Playlist - Music from Sicily

A selection of old and new music

I realize that probably most of you have never heard music from Sicily, so I made a brand new playlist with some music from the island, both old and new. I know that some versions of Sicilian music have made it into the mainstream, especially in the cinema connected to stories of the Mafia, but they are very often a stylized and folkloric versions of the real thing.

So in this playlist you will find some really old and culture specific traditional music, such as the unaccompanied carter’s songs “canti alla carrittera” (stanotti o sonnu mi vinisti), the Abbanniati (market vendors cries) and the salt workers songs (this one was recorded by Lomax and he apparently noted it was the most African sounding music he recorded in Italy).

You will hear the classic rural sounds of the double chanter Sicilian bagpipes and tamburello (Sunata), the sound of the friscaletto whistle (teatro dei pupi) and of the marrazanu, the Sicilian jaw’s harp (piccola suite per marranzanu from my own album Zahr). You will also hear some dance repertoire from the barbershops tradition (mazurka 2).

But you will also hear a more contemporary side of Sicily with powerful interpreter and activist Rosa Balistreri, some modern interpretations of the classic Sicilian brass band (Lu matrimoniu and Santissima dei naufraganti) and even a Sicilian Ska band (Sicilia Bedda).

I hope you will enjoy this playlist! In the next few weeks I will publish a written piece where I dig into some of these styles and give a proper introduction to the traditional music of Sicily.

You can access the playlist on Spotify here

This is a preview