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Celeste — Prince of One Day
(IGR 015, 2026, CD / DL / LP)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2026-05-27

Prince of One Day Cover art

Back in the late 70s when I first discovered that I now had discretionary income, I tried to play catch-up with much of the great music I missed in previous years, including many Italian progressive rock imports that I was aware of, the better known things like Arti e Mestieri, Le Orme, Banco, PFM, Area, Perigeo, and a few others, but the more I explored, the more I realized there was so much more to discover, bands that only released an album or two in their lifetime that quickly went out of print. It wasn’t until the CD reissue boom of the late 80s that many of these became available again. One such discovery was the debut album by Celeste, Principe di un Giorno, a beautiful, pastoral masterwork of symphonic rock and folk that has stood the test of time. Although the lyrics were sung in Italian, which I didn’t understand at the time (and still don’t), it didn’t matter because the melodies and contour of the music were so majestic and powerful that they cut right through, openly revealing their beauty. What I wasn’t aware of, is that the original intent was to have the album sung in English by a female singer, but for whatever reasons it didn’t happen that way at the time in 1974 — the album was finally released as-is in ‘76, with drummer keyboardist / flutist / percussionist Ciro Perrino singing the lyrics in Italian. For its 50th anniversary, the original recordings were recovered and remastered, Ciro Perrino’s existing vocals were removed and replaced by those of Australian singer Siobhán Owen (the lyrics were translated by original singer Nikki Barton back in 1974, but she was unable to complete the project at the time), and it has been released with the new title Prince of One Day. If one knows the original 1976 release, this remastered version will deliver all that the original did and much more; the vocals on the original were superb, but now delivered in English by a new female singer takes the whole project up a few steps, and makes good on the band’s original vision for this album. If one has never heard Celeste before, this is most certainly the place to start. And if you love Mellotron...

Filed under: New releases, 2026 releases

Related artist(s): Celeste

More info
http://celeste4.bandcamp.com/album/celeste-prince-of-one-day

 

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