
- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
For any music artist, to be able to write and record a full concept album, must surely be the highest goal possible to achieve, because such type of projects involve different art forms, not limited solely to songwriting, arrangements and vocals but it also extends to complex and extensive narrative of topics very close to the heart of the recording artist.
Somebody that has certainly achieved said goal, in our personal opinion, is the Italian singer/songwriter and visual artist Alessandro Zannier, better known with his stage name Ottodix, who has, through his eigth and brand new album called Arca, written a hugely intriguing project based on a hypothetical (but perhaps, not too much hypothetical) futuristic scenario about an ark (Arca, as the album title translates) shaped in a form of a tortoise, conceived to save the human race from cataclismic events that may destroy the world in decades to come.

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
It is quite refreshing, especially in the current music world, to hear records made by music artists that do not stick to a particular type of labeling, genre wise, but they rather prefer to let the music flow naturally, in a very organic and healthy free form style, where improvisation becomes a keyword to unleash freedom of expression and an artist musicianship at its very best.
In live performances, especially, the aforementioned aspect becomes even more relevant, because it speaks even more about not only the depth and quality of individual musicianship, but also about perfect interplay between band members, a key factor that it is not always easy to master, during a live show.
Read more: Doug Deming & The Jewel Tones - Groovin' At Groove Now!

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
There are very few people as talented and as indefatigable, when it comes to make music, than the American guitarist and singer/songwriter Steve Lukather.
Somebody that has heavily contributed to the success of a band like Toto through the last 4-plus decades and also written some of the most beautiful and highly appreciated chapters of the career of this extraordinary band, Lukather has also found the time, during the years and in-between making music with Toto and touring the world with the multi-awarded Rock collective, to record several solo albums, the penultimate of which, the 2021's I Found The Sun Again, was also reviewed by our website.

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
There are records, in the infinite galaxy of the music world, that sometimes are born purely out of love, intended in its most universal meaning. When said love then happens to meet people struck by its power, beauty and intensity, what comes after cannot be any less than shiny and sparkling.
This is, in brief, the biggest, perhaps divine creative engine behind the making of The Rock House Sessions, the debut album of American Powerhouse singer/songwriter Nalani Rothrock, a record that marks, very likely, the beginning step of a glorious music career for the talented Florida-born artist.

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
If writing music is an enormous gift for an artist per se and no matter the genre, to write soundtracks for movies and being able to translate the message carried by said movies into pieces of music that would appropriately benefit the mood and the feeling of a movie script, it is perhaps twice as difficult.
To come up with the concept of composing instrumental pieces for movies that don't actually exist, but they maybe, one day, being inspired by the wonderful soundscapes created by the vision and the imagination of an artist, it is quite a clever intuition and full credit for the idea goes to the Italian multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Arlo Bigazzi, who, on this project, worked with two illustrious fellow Italian musicians like Mirio Cosottini and Flavio Ferri, both multi-instrumentalists themselves.
Read more: Arlo Bigazzi Feat. Mirio Cosottini, Flavio Ferri - Short Pieces For Short Movies

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
One of the most memorable Blues and Blues/Rock live acts, not solely in the United States but also in the rest of the world and especially in the decade starting from 1987 to 1997, was undoubtedly Omar & The Howlers.
The band, led historically by the singer and guitarist Omar Dykes, formed back in 1973 to then move, few years later, to Austin, Texas where their sonic combustion of electric and acoustic Blues, Blues/Rock and Cajun blossomed at its very best, to the point to be considered among the very few authentic torchbearers of a style of Texas Blues music that would bring Omar & The Howlers to get worldwide recognition for their sonic strength, musicianship and the unique powerful vocal skills of their band leader Omar Dykes.
Read more: Omar & The Howlers - Classic Live Performances Vol.1-4: 1990's

- Details
- Written by: Giovanni "Gio" Pilato
One of the greatest gifts that an artform like Music in its entirety possesses, is that of allowing any listener to romanticize about it, by associating to the power of Music a moment in time in their lives that has a personal meaning. Naturally, a different one to everybody. But whatever said meaning is for any of us, there is something about the intensity of music, any music, no matter the genre. It might be a question of arrangement, uplifting bridges and choruses, the strength and passion emerging from vocal deliveries, fierce guitar solos or an artist's very personal songwriting that resonates with something happening in our personal lives at certain stages.
When it comes to intensity and its application to music, very few artists are able to express their devotion and unconditional dedication to it, that includes also a certain amount of physicality, more than the Texas-born Blues/Rock guitarist and singer/songwriter Chris Duarte, somebody that "feels" music through his own skin, even at the cost to have his fingers bleeding on stage, when he plays guitar, for the strength and athleticism that Duarte puts into his guitar playing.
