FLAVOUR SPERIMENTALE

Friday, August 18, 2023

Flavour live at Casa La Mula, Portaria, Acquasparta

Flavour live at Casa La Mula, Portaria, Acquasparta

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Bio

Flavour Sperimentale is an Italian experimental music project founded in Acquasparta (Umbria) by guitarist and composer Nicola Cruciani. It grew out of Flavour, a psychedelic rock band formed in October 1997 by Cruciani, keyboardist Giovanni Armadoro, Francesco Francia (drums, sound engineering), and Paolo Feliciotti (bass/guitar). The band's identity was rooted in extended free improvisations, psychedelic drifts, and krautrock-influenced instrumental passages. After debuting live on 1st May 1998 and performing at various venues in Umbria and Terni, Flavour dissolved at the dawn of 2000.

Their sole collective album, I Maius MXCVIII (AD Bootleg) (2005), was compiled from VHS concert footage and cassette rehearsal recordings, documenting the band's raw, instinctive approach across five tracks, including the twenty-three-minute centrepiece Rituale and the minimalist closing piece Dolce Assenza – To Poldo.

Following Flavour's dissolution, Cruciani began recording solo experimental works, launching the Flavour Sperimentale project. Zu (2005), the first release, draws on Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrète and John Cage's prepared piano techniques across two tracks totalling approximately thirty-two minutes. Elektronische Musik (2006) presents a single twenty-seven-minute track inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen's electronic school, moving through noise, interference, and dissonance before resolving into a more conventional instrumental passage.

Cruciani also developed a collaborative strand under the name Flavour Lab, producing two albums with independent online artists Monos and Pinasv. Abstract Like An Absence (2008) combines reworked Flavour material with new experimental compositions. By Hook Or By Loop is a long electronic piece constructed entirely from layered loops, without the use of traditional instruments.

Between 2008 and 2010, Cruciani produced the Pink Trilogy, three albums revisiting the psychedelic and experimental territories of Pink Floyd's late 1960s period. A Provision of Mirages (2008) moves between kosmische-inflected openings, raga rock jams, and a long closing suite dense with feedback and slide guitars. Madamadama (2009, re-edited in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021) weaves together avant-garde and psychedelic influences, acoustic and electric textures, and contributions from Giorgio Giuseppini on Fender Rhodes and Hammond. Queen Moo Breakfast (2010) centres on a reworked multi-movement suite from 1996, alongside shorter song-form tracks and an ambient closing piece inspired by Brian Eno.

From 2012, Cruciani produced a series of works under the alias Bar Psichedelico, later collected and released in 2015 as the Exalogia Colorum, a six-part series in which each album explores a distinct chromatic and atmospheric tone: The Slight Shade of Fading, Polar Solstice, Yellow Jackets, Themes from the Lumber Room, Opus Grey, and Nyctophilia, ranging across psychedelia, lo-fi, minimalist electronics, ambient, and acoustic territories.

In 2016, Cruciani produced the Quadrilogy of Absence, four ambient albums — Onirica, Odissea Interstellare dell'Aringa Rossa, Didascalia per un Gesto, and Hydrophonia — exploring dreamlike, cosmic, domestic, and aquatic soundscapes respectively.

Also in 2016, Cruciani began a collaboration with Salerno-based artist Vincenzo Lardo (240bpm), releasing In No Man's Land (2017) under the name 240bpm & Flavour. The album blends ambient, psychedelic rock, pop, and trip-hop into an extended concept work. Back under the Flavour Sperimentale name, Эхо Космоса / Echo of the Cosmos (2018) explores the kosmische musik tradition with sonorities recalling Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Ash Ra Tempel.

In 2019, a partial reunion of the original Flavour lineup produced Say Goodbye to Winter, combining new compositions by Armadoro, a studio remake of the early track Orange, and long improvisations captured during rehearsals. A 2023 reissue added the new piece Dolce Assenza 23.

The COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 prompted a new concept album created with Lardo and Marco Grieco under the name M.E.N.: Spillover, a prog-psychedelic work exploring past, present, and an imagined post-pandemic future, released in 2024 via Marracash Records.

In 2021, Flavour Sperimentale released Small Songs for a Smile, an entirely instrumental album of piano studies composed by Armadoro, ranging from intimate to contemplative moods. The same year, 240bpm & Flavour released You Were All Here, a psychedelic pop rock album in which Cruciani took the lead compositional role, exploring themes of identity, loss, and emotional transformation.

Following a period of personal loss and creative silence, Cruciani returned with The Infinite Horizon (2024), an album dedicated to the memory of his father, gathering previously withdrawn tracks alongside new compositions and marking the close of one creative cycle.

In 2025, A Fleeting Sense of Perception marked a further evolution towards psychedelic pop, balancing experimental textures with more accessible song structures. The same year, 240bpm & Flavour released Dust On Tracks, a collection of tracks and outtakes documenting the creative journey of Cruciani and Lardo. In January 2026, the duo released Unplugged 0808, an acoustic live album recorded in August 2025 at Francesco Francia's photographic studio in Acquasparta — a return to origins, stripped of all electric superstructure.

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