L'isola di niente | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | March 1974 | |||
Genre | Progressive rock | |||
Length | 35:29 | |||
Language | Italian and English | |||
Label | Numero Uno | |||
Producer | Claudio Fabi | |||
Premiata Forneria Marconi chronology | ||||
| ||||
Original Studio Album chronology | ||||
|
L'isola di niente ("The Isle of Nothing") is the third studio album by Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi, released in 1974. Like the group's previous albums, it is sung in Italian and performed well in Italy. An English version of the album, The World Became the World, was recorded in the same session. It features the same track list along with an English version of the band's first single "Impressioni di Settembre". English lyrics were written by Peter Sinfield.
L'isola di niente is a progressive rock album which has been described as being more complex than their previous records, additionally incorporating elements of jazz rock. In a retrospective Allmusic review, the album was given a positive review, being deemed PFM's last masterpiece, yet was rated slightly lower than their previous records. Tracks such as "La Luna Nuova" and "Dolcissima Maria" continue to be performed in their live set.
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [1] |
L'isola di niente is a progressive rock album at its core, yet shows greater influences from jazz fusion music. [2] Described as more complex and confusing than their previous records, it ranges from symphonic rock-oriented progressive songs ("La Luna Nuova") to jazz rock-influenced pieces ("Via Lumiere"). [3] The lyrics are also sung in Italian, with the exception of the second track, "Is My Face on Straight?". The album continues the presence of long tracks, especially "L'isola di niente" which is 10:48 minutes long, and makes use of a synthesized choir. [4]
In an Allmusic review, François Couture wrote positively on the album, giving it a four out of five star rating, [5] and labelling it a "masterpiece" and "one of the first Italian progressive rock wave's finest records", [6] despite deeming it more "confusing" than its predecessors and "more of an acquired taste". [7]
All tracks are written by Franco Mussida, Mauro Pagani, and Flavio Premoli, except where noted
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "L'isola di niente" | 10:48 | |
2. | "Is My Face on Straight" | Mussida, Premoli, Peter Sinfield | 6:41 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
3. | "La luna nuova" | 6:26 | |
4. | "Dolcissima Maria" | 4:08 | |
5. | "Via lumière" | Mussida, Premoli | 7:23 |
Museo Rosenbach are an Italian progressive rock band whose album Zarathustra, in spite of the limited success it scored in the 1970s, is today considered a cornerstone of the genre.
Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) is an Italian progressive rock band founded in 1970 which continues to the present day. They were the first Italian group to have success internationally. The group recorded five albums with English lyrics between 1973 and 1977. During this period they entered both the British and American charts. They also had several successful European and American tours, playing at the popular Reading Festival in England and on The Midnight Special, a popular national television program in the United States.
Flavio Premoli is an Italian musician and composer, one of the four founding members of the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM). Premoli is currently endorsed by Yamaha synthesizers and pianos, and he is an accomplished accordion performer from the age of 9. Recently, he has been writing music for many Italian TV series and commercials.
Banco del Mutuo Soccorso is an Italian rock band. A popular progressive rock band in the 1970s, they continued making music in the 1980s and 1990s. They were still active, playing live in 2001 and 2008 at NEARfest. Their charismatic frontman, Francesco Di Giacomo, died in 2014.
Mauro Pagani is an Italian musician and singer.
Il Rovescio della Medaglia, or RDM, were an Italian hard rock and symphonic rock band. They are most famous for their symphonic rock piece Contaminazione, released in 1973. It contained four pieces from Bach's Well-tempered Clavier seamlessly integrated with RDM's own music, which often was inspired by rock or hard rock. In 1974 the record was released in an English version, Contamination, with the group's name simplified to RDM, although still written in full on the back of the LP jacket.
Per un amico is the second album from the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi. Released in 1972 by all the initial members of the group, it is considered their breakthrough album that put them on the map. The album remains popular among progressive rock fans throughout Italy and the group will usually still perform all tracks on the album today.
La buona novella is the fourth studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, released in 1970. Its plot revolves around the New Testament apocrypha.
Storia di un minuto is the first album of the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi. It was recorded in Milan and released by the Numero Uno division of RCA Records in Italy. The album topped the Italian album charts after one week from the release – the first time occurrence in the Italian charts up until then.
Photos of Ghosts is the third studio album and the first English language record by the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi, also known as PFM. Released in the U.S. in October 1973, it was the first album by an Italian rock group to appear on the American charts. The album peaked at No. 180 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in November 1973.
Chocolate Kings is the sixth album by Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi. It was released in 1975 by Numero Uno, a division of RCA Records in Italy. It was also released with different cover art by Manticore Records in the UK and Asylum Records in the USA.
Stati d'immaginazione is the sixteenth studio album by the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi, released in 2006. It was distributed in a double edition containing a CD and a DVD; the latter contains eight shorts which, in concert, are presented to the public on the big screen. The images of the videos and the music of the album were conceived as a multimedia work, based on a project by Iaia De Capitani, manager of the group.
Una radura is the second album by Gianna Nannini. It was released in 1977, and it features many guest musicians, including the Premiata Forneria Marconi.
Jet Lag is the fifth album of the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi, released in 1977 by Asylum Records in the US and Manticore Records in Europe. This album incorporates the use of fretless bass in the sound and has a jazzier feel in comparison to the band's previous efforts. Four of the five tracks with vocals are sung in English. "Cerco la Lingua" is the only one sung in Italian. The album is also the first one not featuring founding member Mauro Pagani, who left the band the year before to pursue solo projects.
Acqua Fragile is an Italian progressive rock band, active from 1971 to 1975 and from 2013 to the present. The band was established in the city of Parma. Bernardo Lanzetti, leader and vocalist of the band, is best known for his work with Premiata Forneria Marconi and has played in many other progressive rock acts, including neoprogressive band Mangala Vallis.
Le nuvole is an album by Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio De André, released in 1990. The songs were written by Fabrizio De André and Mauro Pagani. As Pagani revealed in an interview within the 2011 DVD biographical documentary series Dentro Faber, he is responsible for the writing of most of the music, while De André wrote all of the lyrics – except for Don Raffaè, detailed below, whose lyric writing is shared between De André and singer-songwriter Massimo Bubola, and the lyrics to the two songs in Genoese on side B, "Mégu megún" and "'Â çímma", which De André co-wrote with fellow Genoan Ivano Fossati because, according to De André, his colleague's ability to play with the sounds and the inner melodies of the Genoese dialect was much better than his own. Pagani's collaboration with De André, always according to the Lombard musician, happened in an identical way for De André's previous album, Crêuza de mä, with Pagani setting to music De André's already fully written lyrics, on the basis of a few melodic ideas from the latter. His next songwriting collaboration with Fossati, on Anime salve, would be more equally balanced, with he and Fossati composing music by actually playing together.
Franco Mussida is an Italian guitarist, composer, and singer.
Alberto Radius was an Italian guitarist, singer-songwriter, arranger, and record producer. Besides his solo career, he is well-known as a member of the group Formula 3 and for his collaboration with prominent artists such as Lucio Battisti and Franco Battiato.
Fabrizio De André in Concerto - Arrangiamenti PFM ["In Concert—Arrangements by PFM"] is a 1979 live album by Fabrizio De André featuring Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi, also known as PFM, as his backing band, recorded during their successful 1979 tour of Italy and Europe. Built on powerful, complex and carefully crafted rock arrangements, either by single band members or by the band as a unit, the album marked a significant stylistic and musical departure for De André, whose output up to that point had always employed acoustic-based, folk arrangements, occasionally branching into pop but never overtly using rock structures and instrumentation. Upon release, the album became immediately very popular and paved the way for other Italian singer-songwriters for their own transition from a folk style into a more rock-oriented one. The album was followed by a Volume 2 the next year, recorded during the same shows.
The World Became the World is Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi's second international release, an English-language version of their third studio album L'isola di niente. It was released in June 1974 on Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Manticore Records label in the US. Like the group's previous English-language album Photos of Ghosts (1973), the band recorded new English lyrics from King Crimson and ELP lyricist Peter Sinfield, not translations of the original Italian lyrics. It was recorded in the same session as L'isola de niente. It features the same tracks, plus "The World Became the World", an English-language version of the band's first single "Impressioni di Settembre", from the album Storia di un minuto (1972). These were the first recording sessions were the first to feature new bassist Patrick Djivas, who replaced founding member Giorgio Piazza, and remains with the band to this day.