CARMEN CONSOLI - Amuri luci

Carmen Consoli has announced the release of a trilogy of profoundly different albums, aimed at covering and summing up every facet of her career: “Amuri luci” is the first chapter of this project and is dedicated to the folk music of Sicily (the other two records will focus respectively on rock and singer-songwriter fare, and will be sung one in English, Spanish and French, the other in Italian).

This isn't the first time Consoli has grappled with the folk music of her homeland: in 2024 she released the live album “Terra ca nun senti” – which included, among other things, a couple of reworkings of Rosa Balistreri songs (the title track and “Buttana di to mà”) – and in May of this year “L’amuri ca v’haju”, the soundtrack to the film “L’amore che ho”, a biopic about the life of Balistreri herself, accordingly built around reworkings of her songbook.

This time, however, the tracks are all unreleased, at least musically, while the lyrics do allow themselves a few borrowings from the dialect poets Ignazio Buttitta ("Mamma tedesca", "Parru cu tia") and Graziosa Casella ("Nimici di l'arma mia"), as well as from figures of antiquity such as Ovid ("Bonsai #3") and Theocritus ("Galàteia"), whose writings on the myth of Polyphemus and Galatea are sung in Latin and Greek, without any adaptation.

The track that opens and gives its title to the album is a dedication to Giovanni Impastato, who spent his life keeping alive the memory of his brother Peppino, a victim of the mafia. Here is a translation of it:

In the district of Munacheddi the lights would come on,

the shepherds had the sky beneath their feet,

among the stones and through the grass, right down to the cliffs, they danced happily.

On those moonless nights, the darkness swallowed our footsteps

and those little winged stars embroidered paths.

On those moonless nights, my brother and I in the middle of the solitary fields,

felt grown up.

Love light, on those timeless nights.

Love light, there was no stopping the fear.

Love light, Giovanni, let's raise this voice.

On avenues wet with rain,

the grey light of a tired lamp lights up the asphalt underfoot.

On this long, timeless night,

the true light cannot be brought back by the wind.

So many empty souls come to visit you,

the feeling of hearing you call is strong.

Kneaded with blood, your mother's weeping flows,

and you gather, layer by layer, more pieces of your brother.

Love is light, so we don't forget who we are.

Love is light, and not even hell can make us tremble.

Love is light, as long as a thread of voice remains

Since the Sicily portrayed in the album boasts a centuries-old cultural tradition, the sources of inspiration can reach far back in time: "La terra di Hamdis", for instance, is inspired by the Siculo-Arab poet Ibn Hamdis, who in 1078, at the age of twenty-two, left Sicily to escape the Norman conquest: although he found protection and hospitality at the courts of the greatest Arab princes of the Mediterranean, he would mourn his native land for the rest of his life.

Wind, why don't you wring out the rain?

You could quench this land's thirst.

Bring me these barren clouds,

so I can fill them with my tears.

Thirsty fields strewn with blood,

I want to water them with my own weeping.

Earthly love cannot console

the mothers who can no longer watch their children play,

run and get hurt.

Wind, dissolve the weeping,

put out this hell and make it rain

seeds of peace,

then turn into a hurricane,

sweep away the god of money and the armies

of its followers.

Wind, run.

To be wind and not stir a leaf,

misery and ashes in place of grass,

and there is no spring that can console

the mothers who can no longer watch their children return,

grow and become adults.

Wind, dissolve the weeping,

put out this hell and make it rain

words of peace,

then turn into a hurricane,

sweep away the god of money and the armies

of armed devils.

Run, wind, chase away the black of this sky

These are the best lyrics Consoli has written in her own hand. Just as rich, however, is the musical research involved, aided by the participation of Giacomo Calà Scattiglia, known as Gemino, a longtime scholar of traditional Sicilian instruments, which he also builds himself.

“Amuri luci” thus moves over a cyclical, obsessive guitar line, recalling the aforementioned “Buttana di to mà”, before showcasing an arrangement featuring mandolin, jaw harp (in Sicilian marranzanu) and a small whistle (in Sicilian friscalettu, a typical wooden cane flute, likely a legacy of the Greek colonies).

“Unni t'ha fattu 'a stati” has shades reminiscent of the soundtracks of great Greek masters like Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis. “La terra di Hamdis” boasts a string section influenced by classical Arabic music and stands out for the presence of Mahmood, who takes on the challenge of singing in Sicilian, with thoroughly respectable results. “Mamma tedesca” lands somewhere between Sicilian tradition, jazzy chamber folk and modern singer-songwriter fare (the melody recalls nothing less than “Il vecchio e il bambino” by Francesco Guccini). “3 oru 3 oru” blends tex-mex guitars with a samba groove, managing to make them feel right at home, while “Galáteia” makes use of the piercing sound of the zammara (an ancient form of clarinet dating back to Arab rule).

The participation of Jovanotti on “Parru cu tia” is a fish out of water that nonetheless doesn't spoil the atmosphere, lasting barely a minute and a half. Far more successful is the contribution of tenor Leonardo Sgroi, from the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with whom Consoli duets on “Qual sete voi?”, sung in 13th-century vernacular Italian on verses drawn from an epistolary exchange between the poet Nina Siciliana and the Tuscan poet Dante da Maiano.

In the end, though, in a work so layered and dense with references, the most surprising element is Consoli's voice itself, whose vibrations and slight dissonances suit this kind of ancestral singing perfectly, showing how her passion for Balistreri's art is anything but superficial. It's just a shame that it took her almost thirty years to realize such a project, and that it may well remain a one-off: we missed out on the career of a top-tier folk singer.

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12/10/2025