Agricantus: Tuareg (Compagnia Nuove Indye, 1996)

Conceived in Sicily, recorded partly in the Mali Desert, sung by a Swiss singer in a variety of languages (from French and German to Tamachek or Lingala): "Tuareg" is the emblem of world music, and one of the greatest masterpieces in the genre. It's not just a fusion of Mediterranean musical heritage, Touareg traditions and techno-trance structures of the flourishing "rave culture" of the mid-Nineties. And the point's not that the range of influences of is much richer (trip-hop, dub, dream-pop, ambient, drum'n'bass...), nor the charming voice and technique of singer Rosie Wiederkehr (somehow reminding of Cocteau Twin's Elizabeth Fraser), but rather the stunning beauty of the music the album contains. The atmospheres it creates are unique and deeply enthralling: they sound ancient and futuristic, luminous and mysterious, warm and solemn at the same time. I won't venture in further descriptions: luckily, the music doesn't need any explanation to disclose its magic.

Agricantus were a band from Palermo, founded in 1979 as a traditional folk ensemble. During the Nineties, they got more and more intrested to foreign musical traditions and electronic music. The entrance of Swiss singer Rosie Wiederkehr greatly enriched their formula, letting them focus on multi-language lyrics and phonetic experimentation. "Tuareg" is their second long-playing and brought them many critical prizes, such as Premio Tenco, Premio Augusto Daolio, and Premio Italiano della Musica.

Tracklist:

1. Ummiri
2. Hala hala
3. Ljuljuten (Tin-Zawatine)
4. Com'u ventu
5. Carizzi r'amuri (Es Souk)
6. Azalai
7. Tuareg
8. Disiu
9. Caruvana 'i sali
10. U coni coni
11. Dune

Download (128 kbps)

I couldn't find any reliable credits for this album. The line-up of the band was, in any case:

• Tonj Acquaviva: drums and percussion
• Mario Crispi: winds and keyboards, vocals
• Giuseppe Panzeca: guitar and mandolins
• Mario Rivera: bass and vocals
• Rosie Wiederkher: vocals and keyboards

Former Picchio dal pozzo member Aldo De Scalzi should have been involved in the recording, producing or composing process in some way (but I have no exact information).


Similar music on the blog:
Calicanto: Venexia (Compagnia Nuove Indye, 1997)
Militia: Elvengamello (Materiali Sonori, 1997)

VV.AA..: Let's Talk about Muertepop (Muertepop, 2007)

The post-rock, indietronic, ambient, glitch, electroacoustic scenes have often met during the last decade, giving birth to a fertile ground for musical contamination. An idea of this quite poorly known territory is well sketched by this much varied compilation. The most evident defining trait of the music is the strong predominance of instrumental and electronic components: lush or barbed, layered or pointillist, most of tracks don't even feature vocals or acoustic instruments. Atmosphere overarches melody and rhythm in the constructions, and timbre acts a primary role in setting the mood of the music. The latter is mostly bleak, cold, melancholic - most of the textures are loosely structured and rarefied, or I'd better say emptied-out - but sometimes lit up by sugary ambiences loaded with hope and lyricism. There's an overall experimental tendency animating the music, though the boundary between experimentation and mannerism is often quite faded.
The tracks aren't all equally good obviously, but the variety and the representativeness of the compilation definitely makes it an interesting and pleasurable listening.

"Let's Talk about Muertepop" is the first release by young-born netlabel Muertepop, active mostly with indietronic music. The compilation features a wide inventory of artists, including quite prominent names such as Port-Royal, Ioioi, My Awesome Mixtape. It's available for free download on their website.

Tracklist:

1. Port-Royal - Internet Love
2. Etere - Dans les boulevards (Ohz remix)
3. Leben - Molly Has Been Cured
4. Mark Hamn - Akoustik Pool
5. My Awesome Mixtape - Ode to Poetry
6. Ioioi - Bright Future
7. Cocoon - Neural
8. Fever Asylum - Tomorrow You Will Listen to
9. Livi(d)o - Qualcosa nella mia mente
10. Guitar to Abdicate - A New Place
11. Let's Drive to Alaska! - As We Sleep
12. Rikieffe - Mosca ceca
13. Overtuner - Broken Melody
14. Monowatt - Brainwave #0
15. Urkuma&Strinqulu - Lundulu
16. Smart Drug - Rosina
17. Scientist&Cynic - The quite gnome (removed)
18. Le supersquillo - Go way John (removed) 
19. Falter Bramnk - Big Pink
20. Gilvia - Gls3

n.b. Tracks 17 and 18 have been removed on the label's website. If you have them please do contact me.
Download (192 kbps)

Similar music on the blog:
Tanake: 3ree (Fratto9/ Ebria, 2007)
Port-Royal: Flares (Resonant, 2005)

Nicola Alesini, Pier Luigi Andreoni: Marco Polo (Materiali sonori, 1996)

A deeply fascinating ambient-world record, "Marco Polo" is both thick and suffused, lush and minimal, layered and discreet. Its red-heated saxophone and Fripp-like guitar velvets hover on bewitching percussion groves and space-filling synthetizer ponds, in a sultry air which sounds exotic and arcane. Gentle electronic vines crawl in with dazing gamelan-like weavings and plough a music landscape of self-intersecting arabesques. Mystery and unearthliness drip like dew from the leaves, in an oceanic expanse of reverbs and refractions.

"Marco Polo"'s a music project by saxophone player Nicola Alesini and electronic pioneer Pierluigi Andreoni. Important figures in the ambient music field collaborated to the album: Japan's David Sylvian (vocals), Pierrot Lunaire's Arturo Stalteri (bouzouki, harmonium), Roger Eno (keyboards, percussion, vocals), David Torn (guitar), Harold Budd (percussion).


Tracklist:

1. Come Morning
2. Quinsai, la città del cielo
3. Yangchow
4. The Golden Way
5. Sumatra
6. M. Polo
7. Il libro dell'incessante accordo con il cielo
8. Maya
9. Buchara
10. Kubilay Khan
    
11. Samarca
12. The Valley of Pamir

Download (192 kbps) [re-up]


Similar albums on Il golpe e l'uva:
Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici: GMM
Minox: Lazare

Airportman: Letters (Lizard records, 2008)

"Letters" sounds like Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" denuded of any guise of soul or emotion. What lasts in the music? The tail-swallowing stagnation of dangling piano progressions, the soaking sense of laziness of tired accordion drones, the dampened warmth of some sullen acoustic guitar chords. Then the jazzy, emptied-out atmospheres, the chamber-like breaches, the outworldly suspension of the slow minor-key tides permeating everything.
What's unique to "Letters"? Its homely creakings - a fossil recall of a hospitality which has somehow mutated in a Tortoise-like call for abstraction, made of dub drifts and sparse, cold-blooded electronic heartbeats.

Airportman are a band from Cuneo, Piedmont. This is their seventh album.


Tracklist:

1. trk #1
2. trk #2
3. trk #3
4. trk #4
5. trk #5
6. trk #6
7. trk #7
8. trk #8
9. trk #9

Download (320 kbps)