PAZZO FANFANO DI MUSICA

A magnificent supergroup project from Japan, bringing together various figures from the 1980s prog scene there to produce a delightful tribute to the Italian scene of the 1970s. Rather than copying the distinctive style of any specific Italian prog band, the collective instead blend together influences from PFM to Banco and incorporate an extensive amount of the baroque classical influences the Italian bands themselves loved, yielding a fantastical musical journey which exonerates the prog credentials of each and every one of the participants.

I fully intend to go trawling through the discographies of the various bands whose members contributed to this project, because it's clear that I have overlooked the Japanese prog scene of the 1980s for far too long. Whilst in the Anglosphere we were still making do with neo-prog and full-bore symphonic prog releases had not yet had the resurgence that would later arise, clearly in Japan the spirit of classic prog was alive and well and working through talented musicians like these.