Almamegretta
Imaginaria

When I was twelve, on a warm summer evening, I was offloaded by my dear parents to my uncle because I don't remember what they had to do. My uncle's brilliant idea was to take his nephew, along with his crazy friends, to Talsano, in the province of Taranto, my city, to see a concert by Almamegretta. You can imagine, not with much difficulty, that a twelve-year-old boy wouldn't be too thrilled to find himself squashed among a bunch of drunk and/or high people listening to someone singing in Neapolitan, but it sounded much like he was singing in Arabic or complaining about gastritis… So I asked for and got the car keys, hid myself inside, and had a rich sleep.

That said, now that I am seventeen, I discovered Almamegretta, the group I hated so much that evening. I discovered them with ‘Imaginaria’, dating back to 2001. I think ‘Imaginaria’ is an important piece of international electronic music; the songs (two in English, the others in strong Neapolitan) have a sound that ventures into dance and pop. The songs are mostly about love: love for women but also love for Naples. Raiz, as I mentioned before, sings in Neapolitan except for two songs, but at this point, I think the language is really unimportant; as I noticed as a child, it sounded like he was singing in Arabic: but if we observe, the Neapolitan and Arabic speech aren't that different in these twelve tracks.

Undoubtedly, the arrangement of every sound is meticulously cared for, but the beauty of this album is the fact that in all the tracks, even the darker ones, there is room to dance, there is a continuous rhythm that doesn't leave you for a moment, there's no pause… it's a warm embrace of psychedelic melodies, virtual journeys, and deep sensations.

Undoubtedly worth buying or downloading, hats off to Raiz and company.