Enzo Avitabile i Bottari - Salvamm'o Munno cdRoots Home Page More music from Italy Read or Write Customer Reviews

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Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Salvamm'o Munno (Il Manifesto, Italy)

The record is steeped in Italian tradition, featuring the voices of the Brotherhood of the SS Crucifix as well as the ancient instruments of Italy.This project has caught the imagination of international artists and who, having heard of the project, asked to participate. Khaled, Amina, Hugh Masekela, Baba Sissoko, Bakhit Mizmar Brass Band and Manu Dibango provide their magic to produce what is the most original World Music Albums of the Year.

Listen:
Abball'cu me
Tut equal....
Chest'e l'Africa

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"A buzzing hive of roots creativity" fRoots "A remarkable album, unlike any other carrying you along on a shifting wave of sound "TOP OF THE WORLD - Songlines "Every so often in world music a sound comes along that knocks you sideways, for it has almost no reference to anything that you have heard before. Enzo Avitabile has made such an album. In Italy he is a huge star, and he has worked with artists such as Tina Turner, James Brown and Randy Crawford. But on Save the World he has made a dramatic break with his pop past in favour of a thrilling new global soundscape. The building block is the ancient musical tradition of rural Campania in southern Italy, focussing on the hypnotic percussion of Bottari, a group of drummers beating huge, empty barrels. Over this mesmerising backdrop, Enzo sings in a voice rooted deep in some Mediterranean equivalent of the blues. But that’s only the start. The unmistakable voice of Khaled brings out a rich, Arabic flavour on Balla Balla. The trumpeter Hugh Masekela blows up a storm on Questa e l ’Africa and the saxophonist Manu Dibango does similarly sterling service on Salvamme O’Munde . An Egyptian brass band adds exquisite slabs of middle-Eastern funk all over the place, while the Palestinian violin and oud player Simon Shaheen contributes more subtle flavours. If you insist on a comparison, then last year’s world music hybrid, In the Hour of Two Lights, by Terry Hall and Mushtaq, was at least conceived in a similar spirit. Enzo and his drummers play WOMAD this summer. On the evidence of this record, they should be a sensation." - Nigel Williamson, The Times (UK)