Simon Luca & L'Enorme Maria - E La Mia Mente (1973) {1995, Remastered Reissue}

Born as Alberto Favata in Piacenza, Simon Luca was among the respectable figures of Italian Rock through the first half of the 70's.He started his career as Alberto Oro, having already moved to Milan, releasing some singles in a Beat style at the end of the 60's, before launching his first album ''Da tremila anni'' on Victory as Simon Luca. Later he found his own backing band L'Enorme Maria, featuring some great members of the Milanese Rock scene, such as Ricky Belloni of New Trolls and Nuova Idea fame, his brother Gigi, Eugenio Finardi, Alberto Camerini, Lucio "Violino" Fabbri (later a member of Premiata Forneria Marconi), the last drummer of Nuova Idea Flaviano Cuffari, keyboardist Franco Orlandini, harmonica player Fabio Treves and Donatella Bardi.His next album ''Per proteggere l'enorme Maria'' was again in a singer/songwriter style with rockier textures, released on Ariston.The next one and cetainly most interesting effort ''E la mia mente?'', released in 1973 on Aristion, featured again his group L'Enorme Maria.Claudio Ciampini and Claudio Bazzari show up in this record, playing the guitars.

This time Simon Luca shines as an arranger, finding a great balance between his favorite styles, Singer/Songwriter and Progressive Rock.The album consists of 17 short tracks, which are connected to each other, resulting a cohesive Prog/Pop/Rock Opera, with a huge amount of shifting climates and decent instrumental power next to the typical lyrical depth of Luca's works.His voice is harsh but always deeply sensitive and expressive, shining in the vocal parts, usually supported by rockin' rhythmic tunes, acoustic lines or even some jazzy overtones.Links to the sound of JUMBO and I GIGANTI to a lesser extent are evident.The surprise comes from the proggier passages of the album, which sometimes sound even more complex than most of the legends of Italian Prog.The music on these moments is mostly guitar-oriented with tons of complicated switches in tempos but also some nice melodic moves, pretty much in a Hard Prog vein akin to I CALIFFI, I DIK DIK or OSAGE TRIBE, featuring also some tremendous bass work by Gigi Belloni.A couple of tracks offer the angelic female voice of Flavia Baldassari, who had also appeared in Metamorfosi's ''Inferno'' album.Keyboards and piano are used sporadically, delivering either soft instrumental washes or light Classical preludes.The album is quite consistent all the way with a good dose of striking Italian melodies and an amazing ability of rapid style changes, that works pretty well for the most of its part.

Luca's personal music career from this point followed a decline and after some late-70's singles on the Ricordi and Spaghetti labels he moved on to the TV world, composing music for advertising companies and series.He was also involved in the world of comics as an author and he is well-known for his wordlwide charity actions, although he never really abandoned the music industry over the years, as his collaborated with many artists during these years.

''E la mia mente?'' has been reissued by Vinyl Magic, but still remains an unknown album of Italian Prog.A nice release full of distant atmospheres, romantic melodies and dynamic, progressive power, all wrapped up in a well-composed Rock Opera.Warmly recommended.