VOCALS :: Max Clara
GUITARS AND BACK VOCALS :: Ivan Ovlac
KEYBOARDS AND BACK VOCALS :: Davide Cristofoli
BASS AND BACK VOCALS :: Emanuele Ferrari
DRUMS AND BACK VOCALS :: Simone Costa

PRODUCTION AND ART DIRECTION :: Ivan Ovlac
COMPOSERS :: Ivan Ovlac, Max Clara
ARRANGEMENTS :: Simone Costa, Emanuele Ferrari, Davide Cristofoli
EVENTS AND LIVES MANAGEMENT :: Simone Costa, Max Clara
PHOTOGRAPHY :: Alain Battiloro, Giorgio Graglia, Giuseppe Ovlac PROOFREADING :: Wilma Collo
WEBSITE AND MYSPACE MANAGEMENT :: Ivan Ovlac
FACEBOOK MANAGEMENT :: Davide Cristofoli, Emanuele Ferrari

click on image to enlarge

click on image to enlarge

KEYBOARDS :: Alex Cordero (2001 - 2003)
DRUMS :: Roberto Grosso Sategna (2001 - 2004)
BASS :: Riccardo Gamba (2001 - 2006)
GUITARS :: Davide Cormegna (2005 - 2008)
KEYBOARDS :: Marco Varda (2005 - 2009)

Vurtula project was born in 2001 in the hinterland of Ivrea (Turin- Italy) after the dissolution of the heavy metal band Harem. In a sultry summer evening, during a scooter race, Ivan Ovlac and Riccardo Gamba (guitarist and bassist of Harem) met their friend “Andre Jolly Roger” (former bassist and singer of Crisalidea) and together had an extravagant idea: make a band (formed by 2 basses, a guitar and a drum) to try playing something entertaining and outside the norms.
The project never started because “Andre Jolly Roger” in fact was never interested in it. However, thanks to him, Ivan and Riccardo got in touch with Roberto Grosso called “Gesino” ( former drummer from Crisalidea) and founded Vurtula. Even Alex Cordero (former keyboard player from Harem) joined the band and so the compositional adventure began. The basic idea that joined the four musicians was to play a refined music, neither expected nor banal, that allows each of them to reach a greater technical and musical maturity.
After a first period of study they composed the first and embleamtic song called “APXH” (in greek it means “beginning”): this song is perhaps the one that best captures and summarizes the whole philosophy of the original group. As you can see by listening, in the first part of the song (rithmically inspired by a simmetric square matrix) the music conveys a strong sense of instability and precarious balance (perhaps due to “allergy” of the quartet against the traditional four quarters) and a sort of implicit psychedelia.


VURTULA LINE-UP 2001-2003

For this reason they decided to call the band Vurtula (that in Piedmontese dialect means “inducted state of vertigo”) and were more and more oriented toward progressive metal.
Having composed some instrumental songs they, felt the necessity for searching a singer because the listening of  that music could have been particulary difficult for the audience, but the efforts to find him were vain.
In 2002 came the idea to accompany thier notes with the projections of sounds and movies in view of compose sountracks for short films.
During the Christmas holiday of the same year started the recording of the first album “S.T.R.U.Mentale” (that is “Sounds, Times and Rhythms of the Mental Universe”) that ended in May of 2003. In this period Alex, for unkown reasons, departed from the band and Vurtula lost an excellent member. The project for the future changed fast because without a keyboard support the idea of the creation of sountracks became impraticable.
Afterwards the remaining members of Vurtula didn’t give up, in fact, thanks to the success due to the distribution of S.T.R.U.Mentale (entirely producted by themselves) and thanks to the encouragement given from a lot of sostenitors, they gained a greater conviction and clarity about what to do. They started out the first live releases as an instrumental trio who were always pleased to be accompanied by a warm audience.

VURTULA LINE-UP 2004-2005

In winter 2004 Vurtula were finally pleased to welcome Max (former singer of Ocean Drop) in the line-up; thus began the composition phases of the vocal parts that led to the creation of a promo cd (entitled “Above All”) that contains the rearrangement and remix of three song of “S.T.R.U.Mentale”. In summer 2004 there was a shocking news for Vurtula: the drummer “Gesino” left the project to land to other musical genres. The blow was very hard to take for the band but the Vurtula project remained alive and working and, while started the search for a new drummer, the survivors performed with Gesino in some concerts already fixed.
In autumn 2004 Vurtula members decided to make a fusion with the survivors of the band Shadow Storm (pawer metal band from Cananvese) in order to complete thier line-up. With the entry into the band by Simone Costa (drums), Davide Cormegna (guitar) and Marco Varda (keyboard) new ideas and aspirations contributed to the evolution of the project, leading the band to the composition of new songs.


VURTULA LINE-UP 2005-2006

In March 2006, during the recordings of “Infernal Fate”, Riccardo, great bassist and one of the founder of the group, for personal affairs, maked the decision to leave the band: the news was accepted unwillingly but in accordance with the decision of a wonderful person which to play with had always been a pleasure. Thus the band looked for a new bassist and within a few days Emanuele Ferrari, from the band Heredium, appeared in the rehearsal room of Vurtula with the intent "to work seriously". After he has proved his technical capabilities and has shown a very great man, he was immediatly decleared “clever and enlisted”!!! The band’s live performances were taken again and started the distribution of the mini CD just producted by themselves. In the same year the title track of the album “Infernal Fate”, over the unexpected success in the world, was chosen by the young director Paul Kiri for the ending theme of his very first movie “Uno di Troppo”, short film belonging to the genre “demential”, in which members of Vurtula were recruited as extras during filming.
After a 2007 full of events, there was a standstill in 2008: after a long and scheduled break (dictated by force majeure) Vurtula found themselves at the gates of 2009 to having to pick up the thread of the musical speech from where it left off. But the breaks, although conscious and planned, often hide snares. In fact, reactivated the compositional machine and the neural circuits of the band, something didn’t respond to the stimuli and the impulses that until then had fueled the desire to play together ... and day by day grew awareness that, if there had been no concrete answers, early the new line-up would soon change. And as the fulfillment of an amazing prophecy, at first Davide  isolated himself more and more from the band causing an inevitable break, and then Marco, because of the new intentions and challenges gained in the group, decided to withdraw. In the second half of 2009 there was a temporary return to a quartet, and Vurtula took the opportunity to perform their "evil" and "cruel” sound in some live performances previously planned, to the delight of the most extreme of their followers; but towards the end of September Davide Cristofoli, young and talented keyboard player from Canavese, joined the group bringing with him an excellent technical and cultural knowledge demonstrating his attitude towards the genre of the band and contributing in the construction of the new sound.
In 2010 Vurtula had the opportunity to play on several prestigious stages winning in summer the Cuorgnè Rock Festival in which also Maurizo Solieri (ex Vasco Rossi guitar player) band partecipated. The band is currently engaged in the preparation of the material that will soon be registered in a full length album containing ten songs which is slated for release in 2011.


VURTULA LINE-UP 2010-TODAY

Well… writing in few rows what have been my musical experience without using too many words it is enough complicated. I started to sing in tender age in a Metallica cover band. I also have played guitar and my voice in a pair of other projects (italian pop music cover bands from Cocciante to Baglioni) in order to land in a second adolescent phase towards Dream Theater style guirar playing, with my old band Ademasfera (1996- 2003). The richer years have been above all from 1999 to today; a salient passage was an exhibition in front of “master” Mogol, with a dear band Darcloud and their members (the deep and anguished musical relation with the hothead for excellence, Ivan Giannini and the composer Marco Armellino, friends to whom I certainly owe my education in terms of musical taste and artistic composition). In 2001 I recorded some voice tracks with Ocean Drop from Turin , where I met Alberto Lano and David Levrino from Ademasfera but the band dramatically disbanded for “didactic causes”. In 2002 I supported Eucalictus (a ska band) playing soloist guitar and with back vocals for a summer of live dates: I do not regret that experience despite being a metalhead and in part I miss it because very often groups of artificially constructed from metal scenes have no light-heartedness and sincerity of expression that ska and reggae have during live performances. Currently, besides being the historical singer of Vurtula I play guitar in a rythm'n'blues band; blues was presented before me as a must I have not been able to give up. The militancy in Ice's Eyes Band helps me in an executive musical point of view to develop not merely technical but also of harmonic taste; so Gabriel Anselmetti (howls) and Matteo Carello (sax tenor) who are real masters are helping me very much. Playing with a real brass section (two sax, howls and trombone) has taught me to listen more and to understand better the mechanisms of the live improvisation. From 2004 I've been an Ainur singer with Luca and Marco Catalano and master Gianluca Castelli: this progressive rock band is entirely inspired by the Tolkien's world (in particular by the Silmarillion). This band is produced by Beppe Crovella (ex Arti&Mestieri) under Electromantic the re are 18 musicians in the line-up, seven are singers! Music is beautiful in all its forms and genres, and it's wonderful to play and sing with people you trust blindly!!!

I started playing electric guitar at 18 and since that year I've always been proudly self-taught. In the beginning I have played for some months in a thrash metal band called The Infernal Kitchen of Rumors but I was in a too low level… After two years I played with other friends in The Flash Over, a punk rock band who loved to distort and to reinterpret folk local music and to rearrange tv cartoons themes, then I founded with some friends the heavy metal group Nine Kneels that disbanded a pair of years later. In 1994 I created Symbiosys my soloist project that took inspiration from the speed metal and landed to the instrumental progressive metal, but the project unfortunately had to be suspended for some line-up problems. After that, I have played for a short period in some other local bands and projects like Malomodo (hard rock) and the CCB (prog rock) but without the right motivation, so I decided to take a break without playing in any band: in that period I dedicated myself to improve my guitar techniques and to learn to play bass guitar. Meantime I began to move my interests also in others musical genres like the classical and electronic music. In 1998 for joke I began composing techno music and I recorded a CD with Alex Cordero(ex Vurtula keyboardist) and the successive year I began a collaboration with Marco Peretti who in that year was producing electronic music: it was thanks to the production of some techno trance songs in that period I learned the rudiments of the recording and the mixing bases. In 1999 I became DJ Borkia, playing ‘70s and ‘80s records in a night clubs; in the same year I was called to play guitar in Harem, a power metal band in which Alex Cordero and Riccardo Gamba (next Vurtula co-founder) was playing for many years. Harem sadly disbanded few years later for the lack of a serious drummer. So in 2001 Vurtula born from Harem's ashes; at the same time I began the recordings of the instrumental music I composed for Symbiosys (my soloist project) that in 2002, thanks to the precious collaboration with David Nizi (Madreluna keyboardist), were collected in “Journey into the past” EP. While playing in Vurtula for many years I also played with my brother Erik Ovlac (Madreluna bass player) in the Bucanier Dal Canaveis (a nice folk project), in Wheenohell (a Helleoween tribute band) and I participated to the Teckno Metal Heads project (a medley between heavy metal and teckno music). Currently, in parallel to Vurtula and when I'm not too busy I participate in other oriented musical project and I organize course of guitar technique as a teacher in which I try to transmit my passion for music to my cadets.

I am a “classic” pianist since I was 8 years old and I have begun to approach keyboards world during the period of the middle schools when I undertaken my activity in a Blues-Rock band formed by friends of old date and when at the same time I started playing musical comedy in the scholastic company: that experience permitted to me to learn a lot and finally to play many lives. Between middle and high schools I began to learn (as a self-taught) playing classical guitar I found at home, and from that moment I fell in love with this wonderful instrument too. So at the age of 15, having between the hands my first electric guitar (the battle ones), I engaged in playing my first “riffs” trying to learn songs by live listening and observing historical bands videos like Metallica, Iron Maiden and KISS. It was in that period that I found at a dear friend's home and by chances a CD entitled “S.T.R.U. Mental” from Vurtula and I began to get passionate to a “less conventional” metal music; then the great pleasure to meet Ivan Ovlac and my interests were moved towards a more “heavy” sphere of the precedence progressive rock ones. So I and some friends of mine set up a series of bands covering Dream Theater, Symphony X, Stratovarius etc. and, on one other forehead, I was engaged in order more than a year with the White Noise ('70s style rock band) with which I played in a pair of dates after which the group was disbanded. Afterwards I took a period without playing in any band, studying piano in Ivrea and playing guitar and keyboards on behalf mine (I renounced to various offers as keyboardists in a some bands for not very justifiable reasons. It was in 2009 summer when I finally decided to exit from the shell (the rebirth) that I had constructed previously and I accepted the optimal proposals of collaborations with Vurtula the band that for better or for worse I have followed since its first apparitions on the metal scene. I have always believed in this band, first as a fan, now as a member!

All has begun thanks to my aunt, who had played piano for many years: I was a little boy who wanted to learn to play that wonderful instrument but my short fingers have not afforded me! I had “to withdraw” on flugelhorn and the trumpet that I have played for approximately 10 years until I had a meeting with most classic instrument: the acoustic guitars. Playing (badly) the usual “smoke on the whater”, “the blonds braids”, etc. and crazy for Police I passed to the bass guitar supporting various scholastics bands and projects in particular Velvetblast metal band with Megadeth infuences. Along with Fabio, Sandro and Roby I have founded the ARS then Lithium, playing a strange crossover rock and participating at many local live festivals. With the Roby escape from the scene and the progressive deterioration of Sandro's back, along with Fabio we have gone to the search of a drummer (Alexander) and of singer (Fabrizio) in order to try to play an healthy power metal of teutonic stamp. Shortly afterwards the Heredium were born: our creative vein led us to play self produced songs and to record a mini cd that was free distributed and used as a comfortable coaster. Because of job problems and lack of time in order not to lose our groove we decided to convert in a Helloween tribute band. Meantime I knew Simone Costa and Davide Cormegna (who were playing in Shadow Storm) and so for game, with Fabrizio, we try to knock off some Symphony X songs (and they did not come out badly) but in a short time various engagements have broken off that project. Everyone for his musical road until Simone with an unexpected phone call asked me to enter in Vurtula line-up…. Et voilà… I knew Ivan who sends me two midi by email full of musical notes and odd measures just in order to give me some happiness, Davide who absolutely must insert his melodic solos Marco gladly played his keyboards… What else? Some power metal with the Heredium and a healthy progressive metal (that beautiful bastard) with Vurtula by now keep me awake at night to try and study !


My first approach to the instrument has been in far away 1999, in which I have seen and known the drummer of the group of my brother, Renato Taricone, which had introduced me the drum, even if in order to succeed to buy one I have employed almost a year. The mean reason why I have begun to play the drum not I know it neither, but since I was a little guy I was a ballbreaker with all clapping hands and feet in continuation and I felt myself apt to more sound also to volumes elevated (for the joy of the neighbors….). In the september of 2000 I began to play (from self-taught) the drum, from which I will not separate more, in company than a mate, David Cormegna. David had a Malmsteen nature which not complain all my music world and then I decided to create a group, with a beloved friend, Andrea Blessent, of clear formulation brutal metal: the Atrocity Surgery in which at the beginning of 2001 I made my first live. At the same time I began to take lessons of Drum from Renato which reveals not only an optimal master but also a great friend, and resume the contacts with a my old friend of infancy Marco Varda: after some insistences in 2001, along with David, the power metal project Shadow Storm was born. In the 2002 Atrocity Surgery record a demo and little few months after they are ended, meanwhile I take part of Blue Tempera ( group of “commercial cover”) replacing Renato and I begun to played in the several local bands. In the summer I take part of a smooth orchestra, the Magma, which, besides to pay to me, makes me to grow from the musical point of view. Through Blue Tempera I know Piero and Diego which will complete the Shadow Storm. In order to fine tune my technique within taking part of a group of historical drums the T.R.O.T.A., in which I will sound the snare drum, receiving in exchange large satisfactions. The Shadow Storm while begin to make the first exhibitions live. In the 2003 Blue Tempera are ended; and then I take part of the Motor Syndrome. In the 2004 Shadow Storm they record demo that it will coincide with their decline, in fact in the september of the same year these are ended; within then taking part (this time in definitive way) of a group Revival '70, 'the 80 Babylonya. Meanwhile I begin to take lessons from Danilo Saccottelli with which I establish a beautiful and long-lasting friendship that will lead with its lay-off from master (insisted on the fact that He did have nothing to teach me…) and its approach from friend. In fact thanks to him I know Ivan, Riccardo and Max and within taking part of Vurtula, project which I am dedicating great part of my time.