Moggi - Tra Scienza e Fantascienza LP

Label: Musica Per Immagini

Our Review:

Even if we weren't already Umiliani fans, we'd have been sold on this from the cover art alone – the painting looks a bit like a still from some psychedelic science-fantasy animation, like La Planete Sauvage, and the creature in the foreground with the one big eye reminds us of a 'minion' from Despicable Me wearing a black leather/latex bondage suit! So there's that. And, there's the music – also cool and strange and not that far removed from La Planete Sauvage stuff either. This album, which was originally released circa 1980 (supposedly, though some sources state '81, and others 1976), was made by Italian soundtrack/library music composer Piero Umiliani, here operating under the "band" name Moggi. We've always loved Umiliani, best known for his nonsense hit "Mah Na Mah Na", made more famous by the Muppets. He's a 'Space Age Bachelor Pad' music maestro, and here, with drums, bass and hella Moog, gets especially spacey, these retro-futuristic ditties approaching kraut-electronica status (a la Cluster), often sounding quite ahead of their time. It's a real wondrous romp of experimental synthesizer poppiness, chock a block with quirky, groovy instrumentals, squelchy and super-catchy and synthed out to the max, with mesmeric melodies, percolating percussion and other splashes of jazziness along with the avant-garde electronics and FX. Utterly delightful.