For 10 years Lalala Napoli has been imaginatively exploring its Italian roots through the fantasized Naples of François Castiello, singer and accordionist in Bratsch.
With Cavalluccio, Lalala Napoli’s newest and third album, the group has chosen a new steed to probe the depths of trance, from the galloping tarantella to the ritual parades of ancient Neapolitan techno music.
The chorus generously shouts its hymns to freedom and brotherhood; and Rossini himself is invited to a show where love serenades, operas, tamuriatas and Calabrian cavalcades collide and are transformed into a new traditional sound.
Joyful and wild, picaresque and rough, like the overflow of an immense heart, Lalala Napoli offers an acoustic and electric event to take us beyond Italy, from the mists of time to tomorrow!
A mix of rage and sweetness, this third album of Lalala Napoli is partly inspired by a memorable concert given in Allessandria del Caretto (Calabria) in the summer of 2018: 3 days of celebration, love, sun and freedom.
Cavalluccio is a bridge launched towards a musical tradition of the future, confirming the identity and emblematic place of Lalala Napoli within the European musical landscape.
PRESS ABOUT CAVALLUCCIO:
“Songlines”: **** French-Neapolitan accordionist takes a trip further south by Ciro de Rosa. Behind Lalala Napoli is the gifted veteran French accordionist and singer François Castiello of former Bratsch fame, who uses the group to reimagine his Neapolitan roots. So far that’s meant a phantasmic recreation of the music of the buzzing Mediterranean metropolis; however, for Cavalluccio, their third release, the sextet cover a wider expressive spectrum taking a journey of southern Italian traditional music, as on the opener “Abracalabria” where whirling reed flute trills and high pitched ciaramella (shawm) lead. Echoes of brass band tradition wrap “Amici del Carretto”, whereas the iterative title-track proceeds in a bursting festive upbeat rhythm. “La Danza” a fast tempo well-known tarantella by Gioacchino Rossini, jumps out as an album highlight. Elsewhere, things get quite edgy when they offer an ebullient, groovy trance-like approach on the winding instrumentals “Daleco” and the balkan-infused “Risposta”, while “Fratelli” results in a yelled hymn to brotherhood. Although their Neapolitan-French accent may arouse a grin in Naples-born listener, the roguish combo generously pay homage to canzone napoletana, classic songs of heartbreak, revisiting”Na Sera’e Maggio” and the unofficial Napoli football supporter anthem “O Surdato’Nnammurato”. Overall, Lalala Napoli offer abundant, joyful energy to create a very likeable party.
SOME PRESS QUOTES ABOUT DISPERATO, LALALA NAPOLI’S SECOND ALBUM :
“Les Inrocks”: Ten albums to re-enchant Europe “Lalala Napoli recreates a happy maze of tough buzzing life, languorous lyrics, flute trills and longings of accordion, and it does it in its own way – picaresque, rough and visceral. Its music feels like true life. It spills over from the studio to spread out in the full sunshine, without being cute, in the abundance of an immense heart.”
“France Culture”: Music News by Matthieu Conquet “Neapolitan songs: dancing on a volcano. François Castiello returns to the repertoire of the Neapolitan classics, adding his words and his music, fist raised to the sky.”
