St. Tropez - Icarus CD (expanded)
SKU
33-MMP 550
St. Tropez for formed by Ciro Perrino upon the demise of his previous band, Celeste.
This was recorded in 1977/78, but was never released until 1992. It’s been unavailable for decades, but here it is again, newly remastered by Ciro and with a bonus track.
The over-all sound is very much like You-era Gong / Fish Rising.
"One of the late-70's Space Rock projects conceived by Celeste's mastermind Ciro Perrino, this one involved also former Celeste bandmates bassist Giorgio Battaglia and drummer Francesco Di Masi along with Lady Mantide on female vocals, guitarist Alex Magazzino and a few more guests.
Over 70 minutes of archival recordings from 1977-78 were released in 1992 on Perrino's/Moroni's Mellow Records as ''Icarus''. All of these projects were led by Perrino's growing interest on synthesizers and Electronic Music, so St. Tropez sound often as the exact Italian equivalent to Gong, having a guitarist playing along the lines of Steve Hillage and even Mike Oldfield, a female singer providing the irritating spacious vocals like coming from Planet Gong and Perrino adding a synthetic enviroment of analog synthesizers.
There is little left from the Celeste days, the style here is a hypnotic, warm and spacious Progressive Rock, filled with electronic textures, effects and guitar soloing, a few pieces after the middle sound like Italian pre-Neo Prog with more dominant symphonic keyboards and elaborate structures.St. Tropez evolved into La Compagnia Digitale around 1979."-Rate Your Music