SENSATIONS' FIX

Music is Painting in the Air is RVNG’s second archival project following last year’s acclaimed reissue of Harald Grosskopf’s Synthesist. The first time Sensations’ Fix music has been made available on vinyl since the original, out of print releases.

Music Is Painting In the Air is a collection of new mixes and unheard music from Sensations’ Fix’s prolific output between 1974 and 1977. Revered as one of the great articulations of progressive music, Music Is Painting offers guide posts to those familiar with Sensations’ Fix’s amorphous catalog and an approachable primer to those just journeying on the sensational trip. The story of Sensations’ Fix begins—and never quite ends—with Franco Falsini. Falsini, born in Florence, Italy in 1948, blazed a trail for home-recording that has impressed upon inward resourcing and reflecting musicians and DIY enthusiasts in the decades since.

A technology stalwart, Falsini employed a floor model MiniMoog and a tricked-out Teac 4-track machine to transform the Virginia and Florence basements into cosmic conduits for Sensations’ Fix. The reach for space from a personal place is nowhere more apparent than on Fragments of Light, early basement recordings solicited by Falsini as deal demos and surprisingly flipped into the first of six Sensations’ Fix albums released in under 5 years.

The up-close fidelity of Fragments creates a private quality that separates the album from other extravagant progressive rock productions contemporary to its 1974 release. After Fragments release, Falsini (re-located to Italy), alongside American expats drummer Keith Edwards and bassist Richard Ursillo, charged through another 2 Sensations’ Fix albums, Portable Madness in 74 and Finest Finger in 76, and a stunning solo album Cold Nose (Naso Fredo) in 75. Falsini and his band of psychedelic renegades left Italy for the golden shores of California, releasing Vision’s Fugitive on an independent label and fulfilling their major label obligation shortly after with Boxes Paradise. In the years since, the clandestine spirit of Sensations’ Fix enabled a legend to grow.

On his 2002 album, The Private Press, DJ Shadow sampled from 2 Sensations’ Fix songs. More recently, Sonic Youth curated a career retrospective titled Sensational Fix at Life Gallery. For Music is Painting in the Air, Falsini set forth on a year-long voyage to restore and revisit the original Sensations’ Fix analog tapes. The sequence is chronologically defiant, encouraging the listener to free associate the recurring themes’ origins and immerse in the body of music as a its own universe.

Once this celestial body suit is occupied, it becomes apparent why the forwardthinking yet emotionally-accessible quality of Sensations’ Fix’s music is still finding the universal audience for which its intended. Falsini’s disregard for time and insistence on reinvention provides an infinite reach for his music. The end-goal was seemingly unmarketable by the industry then, but perfectly harmonious with a culture constantly evolving now.