Articles

Piero Umiliani: Psichedelica

By Dan McClenaghan

Psichdelica is a fun album. It is music from the pen of Italian movie scorer Piero Umbiliani. The music here composed and recorded for the movie Svenzia Inferno e Paradiso (1968) is in large part a slice of those times. “Trippy, very trippy," might be the colloquial 1968 description for the the disc's first four tunes, with “before their time" electronics, loopy organ work, a soaring vocal chorus sounding like Gregorian chants that include females in the choir, backed by ...

Piero Umiliani: To-Day's Sound

By Douglas Payne

Piero Umiliani scored over 60 films in his native Italy between 1958 and 1981. And it's no secret that Italian films, even as derivative and as unfamiliar as they are to most Americans, are a treasure trove of excellent artistry. The recent “now-sound" craze is finally affording Italian film composers like Umiliani their due.

This 1971 double-album-on-one-CD is a prize. It's an instrumental program, similar to the kind Henry Mancini used to release between films. But this one is tougher, ...