Luna, Cera e Vino

From southern Italy comes what is described as a “dreamlike journey through memories, recollections and new images” of the ancient land of Liburia, located between Naples and Caserta. This is the sixth album from Brigan, a trio from this region, whose music matches traditional instruments and percussion against electronica, but is dominated by the cool, thoughtful and assured vocals of multi-instrumentalist Francesco Di Cristofaro. Not speaking Italian, I’m probably missing out on much of what the album has to offer – after all, one track is spoken, with no musical backing. But on a musical level, this is still an intriguing set thanks to the variety of lush and original settings. Di Cristofaro plays flutes and whistles and bağlama lute, Andrea Laudante adds electric guitar as well as the electronica, and Ramon Rodriguez Gomez includes frame drums in his arsenal of percussion. This classy trio are joined by a Greek clarinet player and a hurdy-gurdy exponent from Spain.