Li Pedi

Nisia Trio's Li Pedi is an album for the ears as well as for the feet. Dancing their way from southern Italy to Belgium, the trio, and their guests, detour only to draw from different traditions en route.

The resulting collection of folk dances combines new arrangements of traditional pieces with original compositions, bringing European musical roots to meet contemporary production and aesthetics. A driving Italian tarantella sits alongside a stomping, Breton-style hanter dro, and a delightfully dark and lilting mazurka, a form with Polish origins. But the album also grooves, flickering with flavours of contemporary European jazz, carried, in large part, by Vincent Noiret's double bass. Meanwhile, marimba, played by guesting Fausto Valeron, underpins a lounge-like reworking of traditional Sicilian song ‘Lu Cunigghiu’. These moments meld skilfully into sounds of more typical European folk instruments: from bagpipes to the Italian chitarra battente (guitar), to the jaw harp, a common feature of Sicilian tarantella. Emanuela Lodato's dynamic vocals weave through, to form a whole that spins stories, regardless of listeners’ understanding of French or Sicilian languages. Li Pedi is an evocative, invigorating journey, literally, if you let your feet lead.