AREA DI SERVIZO

Riccardo Pirolli was a Sicilian musician who had some early singles before playing guitar on the Franco Battiato album "Fetus" (credited as Riccardo Rolli there but it is the same man.) As they were friends and label-mates on Bla Bla records, Battiato decided to help Pirolli with his solo project for which he gave the name Genco Puro & Co. Battiato helped Pirolli by singing on two tracks and according to some was responsible for writing or co-writing seven of the album's twelve tracks under the moniker "Ed De Joy." There were other musicians as well but the only one known to me is Bruno Canzian of Capsicum Red/I Pooh fame. Interestingly, every track is co-written and credited to "Conz" which sounds an awful lot like a shortened version nick-name of Canzian. Pirolli himself is credited with co-writing five tracks. This would be his only album but Pirolli would continue in the music field as an arranger and engineer.

The Genco Puro sound is definitely on the lighter, folksier, more pop side of the early Italian Prog scene. This is nothing like Semiramis or Balletto di Bronzo, this is one of those melodic singer/songwriter albums. The songs are short and mostly built around keyboards, acoustic guitars, and pleasant Italian vocals. The prog flavorings are definitely there in the form of mellotron and Moog experimentations, the latter Moog treatments with a period trippy feeling on some songs. While the album feels pretty unremarkable at first it is one of those albums with strong melodies-if you continue to play it these simple songs will begin to work into your skull to stay. The strength of the album lies not in the proggy tendencies but in the quality of the simple songwriting and heartfelt melody, with wonderful piano playing frequently adding feelings of nostalgia and longing to the pieces. Battiato takes over the vocals on "Giorno D'Estate" which is one of more unremarkable tracks actually. But his other lead vocal is more interesting on the faraway "Nebbia" with its echoed vocals and experimental bent-great track. "La Mia Citta" picks up substantially into a playful rocker with full band and again the Moog, Pirolli unfortunately does get a bit carried away with it, employing it on almost every track. "Come un Fiume" is probably the compositional highlight putting all the various components together with a more ambitious feel. Nice rolling pianos atop acoustic guitar and mellotron with some astute drum work keeping everything in line. Side A certainly contains the bulk of the good material while the second side begins to drag. The closer "Burattini" champions the second half with a heavy bass line chugging over mellotron and some odd repetitive notes.

"Area Di Servizio" is certainly an album that Battiato fans will want to own, and a modest recommendation to those who love lighter, shorter song-based Italian Prog. It is a pleasant melodic piece of RPI history but certainly not essential for anyone else. This is for those with a serious commitment to Italian progressive music (we know who we are!) The BTF/VM remaster is a gatefold mini-lp sleeve and comes with two bonus tracks that are more rocking and feisty. Unfortunately the liner notes/artist history are pretty scant on this one. 2 ½ affectionate stars.

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