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Banda Ionica
Matri Mia
$17.99
The second album from the near cult status brass band from Sicily is a huge step in a new direction. The last one, Passione, while very tradtional, sounded like it could have been part of a Fellini sound track; this one sounds like it was produced by Fellini. The band is joined by a lot of other musicains (see the list below), some singers with real attitude and a sound that is part spaghetti western, part religious cult and part Frank Zappa. It is often edgy, just as often beautiful, and never anythign less than surprising.
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Listen:
Come l'aria
Ombra sacra
Raissa
Info from the record label
Banda Ionica are: Dunya's catalogue has never been short on flashes of artistic folly, wild bets,
missions near- impossible. Banda Ionica's new album is the latest in
a long line of attempts to enrich the musical panorama, in particular that of
the Italian scene, by pushing towards the outer limits of sonic experience.
It was 1999 when Fabio Barovero and Roy Paci had an idea which was to become
the album, Passione.
Roy Paci trumpet
Rosario Patania trombone, bass flugelhorn
Gianfranco Rafalr' clarinet
Salvatore Di Stefano flugelhorn
Gaetano Santoro tenor, alto sax
Salvatore Salvia baritone sax
Roberto Rapisarda tuba
Addional musicians:
Alessandro Azzaro percussion
Angelo Pappalardo tuba
Claudio Alfn( bass flugelhorn
Daniele Limpido tenor sax
Egidio Valentino bass flugelhorn
Francesco Cusa percussion
Gaetano Limpido tenor sax
Gaetano Mazzone tuba
Giuseppe Consiglio trombone
Paolo Boccaccio percussion
Salvatore Morello clarinet
Sebastiano Bell'Arte french horn
Sebastiano Nanc( flute
Sebastiano Sessa french horn
Sebatiano Tuccitto clarinet
Vincenzo Catinello alto sax
and
Gilson Silveira percussion (Come l'aria),
Federico Marchesano double bass (Lorenzo in Sicilia).
Singers:
Macaco El Mono Loco,
Arthur H,
Cristina Zavalloni,
Mauro Ermanno Giovanardi,
Lara Martelli,
Vinicio Capossela.
The image of a Madonna surrounded by red roses led to the discovery of a music
that was both ancient and at the same time extremely modern, which came directly
from tradition and referred to the icons and beliefs that animated Holy week
processions in the south of Italy - the music of the marching band with its
brass, woodwinds and crashing percussion and that with Passione,
marched right onto radio and TV. Passione became
a cult album, for many a new wonder of the recorded world documenting an extraordinary
realm. It was an epic extended metaphor for what it meant to be Sicilian.
Now with Matri Mia comes a record that is set to overturn everything
that Banda Ionica have done. On this new album it's not only the band who break
with traditional schemes but also the producers and guests involved on the record
who have had to completely rethink their approach. The result is a work that
though it keeps tradition very much in mind is heavily weighted towards the
present, if not the future. Together with Josh Sanfelici, Barovero (composer
and founder of Mau Mau) and Paci (who played trumpet on many of the key records
of the last few years and who regularly guests with Mau Mau, Manu Chao and Giorgio
Conte as well as fronting his own outfit Aretuska) have tried on this second
album to revive the hundred year history of the marching band by giving it a
contemporary facelift. Such is the ethos behind these tracks which maintain
the idiom and strength of southern sonorities while hooking them up to refined
pop structures both Italian and international.
The songs on Matri Mia , some instrumental, others with words are all
dedicated to women, and in particular to the great Mother who gives her all
with love, an encounter between the moving melodies of southern Italian music
and the intimate realm of the songwriter who opens up his soul's suitcase for
our inspection.
The dense, plangent strains of Votu e mi rivotu, a Sicilian folk hit
made famous by Rosa Balestreri and interpreted here by Cristina Zavalloni (a
Berio regular and the favourite vocalist of Dutch contemporary composer Louis
Andriessen), the ironically dramatic amorous pursuit of French animal trainer
Arthur H in Raissa, the artistic and emotional intensity of Come l'aria (performed by Ermanno Joe Giovanardi from La Crus), Vinicio Capossela's
sweet delirium and desperate prayer in the name of the Santissima dei Naufragati,
the hidden pain of Espinita (performed by Macaco El Mono Loco from the
Spanish group, Macaco) all march together to the beat of Banda Ionica's
drum.
Add to this E vui durmiite ancora, Gioconditr', Ombra sacra,
Dolores, SS Cristo alla colonna, along with the original Lorenzo in
Sicilia played by Banda Ionica with devotional intensity and renewed
wonder and you have an extraordinary album that is both complement and homage
to the cultural humus on which it draws.
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