Saturday, March 22, 2008

Area-Arbeit Macht Frei,LP,1973,Italy

Starting my new bunch of posts with a classic one. AREA was the neutron bomb that exploded in 1972 in the Italian rock scene. With musicians like the exceptional vocalist extaordinaire Demetrio Stratos (Stratos Dimitriou ,his real name, of Greek origin), Paolo Tofani and Patrizio Fariselli and a unique mix of Marxism determinism with Jazz /fusion rock with some folky edges (often described as arabesque but those who know can undestand that it's totally Greek and South Italy folk music influences), they have offered a bunch of masterpieces through Cramps label. Apart from that most of the members had released later unique masterpieces of contemporary music. The most peculiar fact though is the almost inhuman Stratos voice, with a very wide range reaching the limits of human possibilities and an unrivaled technique ,that has to be heard to believe it. His unique style of siging set him apart from all singers of his time.Unfortunately he left thi world very young at the age of 35. Anyway,this is a must have for eveyone in adventurous music .

Just discovered that reissue copies of this magnificent LP are still available along with many other AREA stuff.So link is deleted and you can go here to grab them!

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