16 March, 2023

preview of Italian music book at YouTube

 A Fistful Of Spaghetti

The ultimate guide to Italian progressive rock, experimental, electronic music, etc. as a big weighty book. 500 copy print-run, now with over half of them sold. Don't miss-out!

https://youtu.be/KOXmsf4qvV0 


All the info you need is here:
http://www.ultimathulerecords.com/fistful.html
including
Bandcamp and Ebay purchase links

29 October, 2022

A FISTFUL OF SPAGHETTI
Our forthcoming Italian music book is nearing completion.
It is now paid for, and at the printers, awaiting them supplying proofs, with the tentative publication date of 15 November 2022.

The price will be £25 + p&p/shipping.

The book is liable to weigh around a kilo, so international shipping won't be cheap, unless we use surface. There may be the option to use USPS surface/air economy to the USA as well.

We have been running a funding campaign via the Ultima Thule web site. Information can be found here: www.ultimathulerecords.com/fistful.html and there is also a funding option via Bandcamp as well with a minimum of £1 donation, although to secure a copy of the book you need to donate at least £30. But, be aware that funding via Bandcamp will have both PayPal and Bandcamp fees deducted (a£30 payment usually results in £25.83 received here, as opposed to the usual £28.83). So, if you are going to do it via Bandcamp then it will be to your advantage to do it on Bandcamp Friday, this next week. Here's the Bandcamp funding link: audion1.bandcamp.com/merch/a-fistful-of-spaghetti-book-funding-campaign


 
all pre-orders will get a free bonus pdf publication, as listed here: www.ultimathulerecords.com/audion.html#italianscrapbook

More useful links...

Book taster preview: youtu.be/KOXmsf4qvV0

bonus pdf preview: youtu.be/NjFg7U8XBIc

pages from the opening section...
 
 
some picture pages...

 
some text page samples...


 

29 July, 2022

MPS - favourites from the Black Forest

essential for fans of far-out 60s/70s jazzy prog/psych underground sounds

article in the new Audion magazine
 

 

 

Audion 70 published!

 

New release: Audion 70

There were plans for a Paul Nagle interview in the very first issue of Audion, but for some reason it never happened. So, 36 years later we catch up with Paul at a time when he's even more creative than he ever was. So, not 35 years too late, but a celebration of this unique talent in British electronic music. Audion #70 turned out to be a really work intensive issue, with quite an incredible number of reviews, and a serious amount of in-depth research was need to be done for the AMM article. Thus, this issue took me over a month to complete! Paul Nagle features as the cover article because Andy G thought he should. Although big news of the moment is the debut album from Birth, which meant cramming-in the article/interview at the last moment. Apart from, the main body of the Perigeo article, nearly all the rest of is album review based, of which the MPS and Harvest features were especially enjoyable to do. https://audion1.bandcamp.com/album/audion-70-multimedia




30 May, 2022

Audion pdf download music magazine

 


Audion 69. Released today! Another regular bi-monthly fix of wide-ranging music articles and reviews for all fans of progressive and experimental music, from the 1960s through to the present. We have 4 major articles this time: 1. the Italian legend Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso to tie-in with our forthcoming book "A Fistful Of Spaghetti" (see rear page advert), 2. a look at reissues from synthesizer musician Jeff Carney, 3. an article on the Dutch band Focus that I'd been wanting to do for ages, and 4. Musica Elettronica Viva, another in my series of articles on avant-garde ensembles. After that we have another Choice British Label article, followed by a huge wodge of reviews split into six sections, that's 80 reviews (of which some include more than one release), which is more than enough for anyone to investigate before Audion 70 comes out!
Audion 69 contents...
THIS PAGE (contents, info, editorial, etc.) 2
DIVERSIONS / IN SIGHT 3
BANCO DEL MUTUO SOCCORSO - the Italian masters of classical rock 4
JEFF CARNEY - The synthesizer music of, revisited 9
FOCUS - The Dutch progressive rock legend 1969-1977 10
MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA - The American-Italian enigma 15
ITALIAN LIBRARY MUSIC GEMS, PART 2 19
Choice British Label Classics: GULL 21
RESCUED RELICS - reissues & archives, reviews 23
THE AVANT-GARDE SECTOR - experimental music reviews 28
NO MAN'S LAND - odd and unclassifiable things 31
CATCHING UP - reviews of older items 32
REVIEWS BY ALAN FREEMAN - reviews of new releases 34
THE ANDY G. REVIEW PAGE 39
Audion 69 (multimedia) https://audion1.bandcamp.com/album/audion-69-multimedia with free audio, 19 tracks: 124:26
Audion 69 (pdf only) https://audion1.bandcamp.com/album/audion-69-pdf-only small download

22 February, 2022

Help fund our new book!

A Fistful Of Spaghetti

encyclopedia of Italian progressive rock, experimental, electronic music, etc. by Steven Freeman & Alan Freeman From the writers of The Crack In The Cosmic Egg
 
Pre-payment funding available now with payments of £30 or more securing a copy (p&p/shipping will be invoiced when published). Pre-orders will get some discount and books will be signed and numbered. You can donate more if you wish!
 
more info about the book here: http://www.ultimathulerecords.com/fistful.html with pre-payment details in the yellow panel.
 

All those that bought our Cosmic Egg book and will probably be interested in this too. This new book follows a similar format, but is about the Italian music scene...
 
This is our our long awaited extensive survey of the amazing Italian "Spaghetti-Rock" scene. Although centred on the progressive rock scene of the 1970s, we have attempted to cover all related genres here, amounting to more than just another prog rock guide. Indeed, we believe that "A Fistful Of Spaghetti" is the first English encyclopedia of Italian rock and new-music to fully examine this too-often overlooked but amazingly prolific and innovative scene in all its facets, tracing its roots from the avant-garde and pop music, via the new freedom of the post psychedelic era that gave birth to it. 

30 January, 2022

Bumper 48 page new Audion!

Audion 67 (pdf publication)
...containing the usual diverse array of genres and styles, with things new and old. The cover article on King Crimson was requested way back in Audion 22, and the Dierks feature (which includes an interview with the legendary engineer of Cosmic Jokers member himself) finally came together after several months planning. Andy G got especially productive supplying Harald Grosskopf and Lutz Ulbrich interviews, of which the Ulbrich will be in the next issue. Along with those, we have the little-known Krautrock band Alcatraz, features on current bands: Abrete Gandul and Eye Make The Horizon, the usual customary dips into the avant-garde, the postponed Dawn label feature, and tons more reviews including a 2-page special on Seelie Court Digital. Also, another thing you may notice is that this new issue is a snazzier pdf, as I finally sussed-out how to do direct conversion from Microsoft Word!

Get it here: just £5
https://audion1.bandcamp.com/album/audion-67-multimedia
includes over 2½ hours of free audio!

Breeze Music - Ohr, Pilz, KM reissues article
with exclusive Dieter Dierks interview!
A glimpse of pages 1 & 2 of the article...

King Crimson Part 1 - 8 page article
A glimpse of pages 2 & 3 of the article ...

You can browse in low-res without downloading here: https://youtu.be/6o8yK2sswAA