40 Years of Chaos · EP.07 — Cryptic Soul and the Network

While AydrA were wrapping up the recordings, the first concrete offer arrived. Cryptic Soul Production, a small independent label out of Rieti, showed interest in the album. The band, facing their first contact with a real label, accepted. Then months passed, deadlines slipped, promises failed to translate into action. Cryptic Soul turned out to be a waste of time.

The disappointment was double. It wasn't only the album sitting in limbo, it was the energy and trust poured into the negotiation. It was AydrA's first run-in with the fragility of the indie system, small labels promising too much and delivering too little.

But in those same months two other Italian bands were going through exactly the same experience with the same label: Natron from Bari and Undertakers. When AydrA discovered they weren't alone, an exchange began. Phone calls, letters, tape swaps. The three bands got to know each other, played together in Bari, on Natron's home turf, and later in the Marche. On 28 January 1996 AydrA were at the Stop Over Pub in Giovinazzo for Night of the Living Dead, with Undertakers and Natron. It was the band's first real road trip south, and the start of a network of friendships that held solid for years.