Dia All’Italia Il Mio Amore

Drew over at Omnium suggested that I check out an Italian group called Fiamma Fumana, not even realizing how much of a fan I am of Italian music to begin with.

The band, which consists of multi-instrumentalist Alberto Cottica, electronic musician Marco Bertoni, and vocalist Fiamma Orlandi, nicely blend dance rhythms with more traditional Italian folk, excercising a wide-array of instruments in the process.

‘L.I.L.T’ is taken from the band’s first album, 1.0 and instantly incites foot-tapping. I’m not quite certain what the acronym stands for, but I do like the overall sound. Although sung completely in Italian, you don’t have to speak the language to appreciate the good music.

‘Balla!’, from 2003’s Home, is very similar in style, but perhaps with a slight bit more of a folkier sound. The electronic presence is still felt, but the consistent flute throughout instantly allows the listener to imagine a scene of minstrels dancing barefoot in celebration.

If you’d like to hear more of Fiamma Fumana, there are more sound files found at Omnium’s page dedicated to the band as well as their their official website where you can purchase both of their albums.

And since we’re on the subject of fine music out of Italy, I figured this would be a good time to introduce everyone to Claud9, the first of the ‘menfolk.’

I discovered the music of Claud9 when I was in Italy last year on vacation. One night while in my hotel room in Rome, the video to ‘Addicted’ appeared on MTV Italy and I was instantly awestruck at what I heard and saw.

Once I arrived back in the States, I did my best to look up what I could on Claud9 in hopes to purchase his album through an online vendor, but there is virtually little available. I did discover that Claud9 is the pseudonym used by Claudio Pelissero and that there were a couple of mentions of his album, Eye Hear, on some music-related websites, but little else that directed me to own a personal copy.

Frustrated, I had just about given up when I had received quite the surprise. Mr. Pelissero himself had found a blurb I had written about him in an old blog of mine and explained in an e-mail to me that there were some distribution problems with his album and its release was extremely limited - even in Italy! He was kind enough to send me a copy of Eye Hear and gave me his blessing to share it. So here I am, giving his music to the people.

Claudio’s music paints itself to become a rare form of dreamy dance music; electronica with a heartbeat. I think that’s what attracted me to it to begin with. I find most music that fits into this genre to be great for dancing, but not much more. Here, Claudio has managed to create music with a soul; an amazing feat considering all of his music is created using only a computer. Even down to the human-like voices.

Below, I have selected three tracks from Eye Hear. The first being ‘Addicted’, the song that introduced me to him. It’s a shame that I can only provide the song itself and not it’s accompanying video. I fear that without seeing it, you will not be able truly enjoy the Claud9 Experience. For somehow, he is able to perfectly translate the mood of his songs to visual counterparts.

The video to ‘D Lake’ can be found here (note: the website is in Italian, but it should be fairly easy to navigate to the right area).


Downloads:

Fiamma Fumana
L.I.L.T.
Balla! (Dance!)

Claud9
Addicted
Digital Scream
D Lake
The Dreamer