Mazapègul
Piccolo Canto Nomade

THE REVIEW

I am not a de-reviewer, and it was frankly difficult for me to write even these few lines. I wanted to do it because here I found great records and music I was not aware of. I feel it's necessary to reciprocate, and I hope to read another review soon, one written better by someone who wants to give this record the visibility I think it deserves.

The mazapegolo, mazapègul, is a sprite that haunts the Romagna mountains. It comes out at night, sneaks into houses, and walks stealthily close to the furniture. The creature falls in love with the most beautiful girls, and the young women have no choice but to endure its attentions or expect the pranks of the rogue.

The Mazapègul are also Romagnoli, but you wouldn't say it except for a few scattered words here and there, some reference that might be decisive for those born in the same land.

Otherwise, you might well say that their music is a bastard, nameless, with too many fathers and none certain. In "Piccolo Canto Nomade," they play a physical journey, on the road, the return of someone who will sit tonight and have plenty to tell all through the night: about what they've seen, done, and heard.   

Rhythms borrowed, inflated, smoothed, distorted like every story told by a good narrator. The Balkan bursts of "Maramures Polka," the country that flees in "Sacca del Diavolo," or in "Ventidue Colori," where you almost expect to see the tumbleweed rolling by pushed by the dusty wind. Returns to the village, melancholic like Monty Banks, vital as in Cacaija.

There are other parts of the world I don't know in this record, equally beautiful and worth being narrated. My advice is to listen to the story; who knows, maybe you'll get up from your chair like the protagonist of Gola Profonda, the drunk track (Ivano Marescotti), satisfied and with the slight hint that some big tales might have been told, but expertly narrated.