Daniele Luppi
An Italian Story
Rhino
By Phil Nutman

From the opening up-tempo funky bass line and spaghetti western whistling of track 1, 'Fashion Party,' I knew there was only one word to describe this contemporary retro sixties/seventies slice of Euro-instrumental magic – delirious!

Who is Daniele Luppi, and what are we talking about here?

If you’ve ever watched a spaghetti western or Euro trash crime thriller or horror flick from the late swingin’ sixties or hipster seventies, then you’ll get the idea. If the names Ennio Morricone (A Fistful of Dollars, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Malena, et al), Bruno Nicolai (Agent Speciale LK, aka Lucky The Inscrutable), or Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab (the incredible Vampyros Lesbos) mean anything to you, then you get the drift.

Still struggling to get your head around what we’re talking about here? – then think Esquivel and "space-age bachelor pad" and Hammond organ-driven lounge tunes. In other words, happy-go-lucky instrumental music for hedonists!

Luppi, who grew up in Italy, absorbed all this cool stuff, which was a direct counterpoint to ‘60s psychedelia, garage bands, and the acid rock revolution of The Doors, The Jefferson Airplane, the experimentalism of The Beatles’ White Album, but equally as inventive and groundbreaking within the medium of movie soundtracks.

By the time the Hammond organ swirl of the first seconds of track 2, 'Photochic' hit my ears, I was lost in a glorious time-warp. And rightly so, for while conceptualizing his debut solo CD, Luppi, himself a soundtrack composer, sought out the talents of legendary Euro musicians Maurizio Majorana (bassist and owner of Rome’s Telecinesound studio), organist Antonello Vannucchi and drummer Robeto Podio, who had once comprised a group, Marc 4, and had played on hundreds of soundtracks of that period (original guitarist Carlo Pes passed away a few years ago). Add the amazing Alessandro "The Whistler" Alessandroni (think The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and numerous other Morricone-scored spaghetti westerns) to the mix and the end result is a stunning recreation of an incredible era of instrumentalism.

Track 3, 'Nightclub' brings to mind low-budget, Italian-lensed James Bond knock-offs, spies picking up slinky chicks in hot Mediterranean Discotheques while barely-clothed Go-Go dancers gyrate in the background. The eponymous 'An Italian Story' is full-blown La Dolce Vita, livin’ large, driving a spiffy sports car down the coast to Cannes to party slice of sybaritic soundscape. Track five, 'Free Love Sequence,' speaks for itself (think the inevitable orgy/threesome sequence in any number of Euro flicks of the era…). This is one of those albums where every cut is a winner, 45 minutes of sheer bliss -- a soundtrack for a life less ordinary, and perfect toe-tappin’, Martini-sippin’ music for Spring.

This baby’s gonna be spinnin’ in my CD player for months!

Now, where did I park the Aston Martin, and where’s Claudia Cardinale when you need her?

www.danieleluppi.com