UNA VITA UNA BALENA BIANCA E ALTRE COSE

Οriginally coming from Rome, but living in the village of Porretta Terme since he was 10, Stefano Testa's early influences included all the legendary names of US and British Psych/Pop and the most famous Italian singer/songwriters.In the 70's he broadens his music listenings with Classic Italian Prog acts and many British bands like Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant, showing a love for concept albums.His first serious project was the Portici Trio around mid-70's and in 1976 Fabrizio Quiriti, director of an art gallery in Cuneo, presents him to Giampiero Simontacchi, owner of the Disco Piu label.Testa completes his work on ''Una vita, una balena bianca e altre cose'', the basic theme of which dealt with the last moments of writer's Cesare Pavese life.The album was released in 1977 in about 2000 copies with Testa on guitar, piano and vocals, Portici on lead guitar, Marco Coppi on flute, Alberto Monpellio on Moog synthesizer, Cosimo Fabiano on bass and Ottavio Corbellini on drums.

The centerpiece of the album is the 16-min. ''Una vita'', a pastoral Prog Rock experience, somewhere between I GIGANTI, CELESTE and Xian soft Prog acts such as LA SORGENTE, with a poetic atmosphere due to Testa's melacholic voice and lyrics and a folky approach due to the constant use of acoustic textures.While a Singer/Songwriter style is evident throughout the track, the music goes far beyond the simplistic structures of Pop with lots of orchestral lines surrounded by intense synth and light organ parts and occasional flute flavors in a piece trying to find its balance between vocal and instrumental moments.The rest of the album is pretty nice as well with harmonic and sensitive moments in the forefront, albeit less imaginative.Half of the remaining tracks recall the works of FABRIZIO DE ANDRE, who had been a idol for Testa, blendind Orchestral Music with vocal Pop.The other half is again an atmospheric experience of Italian Pop with psychedelic and Folk colors around, highlighted by the sensational flute work of Marco Coppi, having the acoustic guitars as the driving force.The less pronounced keyboard vibes somewhat reduce the proggy feeling and the minor symphonic touches of the opening opus, but there is still some discreet synth parts to be found in these cuts with ''Il Dio sulla ferrovia'' having a striking vocal melody and the richer sound among them.

No wonder, the album went unnoticed in a period, when Art Rock was declining and reasonably enough a second work proposed by Testa under the title ''Decadenza e morte di Andrea il Traditore" was found too expensive by Simontacchi to be recorded.Testa was only occasionally breaking into music recordings for decades, basically running a cinema in his village, but in 2012 he returned with a more conventional second album, ''Il silenzio del mondo''.

Even the Mellow Records reissue in the 90's was not enough was not enough to bting Testa's work on the surface and his contribution to Prog/Art Rock was only praised in late-00's.Emotional, vocal-heavy Soft/Folk Rock with progressive touches, very melodic and warmly recommended.