Vacanti Sugnu China means, more or less, "empty I'm full," a very rare condition in which the balance between positive and negative emotions, the eternal seesaw of demons within the human being is in a magical balance where everything is harmonized, it is empty and full at the same time, it is the union of opposites in a little moment of bliss.
The CD contains many different moments, both musically and emotionally; subjects flow between the songs, alternate and converse with each other, the eternal conundrum of love, the human desire for freedom, to dream your own perspective, to build your own path free of territorial or conventional, legal or bureaucratic, economic or moral boundaries to migrate in search of better living conditions, free to stay where your own roots are to continue feeding with new plantings and new crops our land, the land that nourishes, the Mother Earth is hosting us all.
The point of view expressed is decidedly feminine, while placing the urgent need to rewrite the board of gender roles in today's society. The hymn to resistance, which explodes in Blatte (cockroaches), is dedicated and addressed at the same time to many of us: the ones who tries to survive, heroically or meanly, but without succumbing to illusions and false gods, just like cockroaches in a world adrift and severely at risk, open eyes and heart in the hand.
From a formal point of view, the CD consists of traditional songs and new compositions in Sicilian by Matilde Politi.
The tradition is approached in an immediate way, searching for the original sounds, not starting from the aesthetic form but from the research of the spirit of song, and of the concrete and magic function that it was intended to accomplish.
The original songs, however, are arranged with aesthetic freedom to follow, perhaps dramatically, the demands that the content arises, to explicate the best in music. Thus, each piece comes with its own characteristics: some are rich in colors, not properly Sicilians, but Africans and gypsies, Arabs or Neapolitans, always in dialogue with the Sicilian language which is the container, some characterized by a rather low technical quality in favor of the impromptu moment, a fragment of music, captured almost by accident, resonates inside the soundscape and the emotions generated it, so unique: it the be the shore or the silence of the room at night, rather than designed and arranged in a studio, with all the care that it takes so that the sound of each instrument remains faithfully and simply itself.
Matilde Politi voice, guitar, accordeon, concertina, balafon, jew’s harp, tamburello, percussions
Simona Di Gregorio voice, accordeon diatonique, jew’s harp, tamburello, percussions
Gabriele Politi violin, viola, mandolino, oud, chorus
Doudou Diouf flute tokhoro, voice, banjo, acoustic guitar, electric bass, djembe, percussions
Lelio Giannetto double bass, chorus
also featuring:
Enrico Tinelli - Teleborderline (Vacanti sugnu china)
Charles Ferris (trumpet and trombone in Blatte)
Recorded in Palermo, 2012/2013
Sound Engineer: Carlo Gargano
Graphic Designer: Sergio Mustile
Illustrations: Guglielmo Manenti
Produced by Gabriele and Matilde Politi (with the support of Guido Politi e Silvia Borzelli)
FELMAY Records 2013