Tanit: omonimo (Classico, 1992)

The multimedia project "Sonos 'e memoria" towards the rediscovery of the Sardinian cultural legacy started in 1994 and involved many of the most important musicians of the island. Jazz trumpetist Paolo Fresu was among them, but his interest in the revisitation of Sardinian traditional music had already begun some years before with the band Tanit.
A quintet born in 1987, Tanit were Paolo Fresu, Massimo Nardi (guitar), Carlo Mariani (launeddas), Gianluca Ruggeri (marimba) and Fulvio Maras (percussions). Launeddas are a typical instrument of Sardinian folklore, basically a multi-clarinet with two chanter pipes and a bass drone. Its sound may remind of a bagpipe - though the instrument has no bags, circular breathing provides a constant airflow.

The music of Tanit fuses a post-Davis jazz attitude with the complex structures of the traditional launeddas repertoire. The latter are created by a succession (iskala) of standard melodic modules (nodas) connected by an improvised passeggiu which subtly makes the patterns shift from one noda to the next one.
Tanit employ a very bright, lighter-than-air sound, keeping all the brilliance of a style originally conceived for the dance. The modular structure of the music and its fragmented time signatures make the overall result resemble, quite surprisingly, to the work of Terry Riley and other minimalist "masters of suspension", with a levity which has no equivalents in the ethno-jazz territory.

Many thanks to the Italian Folk Music blog, which first posted some months ago this otherwise unfindable record.


Tracklist:

1. Solanas
   
2. Di di do
3. Ninna ninna
4. Ditirambo
5. Bacio
6. Arrepikku strano
7. Lime
8. Mediana
9. Vista Gastriti

Download (~220 kbps)