SANDRO BRUGNOLINI - UNDERGROUND

(LP, Digital on Sonor Music Editions)

This is a different kind of Library Music record than perhaps you’re used to.  Italian maestro Sandro Brugnolini recorded both this and its counterpart Overground in 1970.  When I say it’s different, what I mean is that Underground is unabashedly psychedelic almost in its entirety.  It doesn’t sound as loungy (OK maybe a little) or as a soundtrack to any particular movie, TV show or advertisements.  Instead, it just sounds like a crack band of pros laid down some superb instrumental psych rock tracks, with hints of jazz and R&B music.

The record’s been released and re-released a couple of times in different versions and track combinations.  Originally on the Italian library label Record TV Discographica in two separate editions, Underground was re-released by Sonor Music Editions in 2014 and featured new artwork.  This new re-release restores the original artwork and includes all tracks from the various previous versions.

Those crack musicians I mentioned are Giorgio Carnini (piano, organ); Angelo Baroncini and Silvano Chimenti (guitars); Giovanni Tommaso (bass, effects); and Enzo Restuccia (drums).  Almost all the tracks are set to solid grooves thanks to Tommaso and Restuccia’s bass and drum expertise, with some like “Africaneìdico” and “Diacroméico” even set to a bubbling background for the groovy guitar and organ interplay.  Maybe they were channeling their inner 13^th Floor Elevators’ electric jug sound.  If that’s the case, I prefer this soft bubbling to the electric jug.

“Uauàico” is a particularly trippy sounding track, with Baroncini and Chimenti’s guitars all gloriously wah-wah’d and fuzzed out.  There’s a tribute to Burt Bacharach (“Bacharàchico”), with Carnini’s piano emulating the great one.  On “Respòndico,” the band seemingly pulls off the alchemy of turning nothing into something while merely playing simple ascending musical scales as the rhythm section of Tommaso and Restuccia plays rapid-fire action.  Most of Underground is highly accessible psych, but there are interludes called “Psichefreélico” that are free jazz or avant garde or whatever you want to call it; if this ever made for a movie soundtrack, those tracks would represent the bad trip scene(s).  “Dimàndico” features the squealing sound that usually means your serpentine belt needs to be replaced in your car, before Baroncini and Chimenti take over with some splendid guitar work.

Underground, as well as Overground which had its own re-release by Sonor in 2024, represents some of the best Italian Library Music from the golden age.  Props to Sonor for continuing to restore these classics and letting them see the light of day.

(Mark Feingold)

AUGUSTÍN PEREYRA LUCENA – PUERTOS DE ALTERNATIVA

(LP, CD, Digital on Far Out Recordings)

Here’s another delight rescued from private press obscurity, this first-time LP reissue of a 1988 recording from Argentinian acoustic guitar virtuoso Augustín Pereyra Lucena.  We loved his 1980 album La Rana, also reissued by Far Out Recordings, in 2021.  That album was recorded in Oslo as he and his band were getting as far as humanly possible from oppressive South American military dictatorships, and was an audible burst of joy because of it.  By 1988 he had returned to his native Buenos Aires, and this album is much more personal and intimate, taking in what was by now the influences of a great deal of world travel.  It’s also breathtakingly beautiful.

Pereyra Lucena’s music rarely strayed far from the Brazilian guitar masters he adored, which is apparent right from the start with his own composition “Luces de Valeria.”  The carefree, bouncy tropical-sounding track sets the mood perfectly as your dopamine kicks in immediately.  A pair of my favorite tracks on the album, Baden Powell’s “Pequeño Vals” and Guillermo Reuter’s “Tema Barrocco” both start in a Latin classical guitar style, then as he changes tempos and introduces percussion, the works transform into a jazzier and breezier vibe.  When Alejandro Santos’s flute comes in midway through “Pequeño Vals” your already elevated pleasure center steps up another rung.  Likewise, when Guillermo Reuter adds shaker and cymbals to “Tema Barrocco” and Pereyra Lucena changes tempo and style from baroque to a dance, you can’t help but feel instant pleasure.

Many of the tracks are melancholy and reflective, such as Pereyra Lucena’s own “Planicie (El Llano),” driven by Rubén Izarrualde’s sensitive flute playing.  The opening of “Tres Que Quedaron”has Pereyra Lucena playing soft guitar and singing wordlessly as if he’s just strumming and humming to himself in a quiet moment, but the song slowly morphs into a full band treatment of a slow, romantic jazz ballad highlighted by Bernardo Baraj’s soprano saxophone.  In another of my favorites, the ultra-gorgeous “Preparativos Maritimos” depicts sailboats lazily drifting in the sun, at least in my imagination, better than Christopher Cross ever did.  Pereyra Lucena’s gentle strumming and his distant vocals, and Guillermo Reuter’s supple acoustic bass are simply rapturous and picture perfect.

Pereyra Lucena’s guitar playing is never flashy; he’s much more about melody than pyrotechnics.  He performs here with some brilliant fellow Argentinian musicians and collaborators.  Puertos De Alternativa is such a delight from start to finish, after many blissful listenings I was elated to get to hear it yet again while sitting down for this writing.  Quiet, introspective, and full of the tuneful beauty gained by a lifetime of experience, this is a record you’ll keep coming back to when it’s time to put things right in your world.  We all need that more and more, and we’re so lucky it’s been plucked from its long quiescence.

(Mark Feingold)

CAPPING DAY - WHO DOES ANYWAY?

Available on Green Monkey

Archival releases from artists’ formative years are typically dodgy cash-in propositions, whether it’s Iggy Pop banging on tin cans for The Iguanas or Shane McGowan mumblecoring his way through tuneless, er tunes with The Nipple Erectors. Examples abound, but Green Monkey’s excavation of the quirky pop stylings of future Green Pajamas Laura Weller and Joe Ross is a welcome adventure in musical archaeology. Featuring Norman Scott on drums and Bonnie Hammond on keyboards (of course!), these recordings date back almost 30 years, eschewing  the local (Seattle) fascination with all things flannel for a more harmonious pop approach. Combining six tracks recorded by Gary King at the House Of Leisure studio in 1996 (recovered from multi-track tapes after the studio burned down) and mixed/mastered last year by the legendary Jack Endino with previously unreleased recordings, this is the ultimate presentation of one of the Pacific Northwest’s (heretofore) buried musical treasures.

     ‘Time Is In Everything’ opens the set, a lazy, laidback stroll through a sunlit meadow with beautiful harmonies and subtle guitar lines weaving in-and-out of Hammond’s meandering keyboards and tinkling xylophones. Weller is probably not the only woman to find solace in the story of Catcher In The Rye hero ‘Holden Caulfield’ but may be the only one to turn that fascination into a song. How many of us have imagined a comforting relationship with the hero of a novel (or film)? Well, “Holden Caulfield spoke to“ Laura and she fashioned that into quite the confessional.

     Both sides of the band’s debut single are included, certainly to the delight of fans who missed out on its original release 37 years ago! Full disclosure: Joe sent me a copy about 30 years ago and I still dig it out every once in a while to give it a few spins. It rated one of the Top 10 singles of 199 on a local radio station, who entered it in an EMI-sponsored college radio competition for ”Best Unsigned Band In America.” Guess who won? Unfortunately, the discussions with the label didn’t go too far, but you can finally hear what impressed them on first listen. ‘Mona Lisa’ is a bit of a stomper, with xylophones once again to the fore and a snarky Patti Smith-like vocal from Weller. Flip ‘Slow Fade’ is another jangler with a familiar-sounding rolling bassline from Ross. Where have you heard that before? Answers on a postcard, please.

     You’ll hear more xylophones on this album than anything else in your library, but ‘Waiting For The Seven’ is particularly noteworthy for the way Hammond turns it into the song’s dominant feature. And it’s more memorable for that! ‘River’s Edge’ has a funky throb from Joe, snappy backbeats from Norman, a snaking solo from Weller and an overall groove reminiscent of Lush, Breeders, Throwing Muses, et. al. Remember this is 1996! And is that a sexy, swampy ZZ Top guitar line I’m doing the tubesnake boogie to on ‘Secret Shoes’? Omnipresent xylo tinkles are an added bonus!

     The set winds down with a couple of winners saved for last: ’Recovery’ certainly invites several interpretations so have at it. Hammond’s piano is a highlight here, but a subtle bass solo from Ross also impresses. ‘Sign Of The End Times’ may have an apocryphal, unintended hint at the band and album’s unfortunate fate - or you can fit it into today’s antagonistic atmosphere 30 years ahead of time. Either way, we’re still here and while Capping Day can now be appreciated and celebrated for this archival release of what once was and what could have been, Laura and Joe eventually worked together again in Seattle’s finest psychedelic pop band The Green Pajamas. But that’s a story for another day.

(Jeff Penczak)