Marannui

Amazon.com
Wild-eyed Mimmo Epifani learned to play mandolin and mandola under Maestro Costantino Vita, who taught out of his barber shop near Brindisi, Italy. He also studied with Maestro Peppu D'Augusta, who led small pizzica-pizzica orchestras devoted to an ancient and wildly therapeutic style (closely related to the tarantella) known as "Saint Vitus' Dance." After graduating with honors from the Padua Conservatory, Epifani set about collecting and re-imagining the oral traditions he had heard all his life. Aside from their frantic, string-and-drum-laced dance pieces, the band can also sound like a Mediterranean Grateful Dead, this year¹s San Remo pop sensation, an Italian Reggae band complete with toasting, a Middle-Eastern belly-dance outfit, Tuvan throat singers on a tear in Napoli or one of Nino Rota Fellini soundtracks. The lyrics are full of lambastes, love-lorn threats of violence and drunken boasting; oldsters lament their time of life and young virgins are impregnated by nuns (!) The back-up players are all first-rate; Manuela Leffredo, a tangle-haired, tattooed (yes, with a rose!) female vocalist who could give Anna Magnani a run for her money, somehow emerges as a strong presence amid all the testosterone. --Christina Roden

Tracks:

Marannui
Uenosapistacuiet
Ci Criti O Non Ci Criti
Amsterdam
Vientu
Suspiri Tua
Lu Re
Duluri
Cinq
Zingaro
Marannui (Radio Edit)

Amazon.com

Wild-eyed Mimmo Epifani learned to play mandolin and mandola under Maestro Costantino Vita, who taught out of his barber shop near Brindisi, Italy. He also studied with Maestro Peppu D'Augusta, who led small pizzica-pizzica orchestras devoted to an ancient and wildly therapeutic style (closely related to the tarantella) known as "Saint Vitus' Dance." After graduating with honors from the Padua Conservatory, Epifani set about collecting and re-imagining the oral traditions he had heard all his life. Aside from their frantic, string-and-drum-laced dance pieces, the band can also sound like a Mediterranean Grateful Dead, this year¹s San Remo pop sensation, an Italian Reggae band complete with toasting, a Middle-Eastern belly-dance outfit, Tuvan throat singers on a tear in Napoli or one of Nino Rota Fellini soundtracks. The lyrics are full of lambastes, love-lorn threats of violence and drunken boasting; oldsters lament their time of life and young virgins are impregnated by nuns (!) The back-up players are all first-rate; Manuela Leffredo, a tangle-haired, tattooed (yes, with a rose!) female vocalist who could give Anna Magnani a run for her money, somehow emerges as a strong presence amid all the testosterone. --Christina Roden

Album Description

A contemporary way to introduce public to the tradition and secrets of the Salento, a corner of southern italy bursting with warmth, history, colour and flavour. An entertaining piece, never overemotional, tribute to the Taranta and the rich land of the Salento, full of elements from rap and balkanism, from flamenco to cafè jazz and arabic tinges