LIVE AT LUX

The second of those pre-debut album posthumous releases, Live At Lux is a strikingly different recording that Dimensione Onirica, even if it was recorded a mere six months after those demo tapes. First and most important is the new line-up, which is the one of their sole debut album. Next are not only more tracks from CDM's album, but the disappearance of some of the more derivative tracks from Dimensione Onirica. Yet if the line-up is the one of CDM's debut album, the jazz-rock influences have not yet really permeated their music.

As much as progheads should thank Moroni's involvement in re-issuing some of Italy's (and even France's) lost treasures, as much as we should also criticize him for the quality of most of his posthumous releases, and Live At Lux is a prime example were this can reach almost scandalous levels. The opening Verso Il Sole and the following one must've been recorded with some mashed potatoes from the soundman's meal covering the mikes. As the gig went onwards, I believe some of the soundman's meal must've gradually slipped of the mikes and the sound-mixing board, but never will we have an acceptable sound. It is even funny that Mellow did not try to edit the bootleg vinyl's skips at the start of the fifth track. Zippo's voice sounds atrocious on this recording as well.

Interestingly this live recording makes the link between the derivative classically-influenced Dimensione Onirica and the later jazz-rock classic prog of CDM's official album. But to call this release anymore essential than Dimensione Onirica would be a gross exaggeration for its sound works against it. Rarelly has Moroni's label released such inferior recordings even if Biglietto Per L'Inferno and Latte E Miele's posthumous releases come to the same atrocious levels and you can picture Crimson's Eartbound as a master production next to this. I cannot recommend such "things" and for once would rather a proper bootleg than this kind of crap of bootlegging a bootleg.