Novalia

The ancient songs of Italy have already been raised to contemporary standards by Rieti-based ensemble Novalia. While they incorporate traditional Italian folk tools, like the gaita (Galician bagpipe), gaida (Balkan bagpipe), and accordion, their audio is given a global flavor with the help of Mediterranean and North African tools, including saz, baglama, oud, darbouka, viola braguesa, and udu and contemporary tools including samplers, sequencers, and loops. Based on multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Raffaello Simeoni, “You can find very old tracks and music which with time have been neglected. We have been like archeologists. We start by unearthing these historic melodies. We search for them wherever we discover their traces, a fragment, a cave to become explored. We draw out them through the oblivion into that they experienced dropped. We rediscover their millenary elegance and we toss them in to the arms into the future to create them alive once again.” The antiquity-meets-modern strategy used by Novalia continues to be hailed from the world’s folk music press. While Dirty Linen stated that Novalia “dresses the limitations of modern, with ethereal voices and washes of synthesizers predominating their function, they often move around in exactly the same dance group as Afro-Celt AUDIO SYSTEM, combining trancey drum grooves with plenty of regional noises.” Folk Origins wrote, “If there is a late-’90s exact carbon copy of folk-rock, the getting of traditions right into a modern context, that is one main method of tackling it.” Furthermore to Simeoni, who performs organetto, gaita, gaida, clarione, claramella, zurna, tiktiri, kaval, nay, oud, tzouras, and Calabrian lira and sings, Novalia features Stefano Saletti (guitar, bouzouki, tzouras, samplers, grooves, loops, products, rhythmic development, sequencers, piano, and choirs), Giovanni Lo Cascio (drum package, darbouka, davoul, pores and skin udu, riq, tamburello, caxixi, shakers, grooves, and choirs), Michele Frontino (bass) and Allesandro Strinati (viola braquesa, samplers, grooves, and choirs).