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Swinging Italy (CD 1998 - Sparkling Planet rec.) |
| Experiment in five beats |
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| Mission to Atlantis | “Mission to Atlantis” is a track of space-latin-jazz-groove. Just to coin the umpteenth abbreviation! In this song The Transistors have blended some shake-beat memories Jeanne Jeanne like and most of all playing on “futuristic space sounds” - typical of SABPM - is well dosed. Here, our heroes sail inside of a futurist nautilus like an imaginary b-movie about Atlandide, fruit of the unfathomed deeps of the sea, dwelt by young feminine creatures with a space-beat clothes, like in some setting of the early Start Trek. It is a track for a party, excellent for a surf-party, perhaps disguised as The Jetsons. |
| You never told me | It is a homage to the great Italian tradition of Cocktail Music, also called SABPM. The original has been composed by Piero Piccioni, so dear to R. Sakamoto, for the movie with the same title by Alberto Sordi, with the arrangements by Ennio Morricone, and sung by Julie Rogers who interprets as "Gold Finger". The lirics are obviously by the great Italian Alberto Sordi. In the version of The Transistors one has achieved the best result in the recording studio, especially thanks to Alexandra Toniutti’s highly valued voice (pop singer of the band Cellophane Flowers, belonging to the pop sixties scene of Rome) and to the warmth of the violins’ arrangements. As regards the original, a break and a pop final are present, like some Swing Out Sister or Style Councile atmosphere that play “cool” together with orchestral arrangements. The Transistors of course consider this song as the manifesto of a certain Italian Cocktail sound, even if one could say that the whole production of soundtracks by Piero Piccioni forms a fascinating recovering of one’s memories to an Italian period that lives in our subconscious. It was an age made up of T.V. Saturday nights with "Studio Uno" and the Gorny Kramer’s orchestra, consisting of Italian movies with the teen-ager Catherine Spaak and the young Chet Baker, and the generational nightmares of the average Italian man in the movies by the great Alberto Sordi. |
| Ciliegi Rosa | Originally written by Louigie/Larue and played in Italy expecially by Xavier Cugat during the fifties! This track is dedicated to Xavier Cugat! A funny idea to mix mambo with strange and futuristic instruments (like Dick Hyman and Enoch Light). |
| Viva Esquivel! | This track is built on a latin-jazz rhythm that belongs both to the soundtracks tradition of the maestro Piero Piccioni and to the sound of another great maestro: Juan Garcia Esquivel. In fact, the song is dedicated to him, and in particular the central chorus “zu-zu-zu” interpreted by Alessandra Toniutti. Both the violins' arrangements and the use of certain instruments such as the vibe, the mellotones, the harpychord,... are studied in order to recreate a certain carefree and easy sound like Folinari wines and Brillantine Linetti’s adversiting. Alexandra Toniutti’s use of eccentric and amused vocalises makes a good impression, which reminds us of Italian movies soundtracks during the 1960s and the 1970s as “Sesso Matto”. |
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!aviV leviuqsE (reprise)
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Intrigo a Portofino |
Probably inspired by the movie "Intrigo a Stoccolma" (a famous movie of the 1960s with Paul Newman), "Intrigo a Portofino" rises for love of the "three buttons" jackets of the 1960s or Dolce &Gabbana’s, the spy stories, the exotic music, some "attitudes" of Martini’s adversiting and because after all we like to be ironic about Bond, as the mythic secret agent Max Smart was with transmitters hidden in his lighter or in the double heel of his shoe. |
| Stelle a Cinecittà (Cinecittà Stars) |
Do you love Morricone? This is the song preferred by Vic G. Strings arrangements, sax, tubes and trumpet likea sixties orchestra and a chorus inspired to the soundtracks of Ennio Morricone. A pop song dreaming the atmospheres of Cinecittà movies. |
| You never told me (reprise) | |
| Cairoport 2100 | A mixture of a dark french sound inspired from a TV serial made in France during sixties called "Belfagor!" (The ghost of Louvre!) and a futuristic exotic jungle sound. Try to think: Year 2100, the futuristic metropolis of Cairo in Egypt, and you are in a shuttle (or something like this) in the space–port watching an old movie (Belfagor) while you are waiting for leaving Cairo! |
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