On Tuesday 29 June (10.00 pm – admission €20 + booking fee – Info and advance tickets: bit.ly/cgscorigliano), to mark the symbolic feast day of St Paul, patron saint of the ‘tarantate’, the tour for “Meridiana”, the new album by Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino – co-produced by Mauro Durante and Justin Adams and released by Ponderosa with the support of Puglia Sounds Record 2020/2021 – kicks off from the Fossato del Castello Volante in Corigliano d’Otranto. Just a few weeks after its official release, the album has already been awarded the ‘Top of the World’ accolade by the British magazine *Songlines*, the most prestigious publication for world music. It has immediately soared to number one on the Transglobal World Music Chart and has been reviewed by leading national and international publications such as BBC Radio (“an unstoppable and explosive comeback”), Rootsworld (“Merdiana is not a reinvention of tradition, but a new layer of it”), The Times (“Emotion and precision go hand in hand in one of the most compelling albums of the year so far”), The Guardian (“CGS offers a masterclass in transforming local music into a global brand”), Il Manifesto (“an album that raises the bar for Salento music even higher”). The concert, organised in collaboration with Ats Core A Core, which manages the Castello Volante, and the entire tour will be dedicated to the memory of the recently deceased Daniele Durante, who founded the Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino with Rina Durante in 1975 and was the driving force behind the group until 2007, when he decided to pass the baton to his son Mauro. The tour will then visit Fasano (15 July), Krems an der Donau in Austria (23 July), the prestigious Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany (6 August) and, with further dates, will continue in Italy, Albania, Spain and France.
On stage: Mauro Durante (vocals, frame drums, violin), Alessia Tondo (vocals, percussion), Silvia Perrone (dance), Giulio Bianco (bagpipes, harmonica, folk flutes and wind instruments, bass), Massimiliano Morabito (accordion), Emanuele Licci (vocals, guitar, bouzouki), Giancarlo Paglialunga (vocals, tamburrieddhu) and Francesco Aiello (sound engineer) will perform tracks from the new album, which arrives four years after ‘Canzoniere’, which, for the first time, saw an Italian group take the top spot at the prestigious 2018 Songlines Music Awards (Best World Music Group in the World) and took the band to the Royal Albert Hall in London for the BBC Proms in 2019. A new musical project that aims to distil the various facets of CGS into an original, modern and unmistakable sound. A synaesthetic blend of voices with an old-world quality. Drums of every shape, material and size beat out the rhythm like a pulsating heart. Psychedelic and poignant violins, accordion, plucked strings and wind instruments intertwine with synth bass, loops and electronic sounds, weaving a unique and mesmerising tapestry that evokes the Mediterranean. Twelve tracks – just as there are twelve hours marked by the sundial – in which past and present overlap, featuring distinguished national and international guests such as Justin Adams (Robert Plant’s right-hand man for many years), who lends his guitar to ‘Lu Sittaturu’ and ‘Tic e Tac’ and co-produces the album. The New York-based band Red Baraat lends its multicultural soul to ‘Pizzica Bhangra’; and maestro Enzo Avitabile, a flagship of Italian and Neapolitan music worldwide (winner of two David di Donatello awards in 2017), adds his signature style and talent to ‘Tic e Tac’. Valerio Combass of Apres La Classe plays electric bass on ‘Balla Nina’ and ‘Tic e Tac’; and Salento-born drummer Antonio “Dema” De Marianis adds his percussion to the groove of ‘Tic e Tac’. The new album features a return to traditional Salento songs (Lu Sittaturu, Quannu Camini Tie, Ntunucciu, Ninnarella), alongside contemporary orchestrations of the pizzica (Orfeo, Ronda). The band’s original exploration of the song form continues (Balla Nina, Meridiana), whilst their commitment to social commentary remains undiminished (Stornello alla Memoria, Vulía).
“Meridiana” tells the story of a bond forged during a difficult year like 2020, in which the group led by Mauro Durante undertook an enormous collective effort. His formidable fellow travellers – Giulio Bianco, Alessia Tondo, Emanuele Licci, Silvia Perrone, Giancarlo Paglialunga, Massimiliano Morabito and sound engineer Francesco Aiello – join him as individual cogs in a single creative machine, each with their own distinctive qualities. With the exception of Giulio Bianco’s ‘Ronda’, Durante’s signature is present on all the tracks, which feature contributions from many members of the group: Alessia Tondo (‘Balla Nina’, the lyrics for ‘Ninnarella’, ‘Stornello alla Memoria’), Giulio Bianco (Lu Sittaturu, Vulía, Stornello alla Memoria), Emanuele Licci (Quannu Camini Tie, Lu Sittaturu, the beautiful arrangement of Meridiana), and the dancer Silvia Perrone (the lyrics for Balla Nina). Enzo Avitabile is the co-writer of ‘Tic e Tac’, and Red Baraat frontman Sunny Jain contributed to the composition of ‘Pizzica Bhangra’.
The album’s themes revolve around the concept of time. Starting with the distinctive nature of the musical genre itself, which translates and updates for the present day an ancestral music and language that come from the past. There are many sources of inspiration, ranging from folk tradition to contemporary issues, from philosophy to physics, via sociology and mythology. Time is explored and examined through intergenerational dialogue (Balla Nina, Vulía); mythology and the boundary between life and death (Orfeo, Balla Nina); the magical power of music and dance to bridge distances and influence the world (Pizzica Bhangra, Orfeo). There is love that begins and love that ends (Quannu Camini Tie, Ntunucciu); time suspended between dream and wakefulness, childhood and the unconscious (Ninnarella); the contemporary South, to which the whole of Italy belongs, with its dazzling light and the shadows it inevitably casts (Stornello alla Memoria, Vulía); and reflections on the weight of time in our lives (Tic e Tac, Meridiana).
The album was mixed by the group’s eighth member, sound engineer Francesco Aiello, who has succeeded in creating a warm, rich and powerful sound. Mastering was handled by Tim Oliver of the legendary Real World Studios. Special mention must go to Giacomo Greco, formerly of Inude, who plays and produces all the synths on the album and oversees the electronic production on ‘Balla Nina’, ‘Pizzica Bhangra’, ‘Lu Sittaturu’ and ‘Ninnarella’
.“‘Meridiana’ is not just music, but a wider project exploring the theme of time. Videos, images, texts and contributions from figures in the worlds of science and culture come together on an online portal – meridiana-cgs.it – to form an original multimedia and multidisciplinary mosaic. To coincide with the album’s release, “Meridiana” will therefore also be a website: a 2.0 version of the CD booklet, designed to help listeners discover and explore every aspect of the album.
The album and the portal have been produced with the support of Puglia Sounds “Puglia Sounds Record Programme 2020/2021” – “REGION OF APULIA – FSC 2014/2020 – Pact for Apulia – Investing in your future”.
GDG Press
Press Office: Michela Rossetti: 3479951730; gdgpress@gmail.com
Giulia Di Giovanni: 3341949036; info@gdgpress.com
Puglia
Società Cooperativa Coolclub Press
Office pierpaolo@coolclub.it – 3394313397