NUOVA IDEA

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.

Antonello Gabelli participated only in the recording sessions of ''Mr. E. Jones'' and Nuova Idea was again on search of a stable guitarist.So, in 1972 Ricky Belloni from the group Il Pacco joined them on vocals/guitars and a third album in the row was recorded at the Ariston Studios, released in 1973.

With the addition of Belloni Nuova Idea's sound shifted towards heavier and more Classic Prog orientations, as proposed in the groovy opening ''Clessidra'', full of incredible synth and organ runs and characterized by some great interplays and breaks.The long ''Un'Isola'' has very strong PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI vibes in the keyboard parts, again organs and synthesizers are in the forefront, while the good rhythmic parts are still apparent in a Heavy Rock piece, played with passion.Belloni with his high-pitched vocals make his appearance for the first time.''Il Giardino dei sogni'' has notable BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO touches, although in their softer version, and sounds completely plagiarized with no originality at all.The self-titled track, clocking at over 10 minutes, is somewhat split between Heavy Rock and Italian Symphonic Rock with pounding drums, GENESIS-influenced light organs, edgy electric guitars and emphatic synthesizers in a very grandiose style and contains evident Classical and jazzy influences at moments, constantly changing between different tempos and themes.The closing ''Una vita nuova'' is again in the style of ''Il Giardino dei sogni'' with light piano and atmospheric sythesizers and very melodramatic vocals, but this track sounds pretty unconvincing and flat as well.

Nuova Idea's career did not mean to last, with Siani being replaced by Flaviano Cuffari in summer 73', but shortly after the band demised.Belloni and Siani participated in the Track band and afterwards the first joined New Trolls.He was followed some years later by Giorgio Usai.Bassist Enrico Casagni released the solo album ''Qualcuno stanotte'' on EMI around 1977.

''Clowns'' is propably the album to get from Nuova Idea, if you love Classic Italian Prog.Despite being a bit incosistent, the longer tracks are nice examples of the style, dominated by a dynamic and multi-influenced Rock style.Recommended.

For their sophmore LP, this Genova based band decided to shed away most of their heavy rock elements and jump into the symphonic prog rock bandwagon with full force (even if some of their early psychedelic sound is still present, most notably on the title track). The result is good in general and very good at times. While they are surely excellent musicians, their capacity of writing such complex prog stuff as their main competitors at the time is doubtful. Giorgio Usai keyboards playing is the main atraction here, with lots of Hammond, mellotron and moogs all the way, although Claudio Ghiglino's guitar lines are also of note. New singer Antonello Gabelli is not much different from the group's former frontman and does a good job too. Some vocal arrangements do give some extra charm on few tracks.

Don't get me wrong, the songs are good, the perfomances are very well done and I found nothing here to complain about the album itself. However, nothing really excites me either and it's easy to see why Mr E. Jones was not a big hit at the time. There were several other italian bands putting out much stronger material at the time. However, the band would include the heavy rock edge back to their sound for the next release, their best and most original album, Clown. Unfortunalty it would also be their very last.

All in all Mr. E. Jones is a very nice straight RPI CD by this obscure group. Nothing to write home about it, but nice anyway. If you like the style and already have all the classic stuff, you certainly should check this out.

Rating: 3 stars. good, but non-essential in any way.

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: Realtà 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 typícal 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.

I found this CD by pure chance I must say i was quite surprised by their original mixing of traditional italian symphonic prog with heavy rock, plus a few experimentations here and there. Vocals are quite controvertial to say the least, sometimes bordering what can be called an Ian Gillan parody. Fortunaltly singer Ricky Belloni proves to be quite versatile and after a while you get used to his sometimes overtly emotional delivering. There are some great guitar and organ parts: keyboardist Giorgio Usai is certainly an avid Jon Lord fan. Most compositions work very well, but the highlight is definitly the title track with its 10+ minutes of epic twists and turns (including some daring brass arrangements).

This is their third LP and also their last, which I consider that a pity, since this band had very interesting ideas in terms of songwriting and performance and were a bit ahead of their time in terms of musical style. It would be great to see what they could do if they remained together a little longer. Anyway, this is a fine example of good musicians doing bold, intricated, yet not too zany, music.

Conclusion: a nice surprise coming from the prolific italian prog scene of the 70´s. Very worth checking out! 4 stars.

Nuova Idea is one of the many bands emerged from italian prog school in eary '70s, with 3 albums under their belt, last one released in 1973 named simply Clows and maybe their best . I needed more then couple of spins to get the whole thing, maybe because the singer is an aquaring taste for me, but in the end I can't say is an annoying voice only diffrent then most of the voices from that period little towards what done Family in manner of singing. Musicaly speaking is ok, a fairly decent album but somehow fail to really grab me, only the opening track Clessidra , wich is a masterpieces , really, a prog rock tune with clearly jazz rock passages and top notch musicianship, awesome. The keyboards and guitar is well performed remind me of New Trolls or even in some parts with Gentle Giant mostly from Three friends era. Also some theatrical moments appear here and there , due to vacal arrangemnts. Even is quite short in length only 35 min, this album I can say is good, but not really very excellent. Nice gate fold cover. 3 stars maybe 3.5 for the opning track.

**** and a half... Really....

I don't really understand why I like this album so much. I just do.

It has a place with me along with the QVL albums, Locanda Della Fate's classic album, Felona E Sorona, Alusa Fallax, Delirium, etc.. Some of the spacy sureal passages here are reminscent of Eela Craig's "One Niter", etc...

To me the absolute 2 highlights are "Viaggio Nel Mondo Dei Sogni" and the closing track "Un Altro Giorno". Both of those songs are RPI classics. The rest of the album is fairly good too. Without these 2 songs though, the album gets a *** rating.

The other song that is a highlight for me is the soft folky accoustical ballad: "Fumo Di Una Sigaretta" which proves to me that simplicity can really translate into a great mellow melody that is highly memorable. Sort of reminds me of a cross between a melodic accoustical Beatles melody and something that Donovan may have done on his HMS Donovan album.

The remaining tracks have hints and twinges of things that groups like Jumbo and Delirium and Alluminogeni were doing around 72.

We have some spacy/melancholic emotional melodies and keyboard passages going on there. At times I am reminded of Reale Accademia Di Musica's first album.

This is probably a horrible review of the album as I'm not providing a great description of this album. For that, check out the other reviews as they do an excellent job of describing this album.

An excellent album. Unfortunately (IHMO) they were not able to top this album with their next (and last) endeavor "Clowns" (but that's still a decent album).

Not that I "hate" people or things but only using that term to accent the review. Over the years I've sort of had a "love"/"hate" relationship with this particular album. There are times when I can listen to this album and enjoy it. There are other times where I can't get past the first 10 minutes of it.

I bought this album as an import back in 1998 because I thought the album cover was "cool" and I was just getting into RPI (wow, what a world that opened up for me) and I was hearing albums like Felona E Sorona, Palepoli, Ys, Locanda Della Fate, QVL, etc.. for the first time and was being blown away.

I expected more from the album because of my idiotic biased to the cool-looking-colorful-cover (and anything to do with clowns in progressive music tends to make me think of King Crimson, Marillion's Jestures, Moody Blues "Your painted smile", etc..) than I got as they say "You can't judge an album by it's cover". The first song instantly reminds me of Prologue from Gentle Giant's album a year earlier than this release. Ok, I thought... They're paying homage. Then another review back in 1998 said the last song "Una Vita Nuova" was pretty much a clone of Zeppelin's "Going to California" so after listening to that several times, I thought "I guess I can see the similarities... Neither the opening or closing tracks blowing me away at all. What we have left are the tracks in between. When I bought this album, one of my RPI friends (a half a world away) told me (this was 1998 mind you before RPI really got more widespread exposure in the USA due to great web-sites like this) that this album was great due to the amazing vocals of Ricky Belloni (whom I never heard since I was just getting into RPI). As I listened to tracks 2 thru 4 back then, I remember initially being annoyed by Belloni's vocals as they seemed way overkill. A little of that goes a long way. But then again I was reminded of Pavlog's Dog. Over several listens I got used to Belloni's vocals but there was something "musically" about this album (after many listens) that never really grabbed me. So it got added to my list of cds to trade (we were trading albums we bought but did not care for as much with various people over the years. It was completely legal since we bought them and since this was bakc in 1998 (when there was not much out there in the way of reviews and youtube and other sites you could sample the music first) ) and it was a way to somehow minimize our "going broke" due to our addiction to this wonderful music. We were dropping $100 down on 4-5 albums that we never even heard hoping that all would be great.

Anyhow, I was way more pleasantly surprised at Nuova Idea's "Mr. E Jones" and still consider that album to be their Magnum Opus. You don't have Belloni's shrieking vocals on that album and you have some very nice memorable melodies on that album (including the final song on that album which is one of the most beautiful RPI songs in existance (IHMO)).

So I've since reacquired this album due to the "I really like the Mr. E Jones"-thing. And I've sort of learned to "accept" this album for Belloni's vocals as well as the lack-of-originality and this album took a while for me to upgrade it from a ** effort to a *** effort but I think that's the most I can ever give it. "Mr. E Jones", on the other hand, is a **** effort as there's some really good stuff on that album that makes it far better to my ears than this album.

But when the time is right and i"m in the mood to hear this, "Clowns" makes for an entertaining listen at parts. But I will always have that "This could have been a much better album than it is"-feeling about this. Maybe because of my bias that this followed up the 'much better' Mr. E Jones.

I still feel if you have to pick just 1 album from this band, it needs to be "Mr. E Jones" (which is a top notch high end B-tier RPI album (maybe even borderline A-tier). "Mr E Jones" had some really nice ideas and jams and ballads and the mighty mellotron in the fantastic closer. Much more natural and flowing.

"Clowns", on the other hand, shows the band forcing themselves too hard to create something that seemed "unnatural" to them in order to cater to the vocals of Belloni. So unnatural, in essance, that they had to even use a Gentle Giant melody ("Prologue") and even (as the one site said) refer to Zeppelin's "Going to California" to somehow pad the album out to the the approx 35 minutes that this was.

Could it be that this album did the band in as it would be their final album?

Anyhow, there are many RPI albums better than this one is but this one is worth a listen as it may strike a better chord with you than it did with me. If you do like this, I'd be curious to hear what you think of their previous album "Mr. E Jones" (which I thought was far better). The other thing I like better about "Mr. E Jones" were the warm ballads and mellotron washes interludes amongst the hard rocking/prog jams. This particular album does not really have those warm ballads and mellotron washes and is more rock-heavy with the "controversial vocals".

Still though it gets a *** rating but is definitely not essential.

Ironically for me, Belloni sounds much better as a vocalist with his work with the New Trolls. On this album, he simply "Grates too much". Sounds more like a manic version of Pavlogs Dog (which can be a selling point for some people and which can kill the album for other people).

I must admit my expectations weren't too high for this one considering it doesn't seem to get a lot of love from Prog fans. Well NUOVA IDEA's second release from 1972 not only impressed me but i'd have to say I like it even better than their "Clowns" record. This album just seems to get better as it plays out and the instrumental work is incredible, especially the bass and drums. It is a concept album about an office worker's mundane life.

"Sveglati Edgar" opens with an alarm going off bringing PINK FLOYD to mind but then the music kicks in with vocals. Nastly bass in this one. It picks up with guitar out front. Samples of street noise comes in after 3 1/2 minutes. Yes our subject has gotten up and is headed for the office. "Mr. E. Jones" is led by vocals and vocal melodies then synths as the drums continue to pound. Catchy stuff. Organ rips it up after 2 minutes. I like the tone of the guitar. "Viaggio Nel Mondo Dei Sogni" opens with atmosphere and floating organ as fragile vocals join in. It gets fuller as the contrasts continue. "Un'ora Del Tuo Tempo" features some nasty sounding synths with guitar and drums as gritty vocals join in. Nice. I like the Page-like guitar 2 minutes in. Some good organ runs follow and it's jazzy before 3 minutes.

"Fumo Di Una Sigaretta" opens with gentle guitar and vocals. Percussion follows as the sound gets fuller. It's still laid back though. "Illusione Da Poco" is over 9 minutes of bliss. Sparse acoustic guitar to start then strummed guitar and drums kick in around a minute followed by passionate vocals. Great sound. Guitar 2 1/2 minutes in and the keyboards sound amazing too. Ripping guitar after 3 1/2 minutes. Killer track ! This is like a religious experience (haha). "Premio Di Una Vita" is heavy to start but it turns light when the reserved vocals come in. The guitar lights it up after 2 minutes. My God ! The organ is rampaging. A calm with piano before 3 1/2 minutes then it kicks in at 5 minutes. So good. The organ is at it again. Guitar before 6 minutes then a big finish. "Un Altro Giorno" ends it with piano and reserved vocals. Organ before 1 1/2 minutes and drums a minute later.

Yeah i'm impressed and will give this plenty of spins in the future. Easily 4 stars.

Nuova Idea was among a seemingly tiny minority of bands of the nascent Italian progressive rock of the early-1970s that actually managed to release more than one album before disappearing without trace. The band's battle scarred line-up changed with the release of each of their three albums, although the music progressed in parallel with the changes in personnel and was so much the better as a consequence. In addition to being their most full- on prog album, 'Clowns' is also their most critically acclaimed work and rightly so for a work that runs the entire gamut of classic RPI.

The music is both sensitive and robust, complex and hard rocking, and like the band's previous release ('Mr. E. Jones') 'Clowns' is a concept album based on the realities and dreams of its main protagonist who in this case is a circus performer. The meeting of extremes, in the form of gruff rasping vocals and elaborate instrumental accompaniment, combined with the unusual concept gives the album a peculiar majesty all of its own.

Talking about the vocals, the multi-voice parts of 'Mr E. Jones' have largely been replaced by the dramatic singing of newcomer Ricky Belloni. With his abrasive vibrato he at times sounds as if he is gargling on a chain of phlegm. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration - his singing isn't really so bad and it's certainly not a deal-breaker for an otherwise top-notch album.