FolkWorld #75 07/2021
© Giuseppe Bortone / Zero Nove Nove

Article in italian

An Ancient Ritual, the Invocation, and the Tarantine Dialect

«Maletímbe» (bad weather), the new single by Yaràkä produced by Zero Nove Nove Records and distributed by Believe, is born from an ancient traditional ritual linked to peasant culture, is available from Tuesday 9 June in digital stores.

Yaràkä

Virginia Pavone: voice and percussion; Gianni Sciambarruto: berimbau; Marco La Corte: flute and voice; Mirko Sciambarruto: cello; Antonio Oliveti: ethnic percussion
Artist Video
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On the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, the sun reaches its highest point with respect to the celestial equator and thus begins its inverse declination. It is a magical and special moment, the ancient populations used to prepare for the worst. Maletímbe, recounts the ancient and mystical ritual of our ancestors who, to ward off bad weather, used to throw bread to the four winds invoking St. John to protect the fields and the harvest.

Invocation, as an anthropological phenomenon, fascinated the apulian ensemble, dictating a new direction to its research path. The exotic Afro-Brazilian sounds and world contaminations are grafted on to the Taranto and Apulian tradition which provides the corpus of rituals and beliefs to be investigated and transposed into music.

The adoption of the dialect of Taranto (Apulia, south of Italy), with its rhythmic peculiarities, then made the adaptation of the text more effective: the result is a hypnotic, pressing and energetic rhythm, the search for a new and special sound for the Yaràkä who, after the debut album "Invocaçao", are working on the new record production.

The bewitching voice is by Virginia Pavone, who enriches the rhythm sector with percussion; Marco La Corte, flute, alternates moments in which he supports the singing with second voices and percussion. The guitar of Gianni Sciambarruto, creator of the Yaràkä project, and the cello of his brother, Mirko Sciambarruto, are the chords of the ensemble completed by Antonio Oliveti who is entrusted with the ethnic percussion.

Yaràkä

Maletìmbe was recorded at the Perfect Wave Studio in San Giorgio Jonico (Taranto) by Mimmo Galloppa who was able to find the best balance between the naturalness of acoustic instruments and the use of samples and effects with hybrid sounds between electronic and ethnic.

This is the first release for the Zero Nove Nove which in 2021 becomes a label, alongside the work of Management and Booking also that of record production. "The first production of our Label could only come from Taranto, our city, the city of the two seas. With Yarakä we share roots and future projects, embarking on this new adventure with them was natural and symbolic at the same time ".

Yarákä, a project born in 2015 and with the debut album "Invocação" to its credit, proposes a research work careful to enhance the multi-ethnic component, in particular the common rhythmic matrix coming from Africa that acts as a catalyst and allows you to push yourself as well as experimenting daring contaminations with Mediterranean and Southern Italian sounds.

The relationship between man and nature can be sought in the relationship between man and God. Popular cultures are united by an ancestral relation: man in contact with nature and music becomes the medium. Starting from own land, finding the common elements in different areas of the south of the world, was the starting point of the disc: "Invocaçao wants to be the beginning of a real journey, a research that digs in the origins to look for a junction between cultures and primordial ethnic groups".

Yaràkä has performed in many venues and festivals, including: Raizes World Music Festival (Catania), Bari in Jazz (Bari), Il Cammino Celeste Festival (Lecce), Kantun Winka (Bari). In 2019 they were on tour in Austria (Vienna and Linz) and Germany (Munich and Regen).





Sounds but also images, the song has been followed by the release of the official videoclip directed by Gianluigi Gigante.

Simone Carrino: frame drums; Ilaria Lorusso: afro dancer.



Photo Credits: (1)-(2) Yaràkä (unknown/website).


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