Sensations’ Fix: Fragments of Light (1974)

If you want to look for more great Italian prog and it’s something different from the usual PFM, Banco, Le Orme influenced stuff, then let me suggest you Sensations’ Fix. Fragments of Light is their very first album and is very unlike most Italian bands. For one thing, instead of borrowing heavily from classical, or ELP, Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, or any other given prog band of the time, they create totally original sound combining the prog rock of the time with some truly mindblowing spacy synthesizers.

Sensations’ Fix was lead by guitarist, synthesist, and (sometimes) vocalist Franco Falsini with bassist Richard Ursillo and American-born drummer Keith Edwards. Vintage synthesizer freaks are just going to freak over songs like “Nuclear War in Your Brain”, “Windopax and the Stone Sender”, “Space Energy Age”, “Metalfel + Mafalac”, “Space Closure”, “Music Without Gravity” and “Telepathic Children”. Basically Franco Falsini, aside from playing guitar, handles the Moog synthesizer and an organ-like keyboard called the Eminent (a French-made keyboard that sounds like a string synth that every Italian prog band seemed to have used in 1973-74). The way he played those keyboards will convince anyone out there who is no fan of digital keyboards, as the synthesizers are as far removed from the digital sound of the 1980s and 1990s as you can get! Many of the songs are played all by Falsini himself, but Ursillo and Edwards did help whenever drums and bass guitar were needed.

There are only two songs with vocals, “Space Energy Age” and “Do You Love Me”. The latter one, especially proves that the vocals weren’t the band’s strong point, so the rest of the album is all-instrumental. I am just totally blown away by this album, this album gives me all the reminders why I got in to prog rock in the first place, and why I like the sound of old analog synthesizers. Fragments of Light isn’t the only album Sensations’ Fix released. They also released Portable Madness (1974), Finest Finger (1976), Boxes Paradise (1977), Vision’s Fugitive (1977), and Flying Tapes (1978). I have not heard any of these albums, except for Finest Finger, which isn’t as good, as it’s a more song-oriented album and the synthesizers just aren’t as impressive (even though the band included a second keyboardist named Steve Head by that time, which was hardly worth it).

Still Finest Finger isn’t a bad album, it just sounds like countless other prog rock albums of the time and you’re obviously much better off starting with Fragments of Light. Anyway, Fragments of Light is definately very highly recommended for all fans of electronic and prog.
– Franco Falsini: guitars, synthesizers, Eminent, vocals
– Richard Ursillo: bass guitar and electronic pedals
– Keith Edwards: drums and percussion