Nun V’Annammurate

The opening song of this album is really enticing. A delicate mandolin melody, accompanied by guitar introduces the voice of Irene Scarpato in ‘Fotografia’, a song newly composed by Scarpatia and the band re-imagining Naples after a 1980 earthquake. The name of the group translates as ‘The Dream of Yesterday’ and is also the title of a song by Neapolitan singer Pino Daniele. But the sound is fresh, although very Neapolitan thanks to the mandolin, Scarpato’s expressive voice and the language. The group is just a trio – voice, mandolin and guitar, although there are various guests on the album. It was recorded in Auditorium Novecento, possibly the oldest recording studio in continental Europe. Apart from the opening, the songs unearth forgotten gems of Neapolitan song, a form which isn’t internationally appreciated as much as fado, with which it has many similarities. There are melancholy songs about love, and the accompanying mandolin, with its delicate melodies between the vocals and sometimes simultaneous with them, is very like the sound of the Portuguese guitar. ‘’A Gelusia’ dates from 1934 and is deeply melancholic, perhaps accounting for the album’s title which translates as ‘Don’t Fall in Love’. A 1944 song ‘Ammore Busciardo’ is sung by male voice Raiz from a soldiers’s point of view about a woman who betrays him. And the wonderful French chanson-like ‘Il Vesuvio a Parigi (feat Sorello Marinetti)’ is about a Parisian man and Neapolitan woman who are trying unsuccessfully to persuade each other to live in their respective cities. Although we get tastes of Django Rheinhardt-style Gypsy jazz, Vesuvius in Paris seems a dangerous prospect. Naples has long been one of Europe’s musical centres and Suonno d’Ajere, with the complicated and elusive love songs of Nun V’Annammurate, are one of its new jewels.