Madrugada - Madrugada (Reissue) (1974/2010)

This italian band from Bergamo was formed around 1970 and lasted until 1978. Their name means "dawn", in spanish.
Their eponimous debut, only released in 1974 by Philips, is not a true progressive album.
It contains seven tracks, some of which were arranged and signed by ROBERTO VECCHIONI (a singer-songwriter that's still very popular nowadays).
The first side shows some influences by a West Coast styled sound, with multivocal parts well executed but not particularly original. Second side contains the long Mandrax, led by Gianfranco Pinto's keyboards, that's probably the best album track.
Except for a limited use of acoustic guitar on Uomo blu the band didn't use guitars and their sound was strongly based on keyboards and richly arranged vocal parts.

With only second album "Incastro" (1977) the band moved to the progressive realm and this time the trio was helped by some guest musicians like LUCIO FABBRI on violin (PIAZZA DELLE ERBE and later PFM), the jazz saxophonist Gianluigi Trovesi, and Luciano Ninzatti (from EUGENIO FINARDI'S band CRISALIDE) on guitar.
With a much better production and sound, this is generally considered their best work, with long tracks like the opening Romanzen or Aragon. Another nice song was È triste il vento, that had previously been played by another group from Bergamo that had a close connection with Madrugada, PERDIO.
Like in the first album there are some odd different-styled tracks, but "Incastro" can be surely appreciated by progressive music fans, epsecially by lovers of RPI, jazz-rock and avantguard music.