Artist description Music for dreams and illusions

Music Style Ambient/Prog Rock /Ethnic.....

Musical Influences Jade Warrior/Taste/Pink Floyd/Alchemy.........Pepe Maina

Similar Artists Jade Warrior/Pepe Maina

Artist History Pepe Maina was born in Milano, Italy.No diploma from any conservatory, no bachelor's degree, no prizes, in short, nothing that could lead you to believe that from a young age, he might become somebody.A self-taught musician, for twenty years he has attempted to create and translate into music, atmospheres and images absolutely anti-commercially, blindly intolerant of the logic of the Italian music market.Strange guy, no?Almost all his music is self-produced and realized at his Nonsense Studio, with the exception of his album " Il Canto dell'arpa e del flauto", which came out in 1978 for CGD.His collaborative projects have been extremely varied, from theater to documentaries, from advertising to a long string of unmentionable bullshit.The work showcased in this site is part of a larger discography that continues to grow.Celebrate the cycles and the seasons with music it's always better than having your brain fucked by the media.

Group Members Pepe Maina

Instruments Flute, guitar, keyboards and percussions

Albums The song of the harp and the flute/Scerizza/The wind game/122 Indiani di serie bis/Whale song/Music Vol.1/Music Vol.2/Moondance/Waves/Last winter's tales/Shoro-iiat/Drogoons../Clouds/Winged Fever

Press Reviews Pepe Maina was kind enough to send me a compilation CD spanning his 20-plus-year musical career. Maina's music is what I might call "light prog" in the sense of "light classical". Too melodic to be Techno, not complacent enough for New Age (in spite of song titles about whales and wolves), a little on the simplistic side for symphonic prog, and too complicated for hypnotic space music, but with aspects of all of the above. He calls it "ambient/prog", but in my opinion it begs to be listened to more than most music I would call "ambient". Maina's music (at least on the compilation he sent) is all instrumental. His earlier works are all synthesizer/samplers and flute with percussion, but he's added guitar to his latest recordings. His drums seem to be mostly drum machines or sampled drums played on keyboards plus a assortment of hand drums; if so, the programming/sampling is nicely done and not mechanical sounding at all. Maina works in his own studio, named Nonsense Studios, and works largely on his own, though he has collaborated with others for movie soundtracks and TV ad campaign music. His albums are all self-released, though the production quality is excellent. For comparisons, his latest compositions (since 1995) remind me quite a bit of Steve Hillage's early post-Gong solo albums, though without vocals. Not as droney as Rainbow Dome Musick though, I'm talking more like Motivation Radio or Green era. They have a similar "nature spirituality" feel, which is pretty amazing considering there are no lyrics to give any such indication. As the music gets earlier (they are organized in reverse chronological order on the compilation), it starts to have less spacey feel and get into a bit of latin jazz or even light fusion. But across all the years, Maina's formula remains the same - pick a catchy chord progression, usually only a few bars, and repeat it while soloing over the top with interesting synthesizer and sampler sounds, processed guitars and occasional sound effects. The variations within this motif are interesting enough to keep the pieces from getting boring, even without vocals. This is nice, relaxing, light prog that your wife or girlfriend might even like (sorry, ladies, but Prog rock is a sadly male-dominated music genre). No great challenge to these pieces, but you don't have to be embarassed to have it on when your Prog friends drop by either. Try out some Pepe Maina by ordering from his web site! By the way, it appears that the CD I heard or a very similar compilation CD is now available from his site as well. -- Fred Trafton

Location Milano, ITALY - Italy

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