Chrisma- Discography

Here’s one of two posts lined up to get you through the weekend. First, we have what I believe to be the complete discography of Italian band Chrisma, a synthpunk outfit active in the late 1970s. The band combined a Marlene Dietrich kind of vibe with krautrock, Chrome-esque guitar lines, disco rhythms, and primitive synthesizers for a futuristic and incredibly eclectic sound. Very ahead of their time, as far as I’m concerned, especially when you hear the drastic jump in styles between the first 7” and the debut LP.

The band takes its name from combining the first names of members Christina Moser and Maurizio Arcieri. Their earliest recordings were made in Vangelis’ home studio, which more than likely explains their futuristic sound. There’s even a rumor kicking around that Vangelis himself performed on Chinese Restaurant, but he is not listed in the album credits.

While the band was formed in Italy, they sang the majority of their songs in English, which helped earn the band a few fans stateside. You can still hear “Black Silk Stockings” (IMO, the band’s best track) in various clubs to date. In 1980, the band changed their name to Krisma and took a more synthpop turn, releasing five LPs and a slew of singles. Perhaps I’ll cover them someday in the future, but otherwise, here’s the full Chrisma output- two LPs and two 7” records. I didn’t include a few of the other 7”s, as the band would double up on album cuts for b-sides. Here’s the rundown:

Chrisma- Amore 7” (1976)
1. Amore
2. Sweet Baby Sue

Chrisma- Chinese Restaurant LP (1977)
1. Thank You
2. Black Silk Stocking
3. Lola
4. C-Rock
5. What For
6. Wanderlust
7. Lycee
8. Mandoia
9. Thank You

Chrisma- U 12” (1977)
1. U Part I
2. U Part II

Chrisma- Hibernation LP (1979)
1. Calling
2. Aurora B.
3. Rush ’79
4. Hibernated Nazi
5. Gott Gott Electron
6. We R.
7. So You Don’t
8. Lover
9. Vera Platz

*download all four here*

In case you’re not sold on downloading this discography, peep a performance of “Black Silk Stocking/Lola” here, complete with a latter day interview with the band, for those fluent in Italian. Awesome.

If you dig on these records, feel free to purchase the excellent reissues from Medical Records!

16 Responses to “Chrisma- Discography”

  1. coming soon, not from me though!!!

  2. guy smiley Says:

    ah another excellent post of some great music. I love this blog, it's introducing me to so much otherwise forgotten music. Thank you. Please keep posting. Brilliant stuff

  3. Nary Guman Says:

    So generous! Thanks!

  4. I've never heard their early music, but know their records from when they became "Krisma". Many thanks for this!

  5. beautiful!

  6. This is true cult to me. I'm absolutely with you about being far ahead of their time. Thank you for these wonderful rips and the singles I did not know. But I partly disagree about calling their later work "more synthpop". There was their masterpiece "Clandestine Anticipation", an incredibly good non-pop album that went more into the early Chris & Cosey realm.

  7. Anonymous Says:

    Krisma have always been one of Italy's best kept secrets, and indeed far ahead of their time… any chance of posting their great synthpop masterpiece "Cathode Mama"? Thank you for the excellent blog.

  8. Anonymous Says:

    Everytime I download this, and extract it, it fragments and is corrupted at some point. Is it just me?

  9. Hope you get to Clandestine Anticipation, a stunning minimal synth masterpiece. For that album they pretty much through all of the conventions of their past work out the window and created a truly artsy, challenging, and unconventional album. Everyone should get acquainted with the video for "Water," too!

  10. MIke Brandon Says:

    just says 'decompression failed'- no matter how many times ya try to open this from mediafire.

    awesome blog. been loving it for years.

    can you possibly check this??? por favor?

  11. frankie teardrop Says:

    sorry, mike. tried it with a few different PCs since reuploading it, and all works fine on this end. give it another whirl and see what happens.

  12. MIke Brandon Says:

    could be down to my mac, maybe? I'm running snow leopard? I just went and got the 'best of' album from e music.

    not bad. but! I still want to hear the 7''s you have here.

    it's no biggie. I keep getting the message: 'compression failed' in my download window.

    just seems odd, as I normally have 20-30 simultaneous downloads happening (via rapidshare or torrents), all running smoothly enough, in open windows.

    I'll be fine! HA! I have enough music for 400 lifetimes.

    BTW: what band are you in?

    were you…at Bell House for the Big Takeover weekend?

    I'm a regular BT writer(and old friend of jack's)

    you mentioned, I think? touring with Mark at some point???

  13. frankie teardrop Says:

    for what it's worth- the 7'' tracks are a little more disco and less interesting than the two full LPs!

    as for the big takeover- i was there indeed! seeing for against was a real treat! and yeah, i was the bass player for chameleonsvox/mark burgess here on the east coast- quite an experience, to say the least! my own band is revel hotel- there's a download link for our EP somewhere in here. kristen sollee of the big takeover did a review of the record, and we're about to record something more dark and streamlined!

    so i presume you're a new yorker as well?

  14. Wowee! Thanks for these!!

  15. […] with me, folks! To kick things off, I’ve had several requests to post some more tracks by Chrisma/Krisma, so here’s my two favorite LPs from this Italian synthpop outfit. Contained within this zip […]

  16. An.onymous Says:

    Hi Frankie, can you please re-up the Chrisma link, I can’t download
    Many thanks

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