September 2024; long unavailable, I'm overjoyed to present this réédition of Romolo "Santany" Grano's ME1, here augmented by the impossibly-rare 1970s Private-Press "Elettronica" set (originally issued on Grano's "Roman Graund" in a miniscule 'Internal' edition of 50!) featuring an additional program-length suite of music composed at the storied Studio di Fonologia Musicale Rai di Milano! It's every bit as amazing, featuring a side-length 10-part suite entitled "Electron Phantasie" along with an incredible assortment of Avant-Electronic gold! Twice the Grano, with everything fitting neatly on a single disc!

Here’s something of a Holy Grail amongst the “Electronic Library” spec; Romolo Grano’s 1973 Joker-label “Musica Elettronica 1,” touted as no less than an all-encompassing “New Dimension in Sound, Electronically Tested in Sound Laboratory,”

The polar opposite of “Groovy” libraries by the likes of Cecil Leuter, Georges Teperino, and Giampero Boneschi, this sits comfortably alongside the dark, brooding minimal electronics of Giorgio “Zanagoria” Carnini & Giuliano Sorgini’s work, offering up a selection of curt, single-minded environments mired in heavy dissonance and extremely sparse arrangements of electronically-altered & synthesized sound.

An amazing depth was plumbed here; this has to be one of the most obscure sets of early Italian electronic music ever issued, trumping even the contemporaneous work of Pietro Grossi - with whom Mr. Grano shares an affinity for runaway, freewheeling atonal analogia.