FABIO FRIZZI
Rock Progressivo Italiano • Italy
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Fabio Frizzi (born July 2, 1951 in Bologna) is one of Italy's best known Italian horror film-score composers. He is particularly well-known for scoring the Italian film director Lucio Fulci's films. He has collaborated with the Italian progressive rock band Goblin, and extensively with the then ex Goblin keyboardist Maurizio Guarini, and made many soundtracks with Vince Tempera and Franco Bixio.
At the age of fourteen, Frizzi and three others started a band that played covers of groups such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Crosby , Stills, and Nash, and the Mammas and the Papas where his group's interest was in creating interesting and complex arrangements of the music.
When his father tried to push him into studying law, he actively shopped himself to the different music publishing houses in Rome. He met Carlo Bixio through a publishing house, who was the eldest brother in a family that managed a publishing house that dealt with soundtracks. Carlo wanted to publish a trio of musicians/ composers formed where each member of the group had a different style and vision, and thereby working together a unique sound would be created. Carlo introduced Fabio to his younger brother Franco Bixio, and brought in the already well-known composer and conductor Vince Tempera to complete the trio. It was the Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera group that set Frizzi's musical career in motion.
"Bixio-Frizzi-Tempera was a real co-operative team. My first instrument was the guitar, Tempera played piano and keyboards, themes were composed sometimes by one, sometimes by the other, sometimes together" (Fabio Frizzi in a Cinema Suicide interview conducted by Tom Fife in 2008).
In 1968 they collaborated on their first soundtrack for a Fabio Testi western called And Now... Make Your Peace With God. In 1974 the trio composed a soundtrack to a film called Carambola. Over the next four years, according to cinema-suicide.com, he would compose eighteen soundtracks with the trio.
In 1974, for the soundtrack Amore Libero, a love in the sun sort of flick, the members of Goblin played, uncredited, on the Frizzi/ Tempera soundtrack.
In 1975, Frizzi, in collaboration with Tempera and Bixio, had the opportunity to work with the Italian director Lucio Fulci on a soundtrack -- working with Fulci would become Frizzi's best-known collaboration with a director. Along with the rest of the trio, he composed the soundtrack to the western The Four of the Apocaly...read more
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FABIO FRIZZI discography
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FABIO FRIZZI top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)
2.25 | 4 ratings
Amore Libero (featuring Goblin) 1974 |
3.60 | 5 ratings
Zombi 2 [Aka: Zombie] OST 1979 |
3.02 | 7 ratings
Paura nella citt� dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) O.S.T. 1980 |
3.91 | 10 ratings
E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldil� (The Beyond) O.S.T 1981 |
2.00 | 4 ratings
Manhattan Baby 1982 |
1.00 | 1 ratings
Il Capitano (O.S.T.) 2005 |
4.68 | 6 ratings
Sette note in nero [The Psychic] (with Bixio and Tempera) 2006 |
4.00 | 1 ratings
Vai Gorilla (Frizzi with Bixio and Tempera) 2010 |
FABIO FRIZZI Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)
FABIO FRIZZI Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)
FABIO FRIZZI Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)
FABIO FRIZZI Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)
0.00 | 0 ratings
7 Note in Nero 1977 |
FABIO FRIZZI Reviews
Showing last 10 reviews only
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Warthur
Prog Reviewer
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Warthur
Prog Reviewer
It's little surprise that symphonic horror maestros Morte Macabre chose to cover an extract from the album on Symphonic Holocaust, though I'd have preferred to hear their take on the masterful Voci di Nulla theme than the disco-esque Sequenza Ritmica E Tema. But then again, why tamper with a work which is so fine in its original context?
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Finnforest
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator
Fabio Frizzi is an Italian composer from Bologna. In the 1970s he became involved with creating the soundtracks of horror films, forging a successful alliance with director Lucio Fulci. He also became interested in the experimental music of the time and befriended musicians of the band Goblin among others. This led to a few of his soundtracks crossing into RPI territory, blending symphonic prog, dramatic choir vocals, keyboard experimentation, and dark-sounding rock. Some of this work could be described as a mix of Goblin with a more refined, subtler Jacula.
"The Beyond" is quite similar to the previous "Night of the Living Dead" I just reviewed, but perhaps more fully realized as a dark symphonic listening experience. Compared to the previous work there seems to be less of the pared down Jacula rock and much more of an orchestral experience. This album sounds more like a soundtrack because of the fuller orchestral background. On top of this you still have a fair amount of eerie piano melody and a big increase in the choir vocals. The dark vocal choirs are now more prevalent and feature a more complex arrangement. Of course some of it comes off quite campy still which is to be expected given the films, yet there are tracks like "Voci dal Nulla" which are just plain beautiful on any level. Beguiling flute, lovely yet sad atmosphere, mystery. I'm not quite enthused enough about this scene to go with high ratings, yet this is undeniably good stuff and I'd suggest any fan of dramatic, darker Italian symphonic, do give it a spin. You may well love it!
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Finnforest
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator
I hate zombie movies and the whole zombie pop culture thing, I think it's a load of rubbish. But zombie music is another matter when the Italians are involved. Fabio Frizzi is a well known Italian composer born in Bologna in 1951. In the 1970s he became involved with creating the soundtracks of horror films, forging a successful alliance with director Lucio Fulci. He also became interested in the experimental music of the time and befriended musicians of the band Goblin among others. This led to a few of his soundtracks crossing into RPI territory, blending symphonic prog, dramatic choir vocals, keyboard experimentation, and dark-sounding rock. Some of this work could be described as a mix of Goblin with a more refined, subtler Jacula.
"There was a crop of new keyboards made by a lot of different manufacturers. The true revolution was the Yamaha line, with an incredible electric piano like CP80 and an extraordinary synthesizer, the CS80." Frizzi worked exhaustively with ex Goblin keyboard player Maurizio Guarini to find new, unique sounds; "we actually tried and used every new instrument of that time, included vocoders, the Prophet 5, Arp 2600, Oberheims, Roland Jupiter 8 (Frizzi says he still has his), etc. But I already had a passion for vintage sound, so I brought with me things like Mellotron, Mini Moog, ARP Solina, Fender Rhodes, etc, etc, etc!" -from Tim Fife's Cinema Suicide interview with Frizzi
It begins with eerie yet traditional strings welling up around you. Soon the drums commence with a very simple, plodding beat...very much like the deliberate drumming of Albert Goodman on the Antonius Rex debut. And when the choir vocals come in the music feels much like the Rex. What makes the music excel for me is a sense of loss, a great sadness, beauty and yet emptiness, which is captured by repeating motifs of traditional piano and lovely flute passages. If you enjoy piano and flute you will want to hear this. These sections are contrasted with dissonant, often difficult-to-enjoy passages of noise and keyboard screech...used to build tension and fear. Occasionally there will be a tasteful, almost Gilmour-like guitar lead over the slow moving atmospheric darkness, or a cool lone flute dancing along to a bass guitar solo. If you enjoy instrumental, atmospheric soundtrack music with the feel of the darker RPI bands, selected albums from the late 70s/early 80s will be of interest. Further, if you already know you love Frizzi, you should check out an active band called RanestRane, who put their own original progressive rock to classic horror film presentation. Good stuff!
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin
The OST (original soundtrack) is eclectic due to having three composers, yet it gels. It ranges from haunting dark ambient to pop, to modern classical to jazzy music. It's mostly suspenseful, and the "7 Note" track should appeal to those who enjoy Tubular Bells. As is common in soundtracks, we get various variations on similar themes. I have my particular favourite themes and variations on them, but I won't bother going into that. The album flows very well, and picking it apart into some 22 track, track-by-track analysis would bea bit misguided, and, well, terribly dull in my opinion..
Part of what I like so much about the album is the way it builds up tension. It starts with an ominous instrumental, moves into a pop love song that is rather foreboding, and then into more menacing music... The score is very colourful, and it is surely one of my favourite soundtracks (and I'm something of a soundtrack collector).
Fabio Frizzi Rock Progressivo Italiano
Review by
Logan
Forum & Site Admin Group Site Admin
Frizzi has been involved with a couple of my favourite soundtracks: Sette Note in Nero and The Beyond. I do like other Frizzi soundtracks, such as City of the Living Dead, and Manhattan Baby and Zombie to a lesser extent, and love Vai Gorilla which he collaborated on.
The Beyond is a terrific soundtrack to a gruesome Italian horror film (not quite up to Sette in Nero for me, but great none-the-less). Although the film has found a cult following and is highly regarded amongst splatter-fest film aficionados, it seems to me quite remarkable in a way that such an excellent soundtrack would accompany such a film -- even if Fulci's is a much more thoughtful film than most really gory films (yet I find it common to find wonderful, original soundtracks to erotic, horror and violent dramas coming from Italy and France -- and I'm sure it can be said for many other nations too).
I've long had a thing for choral type vocals and this album is no exception. It has rousing, exciting, rather sinister, beautiful and uplifting music (definite contrasts in mood). Themes are repeated with variations. If I were to choose just two tracks to keep, it would be "Suono Aperto" and "Voci dal Nulla", the first I find a gorgeous instrumental, and the second very exciting and also has great beauty.
I love soundtracks. And I like soundtracks commonly where themes are developed, or approached differently throughout an album. This album succeeds very well in offering different moods and feel for themes. I like the variations very much.
This review is rather short and spontaneous. Personally, I would give it five stars, but since I have found Sette Note just a little more satisfying, four stars.
EDIT: Listening again, I have to give it five stars. I love the album, and after many months of listening to it regularly it hasn't lost its shine. I might even request this for my funeral when I go off to the great Beyond (the beyond being a chintzy urn that doubles as a cigarette ashtray in this case)...