds and tempos back and forth - and just listen to how effortlessly the band starts burning together at exactly the three minute mark. Classical interpretation `Una Notte Sul Monte Calvo' is like a deranged version of works that Beggars Opera, Bram Stoker and The Nice attempted, even reminding me of `In Concertro' by Le Orme, as this one is full of that same scuzzy organ and end of days drumming.

But the 15 minute `Il Pozzo' is an early tour-de-force and a bit of a classic, blending acid folk acoustic guitar, crooned gothic vocals, serrated cutting saxophone, disorientating organ noise, ambient electronic melancholy and maddening time changes. Lots of unease and delicate psych flavours here, the beginnings of the pompous classical trademarks that would infect RPI soon after, and the murky sound quality gives it all a very wasted and dangerous edge, like the musicians were locked in a dungeon, only a rusty knife between them to settle their frustrations and to keep the Devil out the door. I even hear a more unhinged version of what fellow Italian band Triade went on to do here, as well as some berserk Van der Graaf Generator-type bluster and King Crimson hostility. Along with the terrifying avant-garde experiment nightmare sound collage `Campo 11', full of screeching wailing torment and scratching metallic percussion, these types of tracks keep you holding your breath and trying to survive.

So the sound quality is quite average a lot of the time, but personally I'm a total sucker for those early heavy Hammond/organ heavy proto-prog kind of albums by acts such as The Nice, Bodkin, early Santana band and numerous others. Prog-related music doesn't come much sexier than this to my ears, and the later more daring tracks like `Il Pozzo' and `Campo 11' are truly dazzling with their ambition and variety. The surviving records of Il Sistema are a shimmering noisy world away from the lush and delicate pillows of Celeste and intense prog of Museo Rosenbach, but there's plenty here for fans of proto prog and the beginnings of RPI to treasure.

Three and a half stars, bumped up to four.

Despite the presence of later MUSEO ROSENBACH Enzo Merogno and Leonardo Lagorio or CELESTE's leader Ciro Perrino,the hero of the band is undoubtfully organist Floriano Roggero.Their sound is actually a unique combination of heavy organ-loaded rock in the vein of DEEP PURPLE, Classical Prog close to THE NICE,while you should also add some elements later to be heard on MUSEO ROSENBACH's ''Zarathustra''. Unfortunately the production is really bad,reminding me of CORTE DEI MIRACOLI's ''Dimenzione onirica''.About half of the tracks have a classical inspiration with tons of organ and a slow- tempo,supported by heavy bass and some flutes as well,like on ''Una notte sul monte calvo'', an adaption of Mussorgsky's ''A night on a bare mountain''.The other half is actually a combination of dark-sounding Proto-Progressive Rock, containing complex organ parts and obscure structures with hints of MUSEO ROSENBACH and early KING CRIMSON (listen to the distinctive saxes here and there), and soft keyboard/flute-driven themes with a delicate atmosphere.

Actually the album is mostly instrumental and fans of old'n'vintage Proto-Prog will love this album. It is really a pity that the production is under mediocrity,as all of the compositions are on a good level and some of them could have been really great tracks,if taped in an appropriate and more proffesional way.Nevertheless,IL SISTEMA's early recordings are a great example of good Italian prog and should please fans who are after bands in the vein of THE NICE, BEGGAR'S OPERA, CORTE DEI MIRACOLI, FANTASY or CRESSIDA.A decent release of qualitive late-60's/early-70's progressive rock.

Well, i started saying that because i would like to let you know something very important, Il Sistema despite being a very unknown band and having released only one record, is a very important band in the history of the development of the progressive rock in Italy, one of the father`s of the RPI movement and most important, the band that gathered excellent members that later went to create a couple of "monsters". Ciro Perrino on percussions and Leonardo Lagorio on flute and horns, later formed that magnific band called "Celeste" and created the always beautiful "Principe di un Giorno" album, whereas guitarist Enzo Merogno later formed "Museo Rosembach" and of course recorded a masterpiece called "Zarathustra" that every prog fan should know.

Besides those 3 member previously mentioned, Il Sistema had the collaboration of Floriano Roggero on keys and Luciano Cavanna on bass, they recorded several songs in the late 60`s-early 70`s but did not release any album until 1992 when Mellow took them and released "Il Viaggio Senza Andata". Actually the quality of the recording sound is poor, it would have been much better with an appropiate one, but anyway the music is still great. This album has 10 songs and over 70 minutes of music, since the very first song you will notice the "old" style and sound, very 70`s and Italian, hope you know what i mean.

Here we can find some mini epics and very complex songs, if not the best, believe me that they are great if we go to that era whe nprog movement was taking off, there are a couple of 9-minute tracks and other 2 of more than 10 minutes, so after all this are part of the roots of that movement, though the music here has nothing to do with Celeste for instance.

I wont review song by song but i will tell you some of my favorite moments, normally i love the epics and they are my favorite songs of the albums, here the song i love the most is a shorter one called "Dinamica e Cibernetica" when we can listen an excellent keyboard playing with an exquisite tune and also great drums, this is a short instrumental song.

"Lugubre" is a dark song with ironically some bombastic moments, it is excellent maybe an improvisation that they liked and recorded later. "Una Notte Sul Monte Calvo" is reminiscent to Mussorgsky and it could be called as an excellent mini tribute, the keyboards are great and also here we can appreciate the sound of sax and flute, the other songs that i mentioned dont have vocals, here it does have vocals as well as a few other songs. And the last song "Sangue Sulle Rote" is great a bit bluesy and hard rocker to be Italian, but that is why the song is great, here predominates the flwind instruments.

Songs like "Il Pozzo" and "Campo 11" are not godd at all and pretty boring.

So, musically the album is good, not the best for sure, but historically this band played a very important role and just for that should be more recognized and heard by more people, so i invite members and non Prog Archive members to listen to Il SIstema and know the roots of better known bands.

3 stars!

Il Sistema their music (from the era between 1969 and 1971) is mainly based upon the powerful sound of the Hammond organ (evoking Gregg Rolie) in long tracks like Il Pensieri Del Mattino and Dinamica E. Cibernitica, I am sure you will be carried away! Along the omnipresent Hammond organ, we can also enjoy good work on saxophone, flute and electric guitar and some vocals with a melancholical undertone. The only disappointing track is Il Pozzo, it's too long and it sounds cacaphonic, a maverick on this CD that has a running time of more than 70 minutes. The recording quality is not very good but if you are up to a decent bootleg sound, this CD is one to discover.