Listen:
Marcetta di Groppo
la Perfana di Nicola
Pietro Cheraldi il cavatore

'Èpata translates as the cycle of the sun and the moon and there are 12 tracks on this Tandarandan album; one for every month of the year. It must have been easy to assign songs to some months: a children's song celebrating Epiphany for January; a May dance; a harvest song for September; and a Christmas song; but the link between some of the other songs and their allotted months are a little more tenuous. The music is all from the area between Lunigiana (northern Tuscany) and Liguria, but from diverse sources; including popular ballads, dance tunes, a bell-ringing tune, marching bands, an organ piece and a song about a rebellious quarryman. The richness of the largely traditional material is matched by the variety of styles with which the band interprets them and it all fits together well; apart from the organ piece, which sounds a little out of place. There is a pleasing light touch to the way that the band perform, but the album works better as a demonstration of the richness of the folk culture of the region than as an expression of the changing seasons of the year.' - fRoots

The musicians:
Maurizio Cavalli – chitarra, voce
Marco Guidi - percussioni
Stefania Gussoni – clarinetto, clarinetto basso, voce
Roberto Fatticcioni – basso
Mauro Manicardi – piva, organetto, voce
Roberto Mazzi – ghironda, voce
Elisabetta Piastri – flauto traverso,sopranino,soprano,contralto, voce
David Virgilio – violino, pianoforte, voce
with guests:
Jacopo Bisagni: piva da carner in " Piva di Bugelli"
Fabrizio Pilu: violino in "Polca dell'Orbo"e "Scott del Bricca", viola in "Moresca"
Marco Montanelli: organo della Chiesa di S. Nicoḷ di Caprigliola (Ms) in "Pifferata di Don Bellentani"
Coro degli Amici di Fravizzola (Nanni Barbero, Livio Bernardini, Giampietro Lupi, Egildo Simeone) in "Maggio di Biassa"

Tracks:

• 1. La Pefana di Nicola 3,25
• 2. Marcetta di Groppo / Sata Martin 5,33
• 3. Pietro Gherardi il cavatore 3,03
• 4. L'orazione del prole Pia 4,37
• 5. Il Maggio di Biassa / Inno del Lavoro 4,43
• 6. La bella 4,59
• 7. Moresca 3,00
• 8. La pesca dell'anello 3,57
• 9. Polca dell'Orbo / Scott del Bricca / Marcia di "Viggion" 5,06
• 10. Pifferata di Don Bellentani 4,33
• 11. Santa Caterina 4,03
• 12. Pastorella / Piva di Bugelli 5,29

The band says:
Do you remember those medieval miniatures full of details of everyday life? … peasants reaping the corn, open fields, wonderful towns, blue skies dotted with white clouds, the moon, the stars, the rhythm of seasons… the calendar! This is what this record drew its inspiration from:it was like retracing a great time-worn fresco and trying to bring it back to new life: the popular culture of Lunigiana, the sense of the sacred, the sound of words, the personal memories of some of us when, as children, we discovered the May 1st festivity on the notes of the local marching bands The beat of the bass-drum shaked our breasts and an unknown emotion rised from within: the same persons you saw every day on the streets, anonymous and hurried, were different on that day, they were unique and united in the anarchic and social ideal which pervaded our region.. And again, the cycles of the sun and the moon: "épata", the method of calculation orally transmitted by peasants in order to determine the lunar cycle throughout the year and so being able to sow at the right time and to make a good harvest. Sounds coming from deep inside, from human, religious and political experiences. The choruses, the marching bands, the dances, the bell tunes, the devotional chants, profane or political, are a testimony of the same story, driven forward by an energy which never relented, the same energy which drives us today to investigate the past, convinced as we are that it will give us the same hope and the same strength which sustained our ancestors even in the most difficult moments, each time putting them again on their way.

Primo disco ufficiale di questa gruppo di ricerca e riproposizione etnomusicale che reinventa il repertorio tradizionale delle zone tra la Lunigiana e lo spezino. Nel loro album troveremo ghironda, baghet, flauti, percussioni e vari strumenti a corde.