Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Sweet Release
“These strings, this drum – from another world they come, Bringing messages of peace, songs of sweet release” Sweet Release is the second album from Justin Adams & Mauro Durante, following on from 2021’s award winning Stil Moving. 3 years of worldwide touring have turned what was originally a fusion project into a fully realised and unique unit, drawing on Durante’s Taranta background, but with a palette that ranges from raw Rockabilly to Sufi ecstasy via Minimalism, exploring themes of musical healing and catharsis. With an almost telepathic level of interplay, the duo recorded the album live, allowing for magical improvised moments.
The title track and opener Sweet Release is a heartfelt manifesto of the duo’s vision, featuring Adams’ unmistakeable touch on the guitar and Durante’s masterful tamburello frame drum. Along with original tracks such as the shimmering pizzica- based Leuca (with guest singer Alessia Tondo from Italy’s finest Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino) and the wildly rocking Ghost Train, they cover Lebanese Diva Fairuz’s haunting Easter Hymn Wa Habibi with guest singer Yousra Mansour from Bab L’ Bluz, which becomes a timely meditation on suffering.
Tide Keeps Turning features CBGB’s underground legend Felice Rosser on vocals who adds a deeply soulful touch to the ritual Neapolitan Tammurriata beat of Durante’s drum. Adams’ starkly beautiful guitar illuminates Aurora, inspired by a dawn call to prayer heard in Rajasthan, while Santu Paulu invokes the saint of Tarantism with hypnotic psychedelia.
The anthemic Instrumental Ithaca Return opens brightly before turning into a wild pizzica-like tune led by Durante’s rhapsodic violin. Qui Non Vorrei Morire, sung by Durante, is a setting of a poem by Vittorio Bodini, another native of Salento, originally recorded by Mauro’s late father Daniele, one of the leading lights of the Taranta revival.
Tracklist
1) SWEET RELEASE
2) LEUCA (FT. ALESSIA TONDO)
3) GHOST TRAIN
4) WA HABIBI (FT. YOUSURA MONSOUR)
5) SILVER AND STONE
6) AURORA
7) IHACA RETURN
8) QUI NON VORREI MORIRE
9) TIDE KEEPS TURNING (FT. FELICE ROSSER)
10) SANTU PALAU
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