(photo: Riccardo Piccirillo)
Which 10 albums influenced you the most? This is a question that I will ask guests from the world music realm (musicians, producers, organizers, agents...), and I will share their answers to you every two weeks on these pages.
This is the first time that a whole group, and not an individual, is a guest in this column. My guests are musicians from the Italian band Brigan, which recently released its fifth studio album called "Liburia Trip" (Liburia Records). We waited five years for the new album, and on it Brigan brilliantly combined the traditional music of the south of Italy with electronic music. As they say, 'this album sways between ancestral world music and electronic-trance, placing itself not as a simple re-proposition of the tradition of the lower Caserta (place of origin of the three artists) but as a creation in the present of an imaginary world now lost in which singing, drums, flutes and the sonic landscape re-emerge reworked-stratified-fragmented with a new guise thanks to the use of digital circuits and new media.'
Brigan, i.e. Francesco Di Cristofaro, Andrea Laudante and Gabriele Tinto have chosen 10 albums for Izvorišta that influenced them the most.
C.S.I - Tabula Rasa Elettrificata (Black Out 1997.)
The poetics, the sound and the ostinato groove of the entire album has returned several times in our listening over the last few years, getting under our skin. The voice, psalmodic and almost monodic, is one of the characteristics that has always struck us about this album and the entire C.S.I. Although different, that of the C.S.I is a world parallel to ours, from the 'liturgical' and 'prophetic', trance and hermetic psalmody that has entered our way of making music.
Rodrigo Cuevas - Manual de Cortejo (Aris Musica 2019.)
We discovered this musician and this record in Porto at Womex 2021. We fell in love with his way of making music and dealing with elements and shreds of tradition, also through the use of archival materials and a symbiosis between electronics, voice and tradition is very close to our way of conceiving world music today. Manual de Cortejo is a narration in which the thin line between past and present swings in perfect balance without ever falling in one direction or the other.
Coetus - Coetus (Temps Records 2009.)
This record came to our ears about ten years ago and was one of our pillars relating to the way of thinking about tradition, rhythm and the world of percussion. A great teaching arrived from the great and rich tradition of the Iberian peninsula from which we have drawn a lot, both in terms of music and recording. We have also had the pleasure in the past of collaborating both live and in the studio with various Coetus musicians including Ramon Rodriguez Gomez.
Franco Battiato - Gommalacca (Mercury 1998.)
A gem of Italian music. A record that we have literally devoured because of the many listenings. "Gommalacca" is difficult to define, there is a continuous oscillation between crossover, dub, techno, opera, classical, contemporary. Like shellac (English translation of gommalacca), it escapes, overflows and goes beyond the embankments you try to build, creating a shiny patch of reality that is split yet so neo-realist as to dazzle you in a flash of winter sky. Synthetic sounds, cryptic texts, rough arrangements: "Gommalacca" flows through the ten drops transformed into songs, scratches, burns, only sometimes caresses, creeps into the classical compositional canons and makes their symmetries explode.
Lankum - The Livelong Day (Rough Trade 2019.)
Our attention towards this group starts from far away, from the first album "Between the Earth and Sky". In The livelong day we find a treatment of tradition very close to our way of conceiving current world music. The sound research is remarkable; every note, every harmony and every drone of the album is made only with its own acoustic instrumentation: uilleann pipe, concertina, harmonium, fiddle and strings are revisited and often distorted with respect to the usual use in folk music, demonstrating how a return to greater austerity and minimalism in terms of the use of technological equipment can be vital.
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Out Of Noise (School/Mini Inc 1990.)
Sakamoto is an eclectic musician and composer, in limbo between different sound worlds (bossa nova, techno, pop, ambient) and his artistic vision has always been a point of reference for us. Thanks to this record we had the chance to approach to a specific kind of experimental electronic music (concrete, acousmatic) and that it was an important gateway for us. "Out Of Noise" is a great example of how this type of music can coexist with a certain instrumental sensibility.
Antonio Infantino - Tara'n Trance (Amiata 2004.)
Antonio Infantino was one of our greatest references in the field of Italian world music and beyond. Among all the records "Tara'n Trance" for us was a work that formed us and where the encounter with electronic music transports tradition towards a futuristic and psychedelic imaginary. The stubborn and archaic nucleus of tradition remains unchanged and finds a perfect symbiosis with the use of electronics and new media. Definitely a disc that all musicians who try to combine electronic tradition should know and from which to start to open new paths and linguistic mixes.
'E Zezi - Tammurriata dell’Alfasud (I Dischi Del Sole 1976.)
Historic Italian folk revival group 'E Zezi have been and still are since 1974 a wandering splinter in the panorama of world music. During these long decades they have brought together different elements in constant balance and madness at the same time: the masks of comedy and the tragedy of everyday life, the popular art of work singing, of the factory and the moral redemption of the class struggle, the ancient repertoire of oral tradition and all instances of modernity. "Tammurriata dell'Alfasud" is the first record of a long history and certainly stands as a manifesto of a certain treatment of living tradition in contact with reality and current issues.
Tigran Hamasyan - Shadow Theater (Verve 2013.)
Pianist with crystalline talent, Tigran Hamasyan creates his unique language starting from a careful study of the Armenian tradition, which he fully embodies and through which he filters in an innovative and never banal way avant-garde rock music, American jazz and electronic music. His music is characterized by a very clear poetic vision and for us this album traces a precise path towards the search for a hybrid personal language grafted onto tradition, with which we feel very similar.
Radiohead - Kid A (Parlophone 2000.)
"Kid A" is a key moment in Radiohead history. After the great success of the previous album, ("OK Computer" - milestone of 90s rock) the band decides to completely change direction by churning out an alien record in which the guitars are largely replaced by hypnotic and visionary electronics. "Kid A" is therefore an invitation to us never to feel comfortable in our research but to always push ourselves forward towards new horizons.
You may also be interested:
I really like the bands new album and am fascinated by their international list of influences.