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IN THE BEGINNING

Nuova Idea

Rock Progressivo Italiano


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Nuova Idea In The Beginning album cover
2.87 | 36 ratings | 4 reviews | 8% 5 stars

Good, but non-essential

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Studio Album, released in 1971

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Come, Come, Come (20:03)
2. Realtą (4:09)
3. La Mia Scelta (3:40)
4. Non Dire Niente (4:19)
5. Dolce Amore (3:59)

Total Time: 36:00

Line-up / Musicians

- Marco Zoccheddu / guitar, vocals
- Claudio Ghiglino / guitar, vocals
- Giorgio Usai / keyboards, vocals
- Enrico Casagni / bass, flute, vocals
- Paolo Siani / drums, vocals

Releases information

LP Ariston ‎- AR/LP/12061 (1971, Italy)
LP Sony Music ‎- 88875121281 (2015, Italy)

CD Vinyl Magic ‎- VM021CD (1990, Italy)
CD Sony Music ‎- 88875000912 (2014, Italy) Remastered

Thanks to ProgLucky for the addition
and to Quinino for the last updates
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NUOVA IDEA In The Beginning ratings distribution


2.87
(36 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(8%)
8%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(19%)
19%
Good, but non-essential (47%)
47%
Collectors/fans only (25%)
25%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

NUOVA IDEA In The Beginning reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Marcelo
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars NUOVA IDEA's first job isn't a progressive album, really. It's a mixture of hard rock, psychedelia and some prog hints, specially at the first long track "Come, come, come...", originally the LP first side. The rest is composed by four conventional songs, not bad at all, but I think that they doesn't reach the range that a progressive ear needs.

As another Italian bands, NUOVA IDEA developed its sound later, becoming more progressive (in fact, "In The Beginning" reminds me the first IL BALLETTO DI BRONZO album, "Sirius 2222", very different from their very well known "Ys").

However, those who like the proto prog scene, psychedelic music and the early heavy 70's sound could find an interesting effort here, through the predominant strong guitar riffs and the rough singer's voice... and few keyboards and flutes are adding. BTW, there are many, really many Italian masterpieces that a prog fan must hear before this album.

Review by Tarcisio Moura
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars After discovering Nuova Idea“s last album, Clown, I dediced that I should look for their previous works to have a bigger picture of their career and sound. Although the title is in english (as are all of the group“s three LPs) it is all sung in italian, always a plus in everything concerning italian prog. But upon listening carefully to it, it is clear that the group wasn“t exactly at their prime by the time they recorded their debut. The side long track Come, Come, Come... has a lot of early Deep Purple influences on it (you know that mix of 60“s psychedelic and 70“s heavy rock) and showed they tried to bite more than they could chew: few nice parts interspected with other not so nice, a lack of cohesion and that dreadful drum solo by the end of the song (that must have been fashionable at the time, but terribly dated and pointless soon after).

Side two on the other side showed some better short stuff: Realtą is a fine pop/prog song with some very nice vocal arrangements and a folky feel at the beginming before jumping into a hard rock in the middle, then it repeats the whole plot again. I guess it cold have been better if they had cooked it a little longer. La Mia Scelta is another typķcal early DP hard rock tune: good, but nothing special. Non Dire Niente is an excellent prog folk tune that only the italians knew how to do, probably the album“s best song, much in the vein of PFM. Dolce Amore closes the album with a few experimental touches at the arrangements and a typical italian song structure of the time. Not exactly progressive, but very good anyway.

In the end I found this band still struggling to find their voice. They certainly had the chops and the songwriting hability to deliver some fine tunes. If only they had not tried to do a 20 minute suite so soon, I“m sure they“d have come up with something more substancial and convincing. Still, not bad. If you like the aforementined styles you should check this out.

Final rating: 2,5 stars.

Review by Aussie-Byrd-Brother
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Italian band Nuova Idea's 1971 debut album `In The Beginning' is a worthwhile psychedelic rock album that shows great ambition and plenty of noisy energy! The band are mostly remembered for releasing one of the albums that is considered by many to be a landmark of the vintage Italian prog era, 1973's `Clowns', as well as the almost equally as impressive `Mr E Jones' the year before. Sadly this debut is a little dismissed because of the strength of those two works (especially compared to the status `Clowns' enjoys), but it is still a vibrant, unpredictable and varied psychedelic work, where colourful acid rock mixes with hazy ballads and exploratory instrumental displays.

The entire first side of the album is comprised of a single twenty minute piece. It's a dynamic extended psychedelic composition with endless lengthy and dramatic instrumental runs mixed with winning vocal passages over a range of tempos. There's so much energetic bluster, yet more thoughtful and calmer acoustic moments as well. It's built around hard driving acid rock attacks driven by searing electric guitar runs, melodic murmuring bass and aggressive upfront Hammond organ in the style of the early proto- prog bands. There's even space for some jazzy diversions and fleeting moments of classical bombast. Especially pleasing to the ear is the dreamy mellow passage that starts at around the six minute mark, a lovely drifting hallucinogenic chill-out full of sighing harmonies to bring plenty of feel-good vibes. It's quickly followed by deranged drum soloing rising up behind droning panning electronics, then some nimble finger strolling jazzy breaks before a raucous high-energy thrashing finale. Very tasty stuff!

The B-side side consists of four shorter pieces, yet they're no less interesting. `Realta' proves that even what initially starts as a ballad is quite schizophrenic and likely to dart off in all sorts of directions! It alternates between soothing acoustic guitar and romantic drowsy harmonies with huffing dirty flute (the first signs of proper RPI beginning to emerge in the band) and relentless electric guitar snarl. A nice bluesy groove strolls through infectious pop/rocker. 'La Mia Scelta', and `None Dire Niente' is an uplifting slice of dream- pop with warm group vocals and strident acoustic guitar over a sprinkling of Hammond organ ripples, and a more up-tempo break in the middle with relentless skittering drumming hints at their emerging progressive tendencies. `Dolce Amore' is a gutsy rocker with roaring acid rock electric guitar eruptions, rough Hammond organ violations, rattling drumming and a wailing, almost distorted `la la la' chorus.

Comparable to what bands like Osanna and the New Trolls were doing at the same time, `In the Beginning' is wild, rough around the edges and a little directionless, but it's still a glorious mess of ideas and styles. Nuova Idea had yet to deliver grander and more polished progressive rock, but this is colourful psychedelic music from a band still finding their feet yet bursting with confidence and imagination. `Clowns' and `Mr E Jones' may be their defining moments, but there's still plenty of inventive psychedelic instrumentation, hazy rock atmospheres and cool tunes on `In The Beginning.'

Three stars.

Review by zeuhl1
COLLABORATOR RPI Team
4 stars Been away for a bit, but have a backlog of Italian vinyl accumulated in lockdown to get through. First up is Nuova Idea, their debut lp from 1971, In the Beginning. I must admit--acquiring a very hard to find original Ariston 1971 copy unexpectedly was like a bolt of lightning. I'd always heard of the side long song, Come Come Come being something that resonated with the kids and pushed some change in the Italian live scene (most important being them introducing the phenomenon of the side long song), but many reviews pushed the whole lp into the 'post psych-proto prog' bin, and advised going for Clowns for the full effect. I sensed something different in this crackly album, an object that had spent the last 49 years of its life in Italy and suddenly found itself it North America and spun some magic from past eras into an American living room. What has it seen? What parties was it at? Decades of weird hippie vibes are in the well worn grooves here. I digress...

(It's odd that the band supposedly didn't even know it was released until they'd seen it in a store (!)

Ok, maybe I am turning in to an Italian proto prog guy. Because my thoughts published previously for example on Delirium posit the idea that the original band really got it right-and when drastic changes happened, the spirit of the band somehow dissipated-- however prog the band vectored. Jesahel? Part of Italian culture revolved around this tune for a while in '72 as the 1971 early prog wave (Le Orme-Collage and New Trolls-Concerto Grosso per i New Trolls being the best examples) plowed psych and beat bands into the furrows like last years harvest. The early stuff by these bands got it right, the mission that many of these early Italian bands had been on-to reinvent popular music in a sea change for the pop world was concentrated very intensely in many bands debut work. (for convenience sake, Concerto Grosso and Collage get lumped into 'debut album' group). Many groups grew more complex and intricate as they developed but somehow shed a layer of their specialness as a consequence. This album contains the essential essence of Nuova Idea, and in a way, is perhaps their definitive release.

Part of this is due to their guitarist, Marco Zoccheddu. I'd initially discovered this guy in his next project, Osage Tribe, and was seriously impressed with his wild abandon attack on his guitar. Kind of Hendrix (not as overt as the Garybaldi guy), kind of early Clapton, definitely original, Marco created a masterpiece in the Osage album. I suspected that he would be a bit more subdued in his original big label prog band, and it is true, less pure guitar meltdown is on display. But something more interesting is going on here, a full band approach.

(note I followed him further into his next band Duello Madre, a jazz rock affair, and they don't create, well...a masterpiece. Highly disappointing denouement for one of my favorite Italian guitarists.)

Come, Come, Come is an amazing song. Some friends said 'it has the spirit of Delirium's Jesahel, kind of spontaneous melodies and planned harmonics that create some magic' It is definitely catchy, memorable magic. Several sections cleave and heal rifts in reality/song arrangement to fuse wide ranging Deep Purple circa their best prog 1970-71 arrangements with some Uriah Heep's better moments with an Italian twist. (Some might notice that the drum and vocal improv near the end of the side long song are similar in arrangement to the epic drum solo on the 1976 Yes live album Yesshows during the song Ritual. Likely that Moraz in Switzerland had his finger on the pulse of some obscure Italian rock than his Brit bandmates glomming this, and 'put it in the library' til it was needed). In final retrospect, it is clear this is one of the more important early Italian prog songs-this is somewhat akin to their Space Truckin (even though it predates that opus), in a more commercial clothing.

ELP also dips into the mix near the end-remember, this is 1971: ELP had Tarkus out, Crimson had their first two statements, Yes had the Yes Album, Aqualung was just out....Nuova Idea were on top of their international game early. One reason might be their two side projects, Underground Set and Psycheground Group-three albums from 1970 and 1971 that were instrumental albums with no information on members that were released in the UK and most of Europe in the post psych wave. Both lps are extremely rare in original release, and many do not know that both of these bands are Nuova Idea acting under contractual obligation. (many Italian bands would dep into other fake 'created by the label' ghost group bands designed to generate album sales as a different band.) This is a phenomenon not unknown in the UK, but really was pushed to the hilt in Italia. This also probably explains why they were surprised when their album under their own name came out. (an Ariston promo lp with Nuova Idea, i Top Four and Stormy Six was the first release of Come Come Come, so they had some confusing irons in the fire) <.p>

Side two is a mix of their original singles with one new song, and although a bit poppier, they are infused with the spirit of early Italian prog: like a slug of aqua vitae, will bring you out of cerebral clouds that sometimes...do...not...rock... into a range of bands that can pull your skullcap off and rewire you. To be fair, this album will only rewire you lightly, but it will be important to the next steps.

This album is essential to any early RPI collection, especially if one seeks any 1970-1971 early Italian bands that ended up defining a genre.

Some Colosseum and Deep Purple pre 1971 are good reference points.

four stars for RPI fans, 2.75 for prog fans.

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