Conceived by Andrea Ottomani in detailed dreams during consecutive nights in late June 2024, whilst traversing a stormy Mediterranean between stops in Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Turkey. ‘The musical mood is longing, melancholic, nostalgic — a kind of saudade, sorrowing with the sense that what is past or lost can never be recovered — but filled with regenerative wonder, or ‘thauma’. Evocative field recordings of the sea, cicadas, calls to prayer and general ambience merge with bells, balafon, and various percussion instruments, seamlessly combining with synths and electronics. To complete the picture, a compelling succession of instrumental and vocal contributions: for a taste check Bint Mbareh’s wailing counterpoint to the brass, in Fuoco Lento, and her spine-tingling verses in A Juniper Tree Whose Roots Are Made of Fire; the snake-charmer waltzes in Sticks And Stones; and the spiritually charged interplay between saxophone and bamboo drum, in Rinascita.
