ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA

 Jemma is a collective of musicians from Velletri, a town near Rome, whose roots date back to 2017 when, on the initiative of Federico Buccini, they began to jam together inspired by jazz, Mediterranean folk, funk and progressive rock. After a good live activity, in 2023 they released an interesting eponymous album on the independent Emme Record label with a line up featuring Federico Buccini (keyboards, piano, guitar), Sofia Ara (flute, sax, vocals), Agnese Antonelli (violin, vocals), Ludovico Franco (trumpet, flugelhorn), Daniel Ventura (sax, flute - from VEMM), Alessandro Recanati (electric guitar), Marco Bruno (bass), Shanti Colucci (drums - from Ingranaggi della Valle and VEMM), Guglielmo Molino (bass), Davide Fabrizio (drums) and Rosario Ceraudo (percussion) plus the guest Gianluca Petrella (trombone). According to the band, it’s a concept album about the sea and the culture of the sea where original compositions alternate with traditional folk songs re-elaborated with a jazz rock modern taste in the vein of bands such as Perigeo, Agorà, Snarky Puppy or Weather Report: Jemma speaks of earth, sea, wind through intimate, tribal, rock, groove and ethnic atmospheres seasoned with an overflowing energy. It is a “crossover” work where jazz, world, rock, funk blend naturally into an original and innovative sound, a mix of identities, a crossroads of styles and souls. For the lyrics, the band chose languages and dialects from the Mediterranean sea like Italian, Portolotto, Salentine Grecanic or Ancient Greek but the focus of this project is more on the music than on the lyrics...

 

The beautiful opening piece, “Timelapse”, is completely instrumental and is paradigmatic of the musical direction followed by the band. It ranges in different musical territories with continuous changes of rhythm and atmosphere. Maybe, it’s not by chance that the title refers to a photographic technique in which the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than the frequency used to view the sequence. When played at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapse...

“Kaneloriza” is a famous traditional song from Asia Minor, in the past interpreted, among others, by Domna Samiou, a prominent Greek researcher and performer of Greek folk music, or Nana Mouskouri. This version blends Rebetiko music style and jazz. The song evokes the dangerous charm of a beautiful cinnamon girl...

 

From the east shores of the Mediterranean Sea then we sail to the western coasts, towards Spain. “Hija mia mi querida” is a piece that comes from the Sephardic tradition and shows us an example of a poetic and musical genre developed in the Iberian Peninsula since the Middle Age. Although it starts by an acoustic pattern and ethnic flavours, there is no room for flamenco sketches here and soon the music veers into a different direction with a great electric guitar solo...

“Love Road Song” begins softly and the atmosphere is dreamy, with piano trumpet and violin in the forefront. Then the rhythm rises, the pace takes speed and you’re off on the road, ready to new musical adventures, like Pytheas of Massalia, a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer who made a voyage of exploration to Northern Europe in about 325 BC. He was the first known Greek scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic, polar ice, and the Celtic and Germanic tribes. He is also the first person on record to describe the midnight sun. Pytheas introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the tides is the earliest one known that suggests the moon as their cause...

I spent all the previous words about Pytheas to introduce the following track, “I Iriden Så”, an old Swedish folk song full of pagan symbolism. From the Mediterranean Sea to North Europe and snowy landscapes. An Italian band singing in Swedish? To appreciate Jemma’s work I invite you to compare this piece with the version of the same song by prog folk Finnish band Gjallarhorn in their 1998 album Ranarop - Call Of The Sea Witch...

 

“Ossi di sabbia” (Sand bones) is a beautiful original piece sung in part in Italian and in part in an ancient dialect called Portolotto that was spoken in all the ports of the Adriatic sea because it was the “lingua franca” of the navy. It was derived from the Venetian language and was almost incomprehensible to most of the people on land. According to the band, “it tells the story of the journey of human beings across the sea, a fabric that connects lands and cultures. To pay even more homage to its meaning we wanted to write the lyrics in Portolotto, a language used by sailors of the Mediterranean. The sand bones are the mineralization of human stories, adventures, difficulties and everything that the sea and the wind can tell about our lives”...

“Winding Way” is an original instrumental track that features the guest Gianluca Petrella on trombone. It takes us with a light pace through jazz rock territories and leads to the final piece, “Nenia Grika” a delicate lullaby that ends the album leaving us amidst dreamy atmospheres in a pleasant sense of peace with a coda in crescendo that might recall PFM...

On the whole, a very good work!

You can listen to the complete album HERE

More info: 

https://www.facebook.com/JEMMA.crew.official/

MUSEUM OF MEMORIES

Dei ricordi, un museo is the first solo album by Stefano Lupo Galifi, historic vocalist of Museo Rosenbach, and was released in 2021 on the independent AMS Records label with a line up featuring along with Stefano Lupo Galifi (vocals) also Luca Scherani (piano, organ, keyboards, flute), Marcella Arganese (guitars), Gabriele Guidi Colombi (bass) and Folco Fedele (drums) plus Alessio Calandriello and Irene Spina (backing vocals). Rather than a solo album, in this case it would be more correct to speak of a team effort involving numerous musicians from the current Italian prog scene who are also members of bands like La Maschera di Cera, La Coscienza di Zeno, Il Tempio delle Clessidre, Ubi Maior or Panther & C.. In particular, Luca Scherani and Gabriele Guidi Colombi have tailor-made for the singer’s voice music and lyrics suited to his exuberant vocality, perfectly in line with his musical history. Marcella Arganese contributed to the composition of the title track and took charge of the beautiful art work of the cover and booklet, inspired by the content of the lyrics...

 

The opener “Cuore (Dei ricordi, un museo parte 1)” (Heart - Of memories, a museum Part 1) sets the atmosphere. It starts by a dreamy piano passage, then the music and words evoke the image of a homeless, a man whose house is a bench in the park. The yellow lights of the city feed the silent and thick mud that covers his past. Then, suddenly, appears the image of a lent helping hand and of emotional doors that are opened by a good heartened person. There’s a strong sense of empathy, questions about family and identity and the figure of a forgotten son who reappears from the past...

The hermetic “La morale cede” (Morals give way) evoke a crimson wire from which pain and time are hanging. There’s the image of a running man on a golden beach, but at the end of his path there is nothing but pain. Then comes the image of a woman who walks with a heavy pace on her lost soul. Male and female are just two arrogant halves, coherent with their desires but far from each other. And morals give way...

“La stanza e l’angolo” (The room and the corner) is a melancholic, disquieting track that deals with the fear of the unknown and the need for a shelter from the outside world. On the delicate piano pattern, heartfelt vocals tell of a man scared by someone who’s knocking at his door. He stands still, silent and motionless, then he retreats in a corner of his room with his hands on his face. He waits for the unexpected knocking noise to fade out...

The beautiful title track, “Dei ricordi, un museo (parte 2)” (Of memories, a museum Part 2), is a long, complex piece that describes a man walking in the wood, in a light rain. His hands sink into the sand and the feeling of the sand falling through his hands brings back memories of old childhood games. Then he comes out of the wood and pushes open an creacking red gate. A driveway leads to an old empty house. A quivering rainbow feather flies around him and its flight opens the way to memory. A relentless wave of memories overwhelms him. Soon, the flow of memories turns into a museum...

“Le due linee gemelle” (The two twin lines) is another hermetic, dreamy piece that portrays in music and words a charismatic artist suspended between past and future. Voice and silence for the show are like the hidden depth of two twin lines. An idea of courage and the unawareness of maturity stem from an unsolved, enigmatic past and an unknown future...

 

Stefano Lupo Galifi, 2019

 

“Sterile” (Sterile) starts by a beautiful acoustic guitar arpeggio and the vocals in the forefront. It’s a wonderful piece that depicts a winter landscape and evokes an atmosphere of decadent resignation. The pungent smell of burnt wood and ash fills the air as a freezing breeze crystallizes the thoughts. In the morning the protagonist wanders aimlessly in the forest with the heavy burden of his existence weighing on him, reacting like a hunted deer whose blood stains the ground, unconsciously helpless. That blood is so similar to ash, black dust under the protagonist’s feet. Then he searches for a way out of the labyrinth of the forest. Eventually, around him he can hear the noises of the industrialized world that soothe his pain in a sterile wait...

The final piece, “L’amante” (Dei ricordi, un museo parte 3), begins softly and evolves into a sensual crescendo. Music and words try to describe a controversial and morbid relationship that charms and upsets the protagonist. Dragged into a spiral in which senses and reason are lost, overwhelmed by the spells of his mistress, the protagonist is subject to dangerous emotional storms. Storms overflowing with a desire from which he tries to escape with mixed success...

On the whole, a perfect exercise of style and a real treat for Italianprog lovers.

You can listen to the complete album HERE

More info:

https://www.facebook.com/p/Stefano-Lupo-Galifi-100053956041943/