FOLK STUDIO is the first issue of a compilation that is part of a wider project that sees different bands of the new folk musical area going beyond the common concept of nowadays neo folk music. The Green Man, Roma Amor, Having Thin Moonshine and Egida Aurea wanted to catch the true spirit of the genre by linking their music to the old Italian folk music. Acoustic instruments typical of their origin places have been used creating a real modern folk music. During the 60s Italian beat bands tried to do the same by mixing dialect and modern music (check the I Pelati or Bertas) but during the years folk music has been confined to regional boundaries. Now the times are right to revive the concept and on the five tracks of this 10" you'll find ballads (like The Green Man's "Idda"or Egida Aurea's "Criu du ventu"), tangoes (check Roma Amor's "La tradida") and rumbling cavalcades (like on "Evoe" by Having Thin Moonshine or the second track by The Green Man "La baronessa di Carini"). The bands presented the 10" in Milan the thirty first of March giving the official start to the project. The real new Italian folk music has started to spread...

Formed by members of Calle della Morte (Vinz) , The Green Man (Marco Garegnani) and Recondita Stirpe/Egida Aurea (Diego Banchero) with Jo Jo on drums, Ballo Delle Castagne (the name is based on a legend which according to Buccardo that tells that on the 31 October 1501, the Pope Alexander VI and his daughter, Lucretia, arranged a kind of "satanic sabbath" passed to the chronicles as "The Chestnuts Ball") is bringing to HAURUCK! SPQR aficionados a particular self titled short album. The five tracks of the CD sounds like a prog rock improvisation where psychedelic atmospheres meet rock rumbling moments where Vinz read/sings. Lyrics talk about Demetra's torments ("Il tormento di Demetra" is inspired by the Homeric hymns), about a tormented love story (the translated title is "Mirrors and colored pearls') and about Gerusalem (on "Il pianto di Cristo su Gerusalemme", a.k.a. "Christ's weep on Jerusalem", with lyrics written by a mysterious Mr. Bizarre). "Sole e acciaio" ("Sun and iron"), instead, its almost a philosophic poem about facing death being proud of themselves and it's the track I liked the most and it prepares the audience to "Il pianto di Cristo su Gerusalemme", an eight minute rock opera. If you want to try something different, check two tracks on Ballo Delle Castagne myspace page and then purchase this CD.

Originally self released four years ago, FROM IREM TO SUMMERISLE is the first band's album which contains also the four songs of the limited 10" titled "Irem" that have been released also by HauRuck! SPQR on the same year. The duo formed by Eliahu Giudice and Marco Garegnani on the first half of the album already showed the seed of their particular folk oriental sounding based spoken word. Style that on the following four tracks of the "Summerisle" part, finds its balance where the acoustic guitar is mixed with a good background structure made of synth sounds (strings, trumpets, etc) while Eliahu alternates spoken word and sung parts. Since the early days lyrics have been important as well as music was and already on this album the band dealt with religious or philosophic matters in a personal way. This lead them to compose the following album "The Teacher And The Man Of Lie" as a concept album (you can read more about the topic on the review I did). This new reissue contains full lyrics, a new graphics and two new songs: "Corn rigs" (an arrangement of Robert Burns ballads and Scottish, Irish, and English tunes) and "Liber Al", that is a partial version of Crowley's "Liber al vel legis" with a music commentary ("The book of the law" is the central sacred text of Thelema, written by Aleister Crowley in Cairo, Egypt in the year 1904. He claimed he wrote the text but the author was an entity named Aiwass, whom he later referred to as his personal Holy Guardian Angel).

After self releasing their debut album "From Irem To Summerisle" back in 2004 and after releasing the "Irem" side on 10" for Hau Ruck! SPQR the next year, the Italian duo The Green Man were ready to bring to the audience a new work. THE TEACHER AND THE MAN OF LIE is a big step for the band as it has been created like a multi artistic project because besides the musical aspect we have the rich lyrics section (which are translated musically into the semi spoken word of Eliahu) describing the pre-crucifixion part of Christ's life and we have various panels painted by Maria Chiara Armenia who gave a visual counterpart to the history told. The lyrics has been inspired by Prof Barbara Thiering's book called "Jesus The Man" who studied the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Holy Scriptures. On the interview given to www.neo-folk.it Eliahu explained even better the concept telling: "the album is a concept album set at the beginning of the common era, a time when apocalypse is in the air and the Man of Lie and The Teacher of Righteousness struggle to save their own followers from eternal damnation". The music performed by Marco Garegnani expand the sound you can find on "Irem": mid-oriental sounds blend with Western folk and post punk. The sixteen tracks are able to paint a rich and exciting scenario where the music is able to create the right ambience for the tales wrote with competence by Eliahu (he started to be interested into Gnosticism while he was at university in the Uk, as part of an exam on "religions under the Roman Empire"). Acoustic guitars riffs are enriched by various percussions, synths, electric guitars giving to the concept of neo-folk music a new and personal meaning.

N. Phect & Dizplay are two brothers coming from Cologne which decided back in 2002 to collaborate as a drum’n’bass production team. After working in other different bands (sometimes also together) they released for Basswerk their first album titled "Beautiful bytes". The thirteen tracks of the CD gathers their newest releases, revisitations (their big hit "Velvet morning" here’s remixed as "My velvet morning" and "Tsunami" along with "Inside the hive" are here present as in their "2006 VIP rmx"), collaborations ("Deep throat" see dj Phace working with them) and remixes (here you can find their version of The Green Man’s "Damn wire" and the r’n’b influenced Starke & Gorterer’s "You can go on"). There are also a couple of tracks by Dizplay alone, "Shining through" and "Don’t you see" (two tracks that have also a certain pop influence with catchy vocal inserts along with the drum’n’bass/breakbeat solid structure) as well one by N.phect alone ("Enjoy the madness" has also ambient influences along with powerful orchestra samples). Even if the album is a collection of tracks it sounds homogeneous and it will give you the opportunity to enjoy the energetic brothers’ style called "neurofunk".