The Underground Set - 1970 - The Underground Set

The Underground Set

1970

The Underground Set

01. Arcipelago 3:18

02. Emisfero 3:00

03. Atollo 3:07

04. Longitudine Est 2:11

05. 36° Parallelo 2:03

06. Samba Natalizia 3:12

07. Underground In Blue 5:22

08. Shake 26 2:45

09. Equatore 2:36

10. 7° Meridiano 2:25

11. Emisfero 3:43

12. Tanto Per Cambiare 3:39

13. Motor Road Underground 2:46

14. Slaughter On The Motor Road 4:13

15. La Filibusta 2:54

Tracks 12 to 15 are bonus tracks from 1970s singles

Marco Zoccheddu - guitar, vocals

Claudio Ghiglino - guitar, vocals

Giorgio Usai - keyboards

Enrico Casagni - bass, flute, vocals

Paolo Siani - drums, vocals

Behind the Underground Set name hid, for contractual reasons, the musicians from Nuova Idea. But surely the mastermind behind them was composer Gian Piero Reverberi, who was also the producer of Le Orme.

The Underground Set were often thought to be an English group, their first album having been issued in many European countries. It's interesting to notice that the group has been mentioned as English in Vernon Joynson's Tapestry of Delight book.

But in an interview with Paolo Siani on the Italian Musikbox magazine, the drummer was one of the first to reveal that the musicians playing on this band's two albums were in fact Nuova Idea, as Radio Records (the label on which the first album and the singles appeared) was distributed by their label Ariston at the time.

Mainly instrumental, with just some choral vocal parts, the albums are typical of a late 60's organ-led psychy pop sound and some tracks were used as TV film themes.

UK Album Cover

Fun collection of instrumental funk/psych tracks with plenty of organ and guitar. These songs were recorded by the group Nuova Idea, and for contractual reasons changed their name for this album. These songs were apparently used as film/TV themes (a genre known as library music), and this same group of musicians released an album under the name The Psycheground Group, which is pretty similar. Unlike the rare album by the Psychedelic Group, this album was released in the UK and Germany as well as their native Italy.

The problem with this album, and most library music albums, is that the music is all very same and becomes tedious even at its short running time of 34 minutes. Still, there are some classics on here, namely the very strong opening cut 'Arcipelago.' This album is full of tasty organ and period flavor.