Almamegretta: “Sanacore” is reborn and the past seems to be the present

30 years ago one of the most revolutionary and modern records came out of the 90s and perhaps also of the following ones. The Neapolitans Almamegretta they presented with “Healthy“Many of those novelties, influences and intuitions that it was certainly not possible to pass that album unnoticed then giving it a significant important place in the Italian music of the years to come.

With their Neapolitan applied to the trip hop and the dub they left the public displaced but was able to absorb the proposed one again, appreciating it and doing it precisely without any remora, while remaining outside the mainstream. It was also a new way of approaching the music to dance, an raid of electronics that then had few equal.

Today that “seminal” album continues to have its own raison d’etre, a bright present and the Almamegretta, aware of the work done, celebrate their second album “Sanacore” on every occasion. And so, this round anniversary (30 years old) is yet another celebratory moment.

Here then comes the “Sanacore Live Tour – 30th Anniversary“, Eight dates in which it re -proposes that disc in full by adding a handful of songs from the following and previous years.

On an essential stage, “dominated” on the seabed by the logo of the Neapolitan band the 5 musicians make us make a great split with one foot in the present and the other at 30 years ago. For many of the defendants at the concert it is also a dip in the past, in a youth that is not the most.

The live starts with “enemy warning” a song of “sanacore” among the least rhythmic of the lot. But the “shot” of the concert rises immediately after with “O ‘Score Cchiu’ Felice” one of the top traces of the disc re -proposed for the occasion.

The first extracted from another work is “Fa ‘amore Cu’ MME”, from the “imaginary” album of 2001 which also contains “chains” for the occasion presented in a very engaging version, which captures; “Water of Garden” instead comes from “Senghe” of 2022, while “The Cheap Guru” we find it in “4/4” dated 1999. Still outside “Sanacore” propose “” Nziria” (“indubed” the album immediately following “Sanacore” released in 1996), “O ‘Sciore cchiu’ happy” (one of the two unpublished of the live ” From “Animamigrante”, their 1993 debut album extract three songs: “‘O Bbuono e’ or badly”, “Migrant soul” and the famous “children of Annibale”.

But on the concert path there is room for more recent things. At the beginning of February, before leaving for the tour, the band proposed an EP, “Sanacore 2.0.2.5 Reloaded”, of 6 songs with 2 different versions of “Nun Ti Scurdà” and as many of “If Stuta ‘or Ffuoco” as well as two unpublished doubts: “Hard Kora Dub” and “Unforgottable Dub” these latter two stairs in the Scaletta. Still “outside” “Sanacore” there is the very personal and Neapolitan version of the alma of “Karmacoma”, a 1995 song by the Massive Attack.

The rest of the lineup is entirely focused on the 1995 album which is made quite faithful to the original (with the exception of “Rwanda” originally instrumental on which Raiz now rapped the bars). It is not secondary that 30 years have passed, a period of time in which the technology, of which the album already feeds abundantly, in the meantime has made great strides and then difficult things now become simpler and the sounds in some way modernize.

In listening to that album today and resenting its live versions, in addition to being a dive over time, it is to understand how much “healthy” has aged well and how much traces, that lesson, are important in the Italian panorama. After 30 years sounds and concepts, structures, style and attitude are still listened to, they do not affected the patina of the time and frankly if they had done yesterday no one would complain of feeling something “stinks of old”. Of course then they were innovative, today they are more “seminal” but, still now, fucking modern, hypnotic with the magnetic presence of Raiz dominating the scene. It is “rocking” music that invites movement, dance on a flow full of grooves, lows and melodies designed by Raiz. Impossible to remain impassive and immobile, the head at a certain point leaves rhythmically alone, then follow their feet and finally the mind also lets go.

Ladder

Enemy
O ‘sciore cchiu’ happy
Maje
For ‘dint’ ‘and vici addò nun trase’ or sea
Make MME
Water by Garden
The Cheap Guru
Skioscie Viento
Rwanda
‘Nziria
Migrant
If stuta ‘or ffuoco
Hard Kora Dub
‘O Bbuono is or badly
Chains
Karmacoma

Encore
Children of Annibale
Healthy
Nun you scurda
Unforgottable dub
Time (Off Stage)