VOLANDO

Soft, warm '70s vibes

I could have believed what I read about Dik Dik. Over and over I read they were really an Italian pop/beat group who changed styles for convenience to deliver 1972's wonderful Donna. But then I saw one of my prog vendors offering a new mini-lp sleeve with this proggy album cover and figured I had to check it out. So, yeah. Well it could be worse. It's even grown on me after repeated plays. But lest you toy with succumbing to the prog maiden as I have, let me warn you as the others have: this is not Donna.

Recorded in late '75 - early '76 "Volando" is clearly a retreat to the melodic Italian pop/rock songs of the 3-5 minute range, although there has been some retention of sound if not composition. By this time there had been line-up changes and Dik Dik had actually picked up some members of the RPI heyday, including Hunka Munka's Roberto Carlotto and Osage Tribe's Nunzio "Cucciolo" Favia. They were however bringing only their musical talents and not their prior progressive era tricks. "Volando" offers the listener soft and romantic pop/rock ballads and simple, very "hummable" melodies with lots of vocal harmonies and gentle fade-outs. They sound mostly like love songs although I don't understand Italian lyrics. Gentle crooning of repetitive verses and choruses with the occasional drop of a tasteful guitar or keyboard solo. You can however expect the classy and warm Italian feel in the arrangements and instrumentation: lovely female background vocals in the title track, crisp acoustic guitars delicately played, lots of pretty keyboards and mellotron, and mostly soothing, romantic lead vocals. It is still very much in the '70s vein of pop sounds, not yet the slick and emotionally empty drivel that some bands would stoop to in the 1980s. What you should not expect is anything like the wild and crazy Italian prog albums of the 71-74 period, no compositional insanity or instrumental daredevilism. Every once in a while they drop a little teaser that sounds like they remember the prog days, like the dramatic and beautiful instrumental opening of Carlotto's "Cavalli Alati." The album closes with an sentimental cover of The Mamas And The Papas "California Dreamin" and the 2002 M2U Records cd version offers a live bonus track "L'isola di Wight." In fact that's probably the right single word to choose to sum up the overall feel of "Volando"---sentimental. And since I am a fairly sentimental guy, I guess it's fine that I ended up with this album in my collection, even if not a progger's delight.

While this is not a bad album it does require 2 stars from me as the description of "for fans" of the genre surely applies. If you love the melodic Italian pop tradition or Dik Dik in general, you may wish to add this pretty soft-rock album to your collection. Just don't expect the wild ride of 1972's RPI roller coaster. 2 1/2 stars.

Those who know the history of Dik Dik cannot consider them a simple Beat band that moved on to playing Progressive Rock in 1972, since Dik Dik had already been doing it since 1967 with the cover of "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" by Procol Harum (Ok, it's Proto Prog... But that's not important). What matters is that with "Suite per una donna assolutamente relativa" in 1972 was their real entrance into the world of Progressive Rock. The problem was not only the music was too pretentious but the cover was really ugly and people just left the album on the shelves. But Dik Dik must have had a big following because they sold a lot of singles and that pushed them to continue the adventure. In 1976 with the entry into the lineup of Roberto "Humka Munka" Carlotto and Nunzio "Cucciolo" Favia, Dik Dik produced "Volando" an album that could have represented a great success because it was a really beautiful album. But they had not taken into account the crisis of certain music (Progressive Rock above all) and a chaotically updated repertoire not in line with their history.

"Volando" opens with a cover of "Sailing" by the Sutherland Brothers in the most famous version by Rod Stewart with new lyrics redone in Italian which is nothing short of wonderful. "Mese di maggio" doesn't mean anything to me but it's not bad. "Cavalli Alati", one of the darkest and most Progressive songs produced in Italy, which reminds me of PFM, Banco del Mutio Soccorso and Le Orme. "È amore" is a great example of Italian melodic POP as much as "Contrada" is a great example of symphonic Folk Rock in PFM style but closer to POP (even if it could fit perfectly in a PFM album). Beautiful is "Come una bambina" which features an excellent Roberto "Hunka Munka" Carlotto and a great and very emotional singing part in a piece halfway between Italian melodic POP and Rock. "I' te vurria vasà" is the famous Neapolitan song by Vincenzo Russo and Eduardo di Capua. If we judge it as a cover I have to say that it is really beautiful, However with Dik Dik it has practically nothing to do with it and fails to be acceptable for this group (in fact it is one of the most criticized songs of Dik Dik). In this version it is a bad copy of Alunni del Sole. However, I repeat, if you listen to it without knowing that Dik Dik play it, it is a beautiful song. "Vecchio solaio" has yet another wonderful text by Vito Paradiso (ex De De Lind) but is ruined by the keyboard solo that has nothing to do with it. Interesting, not to say brilliant, is "Futuro Presente" that anticipates Eugenio Finardi and has a Vasco Rossi-style singing but that, in that moment, sounds like New Trolls. A beautiful song not very Dik Dik but that partly recalls "Cavall alati" and has a fantastic section of solos of keyboards by Roberto "Hunka Munka" Carlotto and an extraordinary drums by Nunzio "Cucciolo" Favia. "Latte azzurro" is a ballad with an extraordinary accompaniment work by Roberto "Hunka Munka" Carlotto with a singing a bit in the style of Le Orme in a very singer-songwriter but wonderful piece. The album closes with a new version of their evergreen "Sognando la California" (that is, the Italian version of "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas & The Papas) which I find very fantastic. Here there are only guitars and voice and the arrangement is a kind of symphonic thing which makes it very powerful.

"Volando" è un album sottovalutato/ sconosciuto. Non solo perché i Dik Dik non hanno mai avuto successo con gli album o perché uscito nel periodo delle canzoni sbagliate/ che non centravano nulla con il repertorio dei Dik Dik ma, a mio modesto avviso, perché uscito troppo tardi. Fosse uscito al posto di "Suite per una donna assolutamente relativa" nel 1972 avrebbe potuto riscrivere la storia dei Dik Dik e della musica italiana.