Sometimes you don’t understand what you have until you leave it behind. It can be people, places. It can even be the music.
That’s definitely the case with Newpoli. When the founding members left Italy to study jazz at Berklee College of Music, they never imagined that they’d end up performing the folk music of their homeland. But the pull of southern Italy was strong.
“Rediscovering folk music was a shock, no one expected it,” admits vocalist Carmen Marsico, one of those who started Newpoli in 2003. “Sometimes you have to go to another country to discover your culture.”
And Tempo Antico, Newpoli’s third release, is a passionate, intoxicating discovery of Italian folk culture. Over the last decade, the eight members of the band have dug deeper and deeper into the tarantella-pizzicas, tammuriatas, villanellas and canzones of the Campania, Calabria and Puglia regions of Italy, and the treasures they discovered are here.
It’s taken too long, but the world is becoming more aware of Italy’s long musical history. Newpoli are ready to lead the way even deeper, to take listeners below the slick surface of vacation delights to where Italy really lives and breathes.
Newpoli keep the flames of Southern Italian music burning bright. And now, with Tempo Antico, the blaze is catching