Meridies

Go Dugong, aka Milan-based Giulio Fonseca, is an Italian producer, DJ, sonic traveller soul and unrestrained mind, a notable personality in today’s electronic music spectrum. Diving into his Taranto roots, Meridies imaginatively explores southern Italian and Apulian traditional materials. Diverse instruments shape this multihued narrative, such as organs, synths, guitars and makeshift items, the latter producing percussive patterns, alongside tambourine, field recordings, samples, flute, clarinet, zampogna, accordion, jaw harp, tambura and sitar.

Densely-textured, the opener ‘Sacàra’ has a Morricone-esque touch, while ‘Corna di Serpente’ holds you with its trance-like pulse and ‘Tarantismo’ contains pounding, magmatic beats. On ‘Esorcismo’ sampled launeddas (pipes) play a Sardinian dance mix with the spoken word and tambourine of the Sicilian folk maestro Alfio Antico. ‘Mercato Nero’ is delightful with its dialoguing organ, tambura and sitar, which create a psychedelic Indian-indebted ambience. Further numbers display dilated flows and intricate, multilayered soundscapes. The single, ‘Randagio’, featuring noise artist Mai Mai Mai, is a fully-propelled, dark tammurriata (a type of folk dance from Campania) inspired by several abandoned sites in southern Italy. Another highlight, ‘La Montagna Sacra’, features Francesco Fratini’s trumpet, injecting a jazz flair. Bouncing futuristic wizardry from an arduous craftsman of warm vibes.