Four Flies Italy Schallplatten & CDs

Review: As part of the RELOVED series from Four Flies - co-curated with fellow indie label Little Beat More - comes one of a handful new reinterpreted versions of Alessandro Alessandroni's 'Tema di Susie', the star soundtrack cut from the 1976 Italian noir film Sangue Di Sbirro. With the film regaling a gangland drama centring on revenge, passion, and the madness of love, Alessandroni's original minute-and-a-half-long cut is an eerily serene counterpoint to its themes and here appears alongside a new remix from French producer Mounika, who fleshes out the original cinematic-soul number's circa-140bpm headnod and serene flauting with beefier drums and wilder piano flourishes; this is a juxtaposition you can hear as clearly as day here, on this A-and-B'd delight.

Review: Internationally acclaimed Italian singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Chiara Civello unveils a new single, 'Sono Come Sono', blending a mixture of Neapolitan funk and club-infused rawness into four mixes. With the title roughly translating to 'it is what it is', the tune is a true, happy reflection on all things being immutable, and struggle being ultimately futile. Party on!

Review: We've been served a good banquet of dance reissues from classic Italian film soundtracks of late, and Gianni Ferrio's 'La Poliziotta' is one of the best of the bunch. Combining two choice cuts from mysterious film director Stefano Vanzina's aka. Steno's sexy detective film 'La Poliziotta', this 7" reissue is a finger-clicking, jazz-swinging foray through instrumental funk.

Review: Adding to the niche interest of Italian film soundtrack reissues, centring on the reissuers Four Flies, comes Milano: Il Clan Dei Calabresi - a 7" single featuring two tracks from the 1977 Italian crime film Milano: Il Clan Dei Calabresi. The pieces were composed by Gianni Marchetti, an Italian composer widely known for his work in various genres of cinema. Both the funky, infectious main theme of the film, and the romantic 'La Fine Di Un Sogno' for classical flute and strings, appear on this exquisite artifact.

Review: This is another fine addition to the Four Flies 45 series: it is a first-ever 7" taken from one of the few soundtracks that legendary producer and composer Paolo Ormi ever wrote (namely a rather underwhelming parody of Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam). He is best known for his mix of Italian funk, disco and library music, both for underground labels but also stars like Raffaella Carra. All three of the instrumentals here are seriously funky - two of them have actually been put out before as part of this label's hard-to-find compilations Esterno Notte and Esterno Giorno.

Review: Latest in the Italian soundtrack reissues crop comes this pair of tracks from the soundtrack of Un Uomo Dalla Pelle Dura (The Boxer), a 1972 film directed by Franco Prosperi and starring Robert Blake and Catherine Spaak. Composed by Carlo Pes - who was also the guitarist of the infamous quartet I Marc 4, who probably played on this session as well - 'The Riff' and 'Bossa Party' are are light-footed, drum-led funk number and a piano-led supernova respectively. Perfect accompaniments for the subject of a disgruntled boxer fighting for his dignity.

Review: Translated into English, The Novice is a 1975 Italian movie about a young chap returning to his provincial hometown to visit his dying uncle, who is being cared for by a night nurse who also happens to be a novice nun, played by the remarkably beautiful and seductive Gloria Guida. An erotic comedy, you can guess where the plot goes, but the casting of Lionel Stander as ageing relative is interesting.

The US actor was memorialised in Eric Bentley's play Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been after his famously uncooperative testimony before the House of Un-American Activities, responsible for exposing communists in the early days of the Cold War. Subsequently blacklisted from TV, film, and radio in his homeland, he eventually moved to Europe, first setting up shop in London, where he would make flicks for decades, often pretty obscure ones. This is one, and the music is wonderfully kitsch, Wurlitzer-packed elevator stuff, so if that's your bag so is this.

Review: Four Flies are dab hands at digging out the finest curios from the hidden depths of Italian music culture, and this is surely one of their proudest proclamations. Guiliano Sorgini recorded the soundtrack to Riccardo Fellini's TV movie Zoo Folle in 1974, and the soundtrack came out the same year. Far more than a set of modest instrumentals or functional library music, this is raging, heavy psych funk of the highest order, with raunchy riffs, bugged-out flute, intense percussive beatdowns and so much more besides. Whichever plucky diggers originally unearthed this holy grail must have lost their tiny minds, because even framed with the significance it deserves, this is an out-of-this world record we're very fortunate to have back in our reach.

Review: Piero Umiliani aka Moggi, is the man behind Omicron Records and plenty of seminal library records from the 1970s. The Italian jazz musician, most famous also for scoring many film soundtracks, here has one of his most dance-y tracks served up by Four Flies. It features an original version as well as a special edit retouched by Jolly Mare. The original was recorded in 1978 under one of his many other monikers, Rovi, as a way of not over saturating the market with his name at the time. It is a cosmic beats that chimes with the emergence of that sound and still does today.

Review: Four Flies present another masterpiece from one of the all-time greats of Italian soundtrack and library music, Piero Umiliani. His work on the 1974 film Il Corpo ranks amongst his most famous work, and now two pieces have been selected from the soundtrack and presented on this exclusive single. 'Chaser' on the A side appears in an exclusive extended form which has never been released before, while 'Hard Times' on the flip remains the archetype of Italian jazz-funk perfection. This is a limited edition so don't hang around as these are sure to fly out.