Sunday 8 June 2008

Viaggio Allucinogeno Nº 1: Gli Astrali

This is the first instalment of very obscure recordings from Italy with a clearly Psychedelic sound and vision.
This band is so obscure that they actually never had any records released at the time. Gli Astrali came from the Northern city of Turin and their work was finally released in 1995 by Destination X, a label that did a great job unhearthing many lost bands from the Italian 60s.
The quality here is a bit rough but I think the performances are great and even more so in the context of the Italian musical landscape.
This posthumous album opens with a great version of the Yardbirds'"Evil hearted you" followed by "Viaggio Allucinogeno" (Hallucinogenic Voyage...or is it Trip?!) actually a short groovy instrumental. More experimental it's the next one as you can guess by its title, shame it is only 1:30 long.
Next there are a couple of interesting covers, especially The Byrds'"Eight Miles High" followed by the Standells'"Rari" .
The last track on this record is the aptly titled "Un'altro viaggio allucinogeno" , "Another Hallucinogenic Trip"....and this time we're sailing into psychedelic waters for nearly 9 minutes.
I love this record, at times reminds me of some of those more Psychedelic inclined US Garage bands.
Photobucket
Tracklist:
01 Non siamo come voi
02 Viaggio Allucinogeno
03 Improvvisazione
04 Credi
05 Vado su in alto
06 Una notte al bar
07 La libertá
08 Un'altro viaggio allucinogeno
http://www.shareonall.com/ASTRALI_cbpg_rar.htm

4 comments:

The Bomber said...

Determinado a convencerme mas con los italianos ! ! ! tanto en el ambito psico-garagero a mi gusto...rescato a muy pocos...pero mirando atentamente el setlist....mmmm sin duda le voy a dar una escuchada...terrible problema tuve...se me quemo el disco C , donde tenia toda la info...y no tengo instalado los drivers del sonido... para mi la compu sin sonido ni programas para grabar y escuchar en el equipo... NO EXISTE ! !

saludos Aldo...
Gracias por tus posts.

Anonymous said...

the best story of the Astrals is that apparently they had a fuck on stage (or, at least, pretended to), so immediatly after the concert they were thrown into jail!!!

A great record, arguably the best LP ever made by f an Italian Band in the 60s (I had it on tape...)

thanks a lot & ciao from Milano

MichaelVee

(check my site http://michaelvee.livejournal.com/

aldo said...

Ciao MichaelVee!
non sapevo quella storia degli Astrali!
Sí anche per me é un gran disco...peccato non fosse mai uscito...
Ho visto che nella tua ultima World comp sono apparsi ILLES mi immagino li hai sentiti qui prima, no?

Anonymous said...

ciao Aldo,

siamo sempre in Italia allora... in effetti, i brani IlIes sono dal tuo blog, mi devo scusare perché, come avrei visto, al solito cito la fonte solo con l'ultima uscita non avevo preso nota.... in ogno caso é bello sapere che non solo il solo ammalato di musica Garage.... complimentoni a te, poi, perché son tutte delle vere chicche che stai mettendo, ti visito tutti i giorni... sono curiosissimo cosa hai in preparazione...

salutoni!