AFFRESCO

Like Gino D'Eliso, Maurizio Arcieri or even Lucio Battisti, Franco Maria Giannini (born as Aldo Parente) was a singer/songwriter from Rome who tried his luck with a progressive LP in mid- 70's.His musical career included the 60's beat groups I Baronetti and Under 2000, then under the nickname Folkado he released a single in 1972 and toured Italy with his trademark, a distinctive puppet.In 1974 he released his first full-length work ''Affresco'' on the obscure Aris label.

A good effort in an Art Rock/Pop Prog vein, the album offers short and pleasant numbers of artistic value with a wide range of influences but always maintaining a cliche song-based structure.Giannini was helped by Libra's guitarist Nicola Di Staso and Quella Vecchia Locanda's violin player Claudio Filice for this work.''Affresco'' is dominated by Giannini's sensational voice and fantastic vocal arrangements, that can do nothing else than thrill the listener.The compositions have rather simple structures however with plenty of twists outside a typical songwriter album: Orchestral passages with interesting use of synths and even some nice trumpets, light Classical-parts guided by elegant piano, some nice string arrangements with violin on the front and even some use of mandolin reminiscent of late-70's LE ORME, strong psychedelic guitars and folsky acoustic moments.The musicianship goes from a sensitive vocal-based sound to more grandiose instrumental atmospheres and combined with Giannini's unique voice offers plenty of moments of delight for the most of its part.

Giannini sadly dissapeared from the music scene for some time, only releasing more recently a few self-produced albums, distributed via his personal website.

A nice surprise of 70's Italian Art Rock with a rich sound, which ends up to be a winner even for fans of adventurous Progressive Rock with its sole flaw being the amateur sounding choir parts in the style of early NEW TROLLS.If you are into the specific style, this comes even highly recommended.