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LP
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SOAVE 026LP
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From Ajanta to Lhasa is an intense and unique work with mystical and exotic references that sees the light for the first time in 40 years, and find its place among the must-haves artifacts of the Italian experimental/minimalist scene. In 1979, upon returning from a two-month trip to India, Arturo Stàlteri, a pianist of undisputed value and founder member of Italian prog duo Pierrot Lunaire, withdraws in his studio to set this strong experience to music. References to the overseas minimalism by Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and La Monte Young are obvious, as well as clear hints to Popol Vuh. The suite from which the album takes its title is inspired by the days Stàlteri spent in Ajanta exploring the cave paintings which made a great impression on him. The days he spent in Goa can be found in "Floating Moon", specifically an evening when a giant moon shrouded in fog, looking like a huge ball floating on the ocean, magically appeared. From Ajanta to Lhasa is the result of a search for an inner dimension free from the conditioning of Western civilization.
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LP
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SOAVE 006LP
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Recorded in 1980 but only issued privately in 1987, Arturo Stàlteri's ...e il pavone parlò alla Luna falls among the last artifacts of Italy's great wave of musical minimalism. Like the movement to which it belongs, rigorously resistant to categorizations and definition, this overlooked marvel sculpts a startling singularity. A radical and democratic vision in sound, blending elements of new age, the avant-garde, and prog with Western and Indian classical musics. Highly talented pianist Arturo Stàlteri debuted in 1974 with Pierrot Lunaire, one of the most original and innovative groups of the Italian progressive scene. After the dissolution of the band he began an inspirational solo career with the prog opus Andrè Sulla Luna (1979); the following year a two-month trip to India left an important impression on him and inspired ...e il pavone parlò alla Luna, which stands as Stàlteri's true masterwork. A complex and ambitious hybrid, built around organ and piano, with each passage struggling for creative autonomy and dislodging themselves from the whole, yet remaining as accessible as they are challenging, to all those willing to heed the call. Despite its repetitive rhythms and cyclical tones, bound to American minimalism, ...e il pavone parlò alla Luna's complex relationships and breadth of territory locate it as a distinctly European work, a wondrous late breath, and a seminal entry in Italy's remarkable canon of avant-garde and minimalist music. A rippling oddity, not quite like anything else, reissued here on vinyl for the first time.
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