I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve always had a soft spot for rare Italian wave. Most of my favorites in this genre hail from France, but Italy is a very close second in my heart as far as quality and quantity is concerned. With that in mind, I have a bunch of rare Italian releases to post, a new undertaking that will take quite some time to properly document. Of course, other posts will come in between as warranted (so many things in the queue!), but fans of Italian wave should definitely check back over the coming months for a lot of great unearthed material.
First up, we have a demo tape from 1985 ripped by Fabrizio. The five piece band is named Marte in Ariete (click here for a list of members) and hailed from La Spezia, a town near the border of France. With that in mind, the tracks here employ a very French coldwave sort of sound, but in the Italian tradition and language. Cold synths, excellent guitar work, the kind of quality you can expect from the genre. The band would contribute two further tracks (including a lyrically reworked version of “Confusione” that’s sung in English with nearly identical music) to the C.O.D.E. compilation from 1985, which features more of the bands that will be posted here in the future. I believe Venus+On has posted the full compilation, but since I can’t seem to ping that blog at the moment, I’ve included the two Marte in Ariete songs from that compilation as well, which completes the band’s discography. Check back here for a link for the full comp. once the blog resumes!
Just one catch with this demo–the final track has a series of errors where the tape was blank and cuts off abruptly, so I’ve cut those bits and faded the track out around the 5:00 mark to save you guys the frustration of having several blank spaces and an abrupt ending to an otherwise great song. It seems like the song had another minute or two to go, so it’s an unfortunate loss. If anyone happens to have a copy of this incredibly rare gem, please feel free to rectify this for us with a fresh rip! No photo for this one either, so use your imagination and otherwise, hope you guys enjoy this incredibly rare Italian obscurity!
Marte in Ariete- Demo K7 (1985)
1. Confusione
2. Nostalgia
3. Ultimi Fuochi
4. Petali Neri
Bonus tracks from C.O.D.E. (1985)
5. Abuse
6. The Final Scene