APPUNTI PER UN IDEA FISSA

Classical prog in a similar fashion to TRIADE, BANCO and Le ORME featuring Roberto Balocco (ex PANNA FREDDA) on drums and Red Canzian (guitars, vocals) who later would go on to play with both OSAGE TRIBE and POOH. Side 1 of this album is simply a prog masterpiece with their entire side long suite... a rearrangement of Beethoven's "Patetica". The remaining 5 songs explore a wide host of themes and moods with rich piano, organ and moog etched landscapes. Acoustic and electric guitar work is choice as is the bass and percussive contributions. CAPSICUM RED fuse delicate romantic passages with more aggressive classic 70's Ital-Prog influences. For those who are lucky enough to have Vinyl Magic's remastered version will find a cleaned up sound reporduction and additional songs from their early days where it all began. Fans of classic 70's Italian Progressive can not do without this album.

Sole album from a fairly traditional Italian-styled symphonic prog, Capsicum Red (named after a red hot pepper/pimento), this standard prog quartet (the bassist also plays a second piano) played a very classically-induced prog rock, which came close to being very corny while adapting Beethoven's Symphonie Pathetique, which takes most of the first side of the album. The album's production is simply atrocious (or should I say absent?), with some completely off balance instruments, and the tracks on the second side (although less cheesy) are of the same mould. The closing Corale is slightly more enthralling than the rest of the album. Fourth rate Nice, if you ask me.

A bit like some old parmaggiano that has not aged well at all, due to rot and mildew, CR's album is anything but essential and is likely to appeal to Italian completists only. Two stars are just as high as I could ever go for such a sub-amateurish album. The Artis reissue (the one I heard) is dubbed from the vinyl, which surely does not help, either.

For Beethoven and hard core RPI fans only

Buyer beware. This one is pretty far down the list for those working on an Italian collection. It has its moments but also suffers from some major problems. The sound quality and production on this album are just...freaking..awful. And I have the remastered recent reissue! If this one is the cleaned-up version I'd hate to hear the old LP. Normally I can get past poor sound but for some reason it really wrecks my ability to get into this one.

So to the music. The first track is Beethoven's "Patetica" and this is the highlight of the album. It is a decent though not phenomenal marriage of rock and classical music themes with average musicianship. "Lo Spegnifuoco" is a rather awkward two minute throwaway, sounding like an "idea" that bands come up with and put to tape for later investigation. "Equivoco" began side 2 on the original vinyl version and starts with some nice piano and vocals and the band will kick in with a heavy edge about half-way through. "Rabbia & Poesia" features nice classical guitar and the barely audible vocals that you can't turn up because if you do the heavy parts will blow you out of the room. So you're stuck either babysitting the volume or not hearing the quiet parts. It's too bad because this is a rather nice song. "Corale" sounds a little like a high school cover band playing a backyard kegger that they recorded on a boombox.

The bonus tracks are older pop songs that ironically have better sound quality than the album, but are really pretty insignificant to prog fans. If this sounded better and was mixed better it might be a completely different album for me. I do hear some promise in places but I just can't get past the production. Thus I have to go 2 stars here and say this is for Italian fans only and Beethoven fans interested in hearing the first song.

From Treviso hailed this Italian band, actually started as a project by singer Bruno Canzian on the legendary Bla Bla label in 1970.A first single was recorded in 1971 with English lyrics and Canzian supported by studio musicians, promoted as a foreign group, while a second one followed the same year, recorded in London with the members of the band Stone the Crows.Both were in a commercial rock vein.1972 sees the release of Capsicum Red's sole full-length LP ''Appunti per un'idea fissa'', eventually as a regular band with Mauro Bolzan on keyboards, Paolo Steffan on bass/piano and Roberto Balocco on drums with Canzan handling the vocals and guitars.

By 1972 the style of the band had changed dramatically, incorporating elements from the emerging Progressive Rock wave and the album is highlighted by the 15-min. eponymous epic of side A.The track is very much structured as a Classical suite for rock instrumentation, drawing influences from early GENESIS and ELP, but lacking the passion and consistent composing of the English masters.Nice organ parts with a Classical edge, even nicer electric guitar chops, piano interludes and calm acoustic atmospheres complete a track of decent quality.The flipside contains four more tracks but the gears here are really down with structures being built almost entirely around Bolzan's organ and Steffan's piano with a very soft atmosphere, which lacks any kind of energy.The closing ''Corale'' contains some beautiful electric guitar parts and dominant organ, much in the likes of the opening suite.

Capsicum Red's career was condemned to end by this point with Canzian joining Osage Tribe for a while and I Pooh shortly after.The Vinyl Magic CD reissue features also all four tracks from the band's singles, yet their value is really poor, being in a straightforward rock style with mediocre songwriting.

Not among the better examples of early Italian Prog.A bit dated, a bit uneven and certainly inconsistent, still the sidelong suite will please fans of Italian Prog and light Classical Progressive Rock...2.5 stars.

One of the greatest mishaps of 70s Italian progressive rock surely has to belong to the Treviso based CAPSICUM RED which existed for a very brief time from 1970-72 before calling it a day. The band name actually found itself representing two distinct entities. First the band itself that released this one and only album APPUNTI PER UN'IDEA FISSA that consisted of a the four members Bruno Canzian [aka Red Canzion] (guitar, vocals), Mauro Bolzan (keyboards), Paolo Steffan (bass, vocals, piano) and Roberto Balocco (drums) and a group of session musicians that released two singles earlier. The band that was signed to Bla Bla records which also featured artist such as Franco Battiato, Osage Tribe, Juri Camisasca, Genco puro & Co. and Aktuala unfortunately hired session musicians to record a couple singles, one of which "Ocean" would become a theme song for a TV program. The second single "Tarzan" was recorded by another group of session musicians entirely and released on the "Tarzan" soundtrack.

After going through the trials and tribulations of dealing with a record label looking to cash in, CAPSICUM RED turned to the Italian prog scene for inspiration and recorded its one and only album. Very confusing to say the least. To make matters worse, APPUNTI PER UN'IDEA FISSA suffered one of the most botched production jobs of any album i've really ever heard with the mix too low for some parts and way too high for other. Despite all these flaws the band delivers a beautiful rock interpretation of Beethoven's "Pathetica" as the entire A?side of the album which fit into the spirit of the symphonic prog universe that was blossoming all around Italy. Similar to bands like New Trolls, CAPSICUM RED did an excellent job of rocking the classics despite all the obstacles and awful recording results.

The B?side of the album features four additional tracks that also suffered from the same abysmal production job. These tracks are shorter but still delved into the complexities of Italian prog splendor. Tracks like "Rabbia & Poesia" display a clear knack for nailing that romantic symphonic prog sound Italian style. Lead vocalist Red Canzian's vocals sound a lot like the more successful bands such as PFM or Banco and the instrumental workouts on the album are just as sophisticated and the album ends with the excellent "Corale" which showcases all the classic Italian prog trademarks: dramatic build up with complex fills and licks thrown in as the tension builds and a feisty rock accompaniment to symphonic atmospheric backing. The track also features a killer guitar lead performance which was fairly energetic for 1972.

Later reissues also feature the two earlier singles and their B?sides however they are less compelling than this album itself as they were designed to be more pop oriented for hit potential however if you want the entire output of the band including these singles then the reissue that has been remastered as best it could be is definitely a boost up from the original vinyl edition which ironically sells for quite a hefty price despite being an inferior product. This is one of those great lost opportunity bands of the Italian prog scene but guitarist Bruno Canzian better known as Red Canzian would go on to have a successful career in the progressive pop band I Pooh. All in all if you can't stand bad production values then you should give this one a miss but if you can handle imprecations for the sake of enjoying the compositions then this is as essential as any great Italian prog release because the musicians were above average in their performances.

3.5 stars but what the hey, i love the music so i'll round up even though the production is gawd awful