WHAT THEY SAY

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"  A Ccu Apparteni by Roberta Gulisano feels like a dispatch from a forgotten corner of the Mediterranean. However, listen closer, and you will discover that this album is far from a simple exercise in regional nostalgia. Rather, it is an act of reclamation, a deeply personal yet profoundly universal meditation on identity, exile, and resilience. Gulisano, a Sicilian singer-songwriter with a clear-eyed understanding of her roots, has crafted a deeply grounded work that speaks fluently across centuries and continents. In an age when traditional music often risks being either sanitized for mass consumption or fossilized for purists, A Ccu Apparteni dares to exist in the restless, painful space between memory and reinvention. Using a fascinating set of traditional instruments, friscaletti, marranzani, zampogne, woven with the subtle hum and drones of electronics, she creates music that is at once ancient and urgently contemporary.! " World Music Central

"Roberta Gulisano has long grappled with the roots of her land, Sicily, in an eternal relationship of love for her origins and combative anger over how they are and have been mistreated. Her new album, produced by Cesare Basile, is an explicit and deliberate homage to her roots. Musically, it embraces tradition with ancient instruments and the spirit of Rosa Balistreri surfacing frequently, but there’s also plenty of experimentation, highlighting that we are dealing with a living, vibrant material that renews itself with freshness and strength. It demonstrates how old stories remain relevant and how important it still is to tell them, in the local language, emphasizing the role of daily life experiences. An intense album, raw yet elegant and refined at the same time." Radiocoop

"Roberta Gulisano’s Sicily is a restlessness of the soul. It is an emotional force constantly against the wind, bearing roots and scars on skin burned by a domineering sun. In her lyrics, there is a powerful poetry, a Sciascian sentiment that smells of scorched earth. Every note, every nuance is a pinprick on the skin, a sweet lullaby, yet also a cry of liberation, a child’s smile, the strength that evokes a memory. Everything in this musical journey is authentic. Every melodic breath, every harmony is a step on a path built from a life of struggles." Atom Heart Magazine

“But what really marks the LP out is her willingness to take those traditions and influences and give them a twist or ten, and the LP gets increasingly twisted as it progresses. Starting off with the subtlest of electronic augmentation, it's not long before spoken and instrumental samples are less subtly dropped, looped or layered. Arrangements become looser and even borderline unhinged. The electronic twists become more pronounced, the songs nod to native, Baltic Mestizo, Arabesque and even the Scottish highlands courtesy of some bagpipes. A jew's harp is flown in from Siberia, seagulls fly through the studio, drones refuse to die and found sounds are everywhere, with the songs ranging from desert laments, folktronic ballads, wedding jigs and psychedelic folk futurism.” The Slow Music Movement 

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" A ccu apparteni features Roberta Gulisano as its author, performing vocals, frame drums, keyboards, and castanets. Cesare Basile, also the producer, contributed guitars, baklamas, ngoni, percussion, and electronic effects. Giorgio Maltese played cane flutes, frame drums, organ, and marranzano. Evocative and suggestive, "A ccu apparteni" draws from Sicily's rich musical heritage, embracing its ancient traditions, archaic dialect, and deep Arab roots. At the same time, it boldly experiments with cross-pollinations of urban and African sounds, presenting strikingly contemporary themes: hard work, love, the loss of meaning in our existence, and the invitation to delve into the depths of one's soul, to find movement, and to listen to one's own breath. It's an intense, visceral, and poetic album." Blogfoolk

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