Over the course of nearly thirty years of activity, marked by constant sonic exploration and sporadic live performances, the project underwent numerous changes in both line-up and style, releasing fourteen albums and several side works. After an initial phase as a live band, from 2005 the group evolved into a music laboratory led by Cruciani, with influences from avant-garde and psychedelic music inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. In the following years, it alternated between instrumental productions, concept albums, and collaborations — including those with Vincenzo Lardo (alias 240bpm) — until concluding its activity with two works by Cruciani released between 2024 and 2025.
History
Origins and foundation
In September 1997, at the end of a rehearsal session of the cover band Noises Off — a line-up that included keyboardist Giovanni Armadoro and guitarist Nicola Cruciani — drummer Francesco Francia and bassist Paolo Feliciotti also joined in for spontaneous improvisations. From these jam sessions, characterized by a free and experimental approach, the idea was born to create a new musical project, named Flavour.
The quartet immediately developed a sound language based on expansive improvisations, with strong psychedelic and experimental overtones, performing exclusively original material in their live shows. After a short series of concerts, around the year 2000 the line-up disbanded, temporarily halting activity.
After more than four years of inactivity and several unsuccessful attempts to reassemble the band, Cruciani decided to relaunch the project, keeping the original name but adding the word Sperimentale to emphasize its orientation toward sometimes radical sonic research.
The new phase took shape in 2005 with the album ZU, inspired by prepared piano techniques typical of avant-garde music. The following year saw the release of Elektronische Musik, a work that, while maintaining an experimental imprint, explored electronic sounds more extensively. These two albums marked the official revival of the project and defined its new artistic identity.
In parallel, Cruciani undertook other initiatives, including remote collaborations that led to the creation of the Flavour Lab, as well as productions released under his own name or the pseudonym Bar Psichedelico. All these works converged into a sort of netlabel, also named Flavour Sperimentale — not a true record label, but rather an archive and reference point for the entire body of work connected to the project.
In 2007, the digital version of I Maius MCMXCVIII was finally made available on MySpace — until then distributed exclusively on self-produced CDs — containing the recording of a 1998 concert by the original line-up and a home-recorded track by Cruciani and Francia.
The Pink Trilogy (2008–2010)
After several productions created within the Flavour Lab, Nicola Cruciani returned to releasing a series of works under the name Flavour Sperimentale, inaugurating a phase strongly inspired by the psychedelia of Pink Floyd from the 1968–1970 period and the free-form structures of krautrock.
The first chapter, A Provision of Mirages (February 2008), explores soundscapes suspended between hypnotic, almost mantra-like rock and more airy melodic openings, making extensive use of ambient effects and layered textures. The album was distributed digitally through the MySpace platform, maintaining a deliberately independent and self-produced approach.
In 2009 came Madamadama, a work that emphasizes the acoustic component and introduces elements of more classic psychedelia, while retaining experimental and improvisational inserts. The structures are more essential, yet enriched by arrangements that alternate intimate moments with passages of greater sonic density.
Closing the triptych, in October 2010, was Queen Moo Breakfast, characterized by more complex and expansive compositions, with extended instrumental sections and a more elaborate harmonic framework. The album represents the peak of formal exploration during this period, blending psychedelic, progressive, and avant-garde influences.
These three works, conventionally grouped under the name “Pink Trilogy” or “Experimental Trilogy”, mark a crucial phase in the evolution of the project, consolidating its identity and expanding its musical language toward more mature and structured forms.
Collaboration with 240bpm and In No Man’s Land (2017)
Following the Experimental Trilogy, Nicola Cruciani embarked on an intense period of composition, releasing numerous albums under different names: Bar Psichedelico, Flavour Lab, and his own name. These productions explored a wide spectrum of sonic languages, ranging from ambient music to serial minimalism, and even forms of radical experimentalism.
While preparing an album based on field recording techniques, Cruciani met Salerno-based artist Vincenzo Lardo, known as 240bpm, who had just released Welcome, a tribute to Pink Floyd. The meeting marked a significant turning point in the style of Flavour Sperimentale: from the rarefied and abstract atmospheres of ambient and sound research, the project shifted toward structures closer to the song form, with a more pronounced balance between lyrics and music, and shorter instrumental sections designed to serve the lyrical narrative.
From this collaboration emerged the monumental project In No Man’s Land, a large-scale concept album that, through the four natural elements, addresses the universal theme of the search for the meaning of life. Released in October 2017, the work unfolds as a synesthetic journey between philosophy and music, enriched by a film accompanying the complete listening experience of the album.
Despite being entirely self-produced and lacking traditional distribution, In No Man’s Land received positive feedback, aided by the release of music videos on social media, which helped cement its status as an unconventional auteur work.
Developments and returns (2018–2021)
In 2018, Nicola Cruciani temporarily returns to a markedly experimental approach, releasing under the moniker Flavour Psichedelico the album Эхо Космоса (Eko Kosmosa), a work that embraces the tradition of German kosmische Musik, characterized by long hypnotic instrumental pieces, synthetic textures, and expansive atmospheres rooted in space-ambient.
At the same time, the music from In No Man’s Land is adapted for a theatrical production in the form of a musical, directed by Vincenzo Lardo and staged by the student collective of the “Severi” High School in Salerno. The show premieres on 18 May 2018 and is later proposed as a European project aimed at promoting culture and the values of brotherhood expressed in the work. Despite the interest it generates, the initiative is not brought to completion.
In 2019, the original Flavour Sperimentale line-up reunites to record a track and a music video for a local election campaign. Although the reunion proves short-lived, the material produced is included in Say Goodbye to Winter, a collection featuring studio recordings and live takes from rehearsals, along with the characteristic improvisations that had defined the group’s early years.
Following this new split, Cruciani begins work on an album in collaboration with 240bpm. However, the COVID-19 pandemic slows the project, leading Cruciani and Lardo, during the lockdown, to focus their energies on another initiative: together with composer Marco Grieco, they form the project M.E.N., culminating in the album Spillover, a progressive rock concept work with complex structures and highly topical themes, scheduled for release in 2024.
Meanwhile, Giovanni Armadoro embarks on an independent compositional path, creating a series of piano studies and sonatas that further broaden the stylistic range of the Flavour Sperimentale catalogue. The result is Small Songs for a Smile, released in July 2021, entirely written and performed by Armadoro, introducing a more intimate and chamber-like register.
Also in 2021, in September, You Were All Here is released — an album with a psychedelic imprint but a more melodic and introspective character, composed by Cruciani with the constant supervision and key contributions of Lardo. While retaining elements of experimentation, the work stands out for its more narrative and cohesive approach, marking a further evolution in the project’s musical language.
Final years (2023–2025)
After a creatively and personally challenging break of about two years, in July 2023 Nicola Cruciani reunites with Francia and Feliciotti with the aim of revisiting the psychedelic paths that characterize the origins of Flavour Sperimentale. Armadoro does not take part in the project, while Alessandro Regno — the band’s keyboardist in 1998–1999 — returns, adding new tonal nuances to the live performances.
The renewed line-up performs a short series of concerts that recall the energy and expressive freedom of the early years. This reunion, however, is also short-lived, leaving as its only testimony the recording of a performance at Palazzo Cesi in Acquasparta, released in November 2023 under the title Live at Water Fest II.
Following this experience, Cruciani devotes himself to a more contemplative solo project, culminating in the album The Infinite Horizon. Featuring instrumental pieces imbued with an elegiac atmosphere alongside more intimate tracks, the work is dedicated to the memory of his father, who passed away in July 2022, and is distinguished by the use of suspended harmonies, controlled dynamics, and ambient-inspired sonic textures.
In 2024, Cruciani initiates a new collaboration with Vincenzo Lardo and a group of musicians from Salerno, giving rise to the still-unreleased project La Giduglia, issued under the pseudonym Nik & L’Accademia Patafisica del Bar Nessuno. The collection of songs, entirely in Italian, explores contaminations between pop, reggae, and blues, with arrangements blending acoustic and digital elements in a context of light yet deliberate experimentation.
In 2025, Cruciani compiles a selection of tracks and outtakes excluded from more recent productions and releases A Fleeting Sense of Perception. Considered the final entry in the Flavour Sperimentale discography, the album synthesizes the project’s multiple identities, closing an almost thirty-year journey with a sonic reflection on perception, memory, and the transience of artistic experience.
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L'articolo Biografia Flavour Sperimentale di Flavour Sperimentale è apparso su Rockit.it il 2025-09-20 09:38:18