Crimi - Luci e Guai (2021) [Hi-Res]
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BAND/ARTIST: Crimi
- Title: Luci e Guai
- Year Of Release: 2021
- Label: Airfono
- Genre: World, Folk, Afrobeat
- Quality: MP3 320 kbps; 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC; 24-bit/96 kHz FLAC
- Total Time: 00:35:08
- Total Size: 84; 219; 701 MB
- WebSite: Album Preview
On their debut album Luci E Guai, French four-piece Crimi dissolve the borders between genres, cultures and nations, with an eight-song serving of diasporic groove. The brainchild of Julien Lesuisse, a saxophonist with some two decades’ grounding in the French music scene, Crimi stitch up a wealth of regional styles: from Algerian raï to hard New Orleans funk, Afrobeat to Sicilian folk balladry, in their hands it all sounds so natural you won’t be able to find the join.
Formed in 2018, Crimi finds Julien collaborating with a brand new trio of musicians. However it is the singer & sax player’s past ventures that combine to explain how he hit on this sound. Mazalda, from Lyon, have existed since 2002, evolving from jazzy pop oddballs into a drum-heavy live dance party with their own fifty-speaker travelling Soundsystem, the ‘Turbo Clap Station’. In recent years, they branched out into raï – first meeting Algerian singer Cheb Lakhdar and backing him in a series of concerts, and later recording an album, El Ndjoum, with Sofiane Saidi, a star of raï’s new electro-wave who’s also featured with Parisian duo Acid Arab. (Mazalda and Sofiane proved their mettle by playing the Algerian city of Oran, raï’s spiritual home, in early 2020.)
During this period, Julien also performed in La Squadra Zeus – from the Alpine town of Chambéry but dedicated to the traditional folk styles of southern Italy, nearly 2,000 km away. Playing Sicilian flute and Calabrian bagpipes in the trio, Julien learned so much about this music and its relationship to the region’s culture – including, ultimately, the realisation that he wasn’t cut out to play these trad arrangements in straight fashion. No drama: the musician envisaged potential new soundclashes, and the first stirrings of what became Crimi were in his rewirings of three traditional Sicilian songs which appear on Luci e Guai.
Mano D’Oro, the first single from the album and its opening song, is a perfect example of the Crimi worldview. Based on an old standard from
Sicily, Julien added some lyrics but preserved the subject matter: young and poor Sicilians moving to northern Europe seeking work. Two generations of Julien’s family arrived in France this way. In the hands of this quartet – Julien plus Cyril Moulas, Mathieu Felix (since replaced
by Brice Berrerd) and Bruno Duval on guitar, bass and drums respectively – it’s transformed into something electric and slinky, opening with a
bassline plucked from the funkiest bars of the Maghreb.
La Vicaria and La Virrinedda, the other two Sicilian-origin cuts on Luci e Guai, ramp up the folk-funk-raï intermingling, Cyril peeling off a wicked jazz guitar solo on the former and a tender, lyrical sax section lighting up the latter. With its lamentations of jailhouse life, Julien imagined La Vicaria being sung by Cheb Khaled, controversial raï icon from Oran. All three have been recorded by the late Rosa Balistreri, a cult Sicilian folk singer in her 60s/70s heyday and one of Julien’s biggest musical influences on Crimi – alongside the Algerian cheikhates from the mid-20th century on. Female singers like Cheikha Rimitti and Cheikha Djenya sang of sex and desire over languid, hypnotic backing, scandalising establishment figures in the process.
Lyrically speaking, the album’s five original compositions are the result of Julien spending two years learning Sicilian – burying his head in three dictionaries, getting to grips with the nuances of the language (it resembles Italian, but it isn’t Italian!) as a poetic medium. As a child in France, Julien heard the language spoken by his mother and grandparents, and could follow a conversation without being able to converse himself – so Luci E Guai finds him making up for lost time as well as approaching the headspace of the cantastorie vocalists he so admires.
Crimi’s other members, variously based in Chambéry and Geneva, are schooled in jazz, funk and rhythm & blues. Cyril also features in the Ethiopian jazz-styled Imperial Tiger Orchestra, while Duval is a disciple of Afrobeat drum king Tony Allen. And it shows, on an album recorded live in the studio and kept as warm and organic as possible. Be the results loping, woodwind-led psychedelic jazz delicacy on Quetzalcoatl, or the stylistically liquid jazz-punk-folk-funk of Ciatu Di Lu Margiu, these guys make quite a unit.
This is music born to be witnessed live, holding a glass of something potent, and lord willing that can happen soon: Crimi played a streamed show for Lyon’s Festival du Péristyle late last year, but Julien acknowledges that ain’t the real deal. They’ve been making a film about the band in the meantime, with French director Tangui Le Cras – and
writing the next Crimi album. May it be released into a world where movement is as free as the sound these four musicians bring to life.
Tracklist:
1 01. Crimi - La Vicaria (04:07)
1 02. Crimi - Chi ci talia ? (04:50)
1 03. Crimi - Lo nilo (03:58)
1 04. Crimi - Quetzalcoatl (04:57)
1 05. Crimi - Conca d'oro (05:21)
1 06. Crimi - Ciatu di lu margiu (04:21)
1 07. Crimi - La Virrinedda (04:22)
1 08. Crimi - Mano d'oro (03:09)
Formed in 2018, Crimi finds Julien collaborating with a brand new trio of musicians. However it is the singer & sax player’s past ventures that combine to explain how he hit on this sound. Mazalda, from Lyon, have existed since 2002, evolving from jazzy pop oddballs into a drum-heavy live dance party with their own fifty-speaker travelling Soundsystem, the ‘Turbo Clap Station’. In recent years, they branched out into raï – first meeting Algerian singer Cheb Lakhdar and backing him in a series of concerts, and later recording an album, El Ndjoum, with Sofiane Saidi, a star of raï’s new electro-wave who’s also featured with Parisian duo Acid Arab. (Mazalda and Sofiane proved their mettle by playing the Algerian city of Oran, raï’s spiritual home, in early 2020.)
During this period, Julien also performed in La Squadra Zeus – from the Alpine town of Chambéry but dedicated to the traditional folk styles of southern Italy, nearly 2,000 km away. Playing Sicilian flute and Calabrian bagpipes in the trio, Julien learned so much about this music and its relationship to the region’s culture – including, ultimately, the realisation that he wasn’t cut out to play these trad arrangements in straight fashion. No drama: the musician envisaged potential new soundclashes, and the first stirrings of what became Crimi were in his rewirings of three traditional Sicilian songs which appear on Luci e Guai.
Mano D’Oro, the first single from the album and its opening song, is a perfect example of the Crimi worldview. Based on an old standard from
Sicily, Julien added some lyrics but preserved the subject matter: young and poor Sicilians moving to northern Europe seeking work. Two generations of Julien’s family arrived in France this way. In the hands of this quartet – Julien plus Cyril Moulas, Mathieu Felix (since replaced
by Brice Berrerd) and Bruno Duval on guitar, bass and drums respectively – it’s transformed into something electric and slinky, opening with a
bassline plucked from the funkiest bars of the Maghreb.
La Vicaria and La Virrinedda, the other two Sicilian-origin cuts on Luci e Guai, ramp up the folk-funk-raï intermingling, Cyril peeling off a wicked jazz guitar solo on the former and a tender, lyrical sax section lighting up the latter. With its lamentations of jailhouse life, Julien imagined La Vicaria being sung by Cheb Khaled, controversial raï icon from Oran. All three have been recorded by the late Rosa Balistreri, a cult Sicilian folk singer in her 60s/70s heyday and one of Julien’s biggest musical influences on Crimi – alongside the Algerian cheikhates from the mid-20th century on. Female singers like Cheikha Rimitti and Cheikha Djenya sang of sex and desire over languid, hypnotic backing, scandalising establishment figures in the process.
Lyrically speaking, the album’s five original compositions are the result of Julien spending two years learning Sicilian – burying his head in three dictionaries, getting to grips with the nuances of the language (it resembles Italian, but it isn’t Italian!) as a poetic medium. As a child in France, Julien heard the language spoken by his mother and grandparents, and could follow a conversation without being able to converse himself – so Luci E Guai finds him making up for lost time as well as approaching the headspace of the cantastorie vocalists he so admires.
Crimi’s other members, variously based in Chambéry and Geneva, are schooled in jazz, funk and rhythm & blues. Cyril also features in the Ethiopian jazz-styled Imperial Tiger Orchestra, while Duval is a disciple of Afrobeat drum king Tony Allen. And it shows, on an album recorded live in the studio and kept as warm and organic as possible. Be the results loping, woodwind-led psychedelic jazz delicacy on Quetzalcoatl, or the stylistically liquid jazz-punk-folk-funk of Ciatu Di Lu Margiu, these guys make quite a unit.
This is music born to be witnessed live, holding a glass of something potent, and lord willing that can happen soon: Crimi played a streamed show for Lyon’s Festival du Péristyle late last year, but Julien acknowledges that ain’t the real deal. They’ve been making a film about the band in the meantime, with French director Tangui Le Cras – and
writing the next Crimi album. May it be released into a world where movement is as free as the sound these four musicians bring to life.
Tracklist:
1 01. Crimi - La Vicaria (04:07)
1 02. Crimi - Chi ci talia ? (04:50)
1 03. Crimi - Lo nilo (03:58)
1 04. Crimi - Quetzalcoatl (04:57)
1 05. Crimi - Conca d'oro (05:21)
1 06. Crimi - Ciatu di lu margiu (04:21)
1 07. Crimi - La Virrinedda (04:22)
1 08. Crimi - Mano d'oro (03:09)
Year 2021 | World | Arabic / موسيقى عربية | Folk | FLAC / APE | Mp3 | HD & Vinyl
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