cod. cnt.it1005
Cantoberon Music Publishing

CD EXTRA (pc-mac), it includes an interactive rom track containing information and short films about the group and the film.

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Sangue Vivo-live blood-is the source of the obsessive rhythm to which, since time immemorial, beat the tambourines in the land of Salento, in the extreme South East of Italy. It is done to soothe the dark, painful force that certain people from the area have in their blood. To give it sound, voice and dance steps until it no longer hurts too much. The pain doesn't stop, but for them, as long as the music lasts, it seems possible to forgive life. If the America of slavery had the Blues as its expression of pain, if the young blacks of the urban ghettos talk about misfortune and rage to a rap beat, the people of Salento express their feelings and passions by beating the tambourine and dancing the 'Pizzica', to achieve their trance. The music is not just for expression, but for communication. And the dance is for courting.

Blood that flows... in the veins, in the heart, in the soul. Blood that, drop by drop, from the deepest silence, penetrates the fissures in the Earth, mixes, and collects in a single vital rhythm. Blood that flows, always...Alive. Its music plays in us and in you, the ripe fruit of notes that spring forth in hypnotic melodies, that slide, filter, and mesh into the passages in the Earth, mixing with its nerves and pulsing endlessly.
Time and memories flow in all of us-alive, they free the melodies of a time gone by, that continues to slip away.
"Sangue Vivo" was born from the desire to search for roots in the culture of Salento, from the desire to find old harmonies forgotten, or rather, hidden, by the passage of time. We have found some of these melodies unconsciously, passed down and impressed into our Salentian memories: "l'America" (America), one of the first testimonies of immigration at the beginning of last century to the New Continent; "Mamma la Luna" (Mother Moon), the resigned sigh of a love-sick heart; "Tuppi Tuppi", a poignant epilogue of conjugal love. Others, like "Yientu" and "Filìa", were created specifically to remind us of the joy that emanates from our music.

Carelessly, we celebrate the rite of fertility, the wind of love and life, that, revolving, renews itself with growing vitality. We celebrate the time of Festival and Dance, of sacred union and of singing together, of the spirit of union which binds and liberates us, which creates mysteries and breaks up songs. "Sale" (Salt), "Don Pizzica" and "Macaria" show not only authenticity, but also the surprisingly contemporary nature of this music-the continuous pulsing in all of us, the centrifugal and hypnotic force of the 'Pizzica'. There is poetry that pays homage to Salentian Greece; "Nifta Maiu", for two young lovers, the Greek night in the month of May, the race through the fields with the moon and the stars as accomplices.
The place where the songs were recorded made it so that everything came out, that the voices of the farmers and their families were liberated from the walls, voices from a pre-industrial time when absolute silence still blanketed the Salento countryside. How many times, in that silence, did we find ourselves playing music, thinking and discussing, and how many times did we think that the work was finished? A ready-made record - but it wasn't true. We went on looking for an end, offering a final note, but it was the melodies that didn't want to stop living, stop being thought of and played by us.

Perhaps this is why they seem to have been playing for so long. But it's alright for us to think of them this way, until exhaustion, until the sounds are consumed. And yet the time has come to finally give them back - but not forever, for that is impossible. We will continue creating, but not from nothing. We will go forward searching for our melodies inside, where the blood of memory beats.

Raffaella Aprile

Cinzia Marzo: vocals, flute and tambourine Donatello Pisanello: two-tone barrel-organs Ambrogio De Nicola: classical guitar Raffaella Aprile: vocals and castanets Claudio Miggiano: violin, guitar and tres Lamberto Probo: tambourine, vocals, drum, and cupa cupa
Pino Zimba: tambourine, vocals, castanets, and violin a sonagli

Recorded January, 2000 at Clara Winspeare's farm in Depressa (Lecce) by Massimiliano Nevi - Cantoberon mobile recording studio
Mixed and mastered by Massimiliano Nevi at Cantoberon's Rome studio
Artwork of Rita Giacalone
Interactive element: Cantoberon Multimedia

Zoe's photos by Gianfranco Mura.

email: info@cnt.it