Review of La Serena by La Cantiga De La Serena, Workin’ Label, 2016
http://www.workinproduzioni.it/roster-artisti/39-artisti/304-la-cantiga-de-la-serena.html
Some time ago reading the wonderful book “Superonda Storia segreta della musica italiana” by Valerio Mattioli, I was thinking about the birth of that particular musical genre whose name is an indefinable mix of ethnic, world music and traditional folk, a genre which mixed itself with ancient music, medieval music and that is connected both to the most scrupulous and ethnomusicological studies both to the sadder, more or less extremist political positions, to the vacuous ideas of the new age and new aquarium era.
In this musical melting pot we can find everything, a heterogeneous as discontinuous music offer that can often disconcert the listener, almost lost in the midst of this sea clogged with sirens that often smell like frozen cods, I think could be better to rely more on curriculums and the reputation of the artists involved than to the slogan of the record companies or to the implied references in the music genres.
The three musicians who are involved in this interesting project of “La Cantiga De La Serena” are persons of proven faith and quality names, about whose music seriously you can’t have any doubt: FABRIZIO PIEPOLI (voice, santur, shruti box, tar) GIORGIA SANTORO (flute, bass flute, small, bansuri, voice, castanets, cymbals) and ADOLFO LA VOLPE (oud, cittern, saz, indian harmonium) are three excellent artists who have decided to combine their talents in this project, born in in 2008, to recover and play again with new instruments and modern perspective ancient medieval dances, pilgrimage and devotion Christian songs (Cantigas de Santa Maria), ancient cantighe, coplas and XIV century Sephardic romances. The result is a particularly Mediterranean record, with a great sound and concept, an interesting example of how certain barriers, which we believe “they are because they are”, do not exist except in our political and mental conceptions, while they can be remouved if we think about only in terms of musical traditions.
Excellent sound quality, one more star to Adolfo La Volpe for his oud’s intro in “It Verias”.
NeuGuitars 