FUTURO ANTICO

Futuro Antico was an ethno-fusion/electronic act lead by Walter Maioli of Aktuala. I can't believe this was recorded and released in 1980 (as a self-released cassette at the time) because the music is very straight up 1970s, sounding more 1974 than 1980. Already going retro and barely out of the '70s? Regardless, this coming at a time when artists were incorporating world music in a pop context, like what Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads were doing around this time, which by 1986 was fully accepted by the mainstream via Gabriel's So and Paul Simon's Graceland. But in the 1970s world music fusion was entirely a much more underground thing which would make the average Graceland listener of 1986 feel uncomfortable. In Germany you had Embryo and Dzyan who took underground prog and psychedelic styles with jazz and fusion. Clearly Futuro Antico was exploring that ethno-fusion style from the early to mid '70s in 1980, but with an avant garde electronic bent. So you get ethnic instruments like the ney and bullroarer against organ and EMS Synthi A synthesizer. It's all improvised and often with a spacy and ominous feel to it. It's as if Heldon got rid of the guitars and decided to combine synths with ethnic instruments. This self-entitled album appears to be their debut, but what a great album. They have released several others, but really difficult to get any info about them. Mostly it's Da Primitivi All'Elettronica that became their best known release because it received a reissue early on (in 1990, some ten years after the original recording, also in 1980). Regardless, this self-entitled album is amazing, and I'm happy to know it's been reissued. So if you're curious what world music with '70s electronic music is like, you'll love it, even more so that it never slips into New Age.