Ballo delle Castagne is an Italian musical esemble featuring: Vinz Aquarian – voice (Calle della Morte), Marco Garegnani – guitar, moog , keyboad, sitar ( The Green Man), Diego Banchero - bass (Egida Aurea, Recondita Stirpe, Malombra, Segno del Comando, ZEUSS, etc...) and Jo Jo on drums.
Born in early 2008 from the meeting of Marco Garegnani and Vinz Aquarian, Ballo delle Castagne (The Chestnuts Ball) debut in Zagreb on February 2008 supporting the Hungarian industrial cult band – Sturmhast, very focused on album release more then live acts, they present their first work in Vienna with an exclusive live concert in January 2009. On the same year they support Radio Moscow and the super sonic NY band , White Hills in Milan.
Ballo delle Castagne - s/t – album was highly welcome by Italian magazines and international press.
The combination of obscure music , new wave, old prog fashionable rock, inspired oriental melodies turn the sound of the band as unique.
On December 2009 Ballo delle Castagne release first chapter of the trilogy called „108“.
The band must frame theirself as a tribute to the Biglietto per L’inferno or 70 years of Franco Battiato La Convention / Paranoia. Even today many of these remain unknown and unacknowledged masterpieces to the Italian public as well as their authors. We therefore recall a time full of hopes and dreams for millions of men and women, where the utopia of a better world went slowly vanished at the end of the 60ies.....
As the lotus grows in mud without showing any traces that might betray its origins, its leaves and its stem, while floating in water not wet, so it `s also the wise man who lives in the world, but is not of the world.....
On January 2011, Ballo delle Castagne release second part of the trilogy under the name of Kalachakra. This time the sound of the band is definitely close to German kraut rock music ( Eloy , CAN, etc...) and at the same time inspired by West coast psychedelic scene of the 70ies ( Yahowha 13, The Doors, WCPAEB). More then ever, the oriental sound is still present and expanded through a journey deep in prog rock music.
Vinz Aquarian, lead singer of the band and author of all concept and text said about this record:
We were definitely inspired by the Herzog documentary “Kalachakra: The Wheel of Time“. We can’t really say what moved us to realize a record with this name. We were simple enlighted by the power of the images and blessed by the words of his holiness The Dalai Lama and felt for the first time part of this world. Our musical journey started with the 10“ named 108 and ends here with the only possible answer to this life: an uncertain end. We went through all evil passions living among us, meeting the terrible after death creatures, dealing with all our past memories and finally reaching the self coscience status of one existing Source. To this Source we will return as part of The Only One. There is no end, there is no begin: that’s what we learned and we recorded in this album.
Third part of the Trilogy will be dedicated to the Epic of Gilgamesh, to be released on early 2012.