Almamegretta - Raiz - A migrant soul to a dub rhythm

With "Senghe" out on June 10th, the historic Neapolitan band delivers a new work conceived and produced with dub producer Paolo Baldini, who has now joined the lineup full-time as bassist. The word that gives the album its title means "cracks" in Neapolitan. As Raiz, voice and soul of Almamegretta, puts it, these cracks represent, within a wall, a glimmer of communication and light, once again confirming the band's inclination toward contamination and hope while staying anchored to its Mediterranean tradition and social themes. Preceded by the single "Figlio", this work suggests a powerful live impact.

First the pandemic, then a war. Given that light gets in through the crack, how do you shed light on times like these?

You try. With music, with culture, you certainly don't start revolutions, but you keep a small flame alight for anyone who wants to be warmed by it, and you bear witness for the next generation.

How did you experience "social distancing" on a human level, and how much of that experience found its way into the album?

It was a traumatic experience, one that has left and will keep leaving marks. Certainly a necessary evil, but it's precisely this kind of necessity that we should never have had to reach: the pandemic is the result of humanity's extreme impact on the ecosystem. We hope it at least served to make those "up above" reflect on the fact that all this can't go on without dramatic consequences. Our record is steeped in this whole way of feeling; we all have children we should be leaving an inheritance to, not rubble.

Setting aside political rhetoric and getting down to the real life of ordinary people, how does the concept of brotherhood fit in when there seems to be a war among the poor, who communicate with each other less and less?

We've always placed the emphasis on similarities rather than differences: telling how similar apparent differences actually are, or how extreme differences can find a way to combine (Jamaican dub and Neapolitan song, for instance) seems to us a way of opening people's eyes to exactly what you're talking about.

You're a band that has never shied away from combining tradition and experimentation. Is there a path through the latter to rediscover the distinctive traits of identity, or are we destined to become ever "more alike"?

The moment distinctive identity traits stop serving any real function, they disappear or merge with others to create a hybridization, which is the real interest for a band like ours. To experiment is also to imagine a possible future of coexistence and living together in which purity doesn't exist: after all, it never really existed anyway, except in the minds of chauvinists of every era.

An album with songwriterly touches (the Cohen quote in "Anthem", "Na stella" covering Mesolella, the lyrics themselves written by Danilo Turco), yet at the same time with a dance-driven edge rooted in the '90s and plenty of electronics. In "Senghe", is there more reason or more instinct?

In a song from a few years back, "Uno", I wrote that body and soul have perceptible boundaries but no possibility of existing separately. The constant attempt to balance these two components shaped the whole record.

How did the collaboration with Baldini come about? Beyond his proven professionalism, what kind of artistic contribution were you expecting from him?

We've been friends for many years. By his own admission, he started playing music by listening to us: we needed an outside ear, but one that was somehow already part of the band's history. We needed someone who knew how to place our songs within a very precise soundscape, with a strong, dry sound. He was a superb producer, so much so that he's now become an actual member of the band. We couldn't have asked for better.

Baldini-Almamegretta. North-South. Radical dub-pop. During the making of the album, how and to what extent did these dualisms find a synthesis?

We have a lot in common: we love dub, and Paolo has a pop soul. In the studio and in rehearsal, Baldini's no-nonsense, get-things-done attitude blended with our own "levantine" ways, creating a very effective mix.


"Senghe" feels like an album conceived with an international scope in mind, and I don't mean just in its structure but also in its live prospects. Is that a fair observation?

We've always made music that could potentially be listened to anywhere. We hope it can really happen.

(15/07/2022)

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