CORMORANO, band from Emilia was born in 1975, and therefore finding them again in 2023 with three founding members (Raffaello Regoli on vocals, Antonio Dondi on drums and Gabriele Giovanardi on sax) sanctions a return in its own significant way.
The ensemble is completed by Francesco Boni (son of another original member, Carlo Alberto Boni) on bass, Elia Filippini on keyboards and Michele Zanni on guitar.
Raffaello Regoli, already known in the Italian progressive scene for having been a friend and pupil of Demetrio Stratos, to whom he dedicated the musical review “Omaggio a Demetrio Stratos” for more than twenty years, after the parenthesis with Runaway Totem returns with his original band to reproduce the typical transversal sound also revealed in the album “Giro tondo (giro) fuori scena” of 2000, with genuine, essential seventies connotations, including progressive, rock, jazz, rhytmn blues, with digressions also experimental and theatrical.
The excellent Regoli’s vocals, but over all with the strength of the collective, the warm and scratchy groove of songs such as “Cormorano”, “Nuovi colori”, “25 Aprile” returns to pulsate, in which certain convergences with Area cannot be missing, while maintaining its own identity and immediacy, even when it comes to developing a rather original version of “Asia” by Francesco Guccini.
And among the enthralling songs the more experimental component also creeps in, such as the introductory “Obliquizione”, “Disarmoritmo”, the ritualistic theatricality (sound poetry?) of “Festa di Settembre”, which are an integral part of the musical visions of Cormorano, who don’t even spare the final gem with the last track “Pugni chiusi”.
A love that comes from afar and that still hasn’t exhausted its inspiration and expressive power.
