Rosso Polare - Cacciamali (2026)

12th Isle push the boat out to Rosso Polare’s uchronic folklore, pulling from the Milanese artist’s Italian folk heritage and weaving in chops by Persian electro-acoustic artist Cinna Peyghamy, plus Italian avant-garde veteran Riccardo Sinigaglia, for an adventurous session braiding folk and concrète timelines...

“Cacciamali is an exploration of diegetic sound, folk chants and traditional rhythms and instrumentation building upon Milan based Rosso Polare’s last outing Campo Amaro and the subsequent departure of co-founder Anna Vezzosi from the group. Where the 2024 album incorporated a heavy use of folklore as a new tool, Cacciamali explores the influence further by bringing in a host of collaborative players including Italian avant-garde veteran Riccardo Sinigaglia, sound artist and researcher HMOT (Stas Shärifulla) and Persian/Parisian electro-acoustic musician Cinna Peyghamy.

‘Scoff Back Sickness’, as the title loosely translates, utilises the same approach, one based on non-hierarchical authorship and leaning heavily on field recordings that both contrast and blend with the tonal material, focusing on biophony, landscape and environmental audio as compositional material. Shifting closer now to a shared network of voices and materials, the dual narrative unfolds as such:

Side A is connected to the concept of the medieval quintain games, specifically flag throwing, where certain drumming patterns from the tradition have been overworked, distorted and transformed. Side B is an underlying local legend from the north of Italy, where some sources speak of a presumed duel in 1744 between a father and his son, ultimately ending with the son’s death. These two layers are not illustrative but structural: ritual / repetition / tradition on one side, and rupture / conflict / loss on the other. A struggle to keep floating, a long shout in the distance, suspended between memory, ritual and disappearance. The result is dense, thick with impulse yet also measured, and often leaves us disoriented and questioning a sound's origin the moment we think we have a grip on the process. The gentle nostalgia of close-mic’ed ‘Falò’ summons the spirit of René Aubry & Jean Schwarz’s concréte masterpiece ‘Five Women’ on the Still Waters ballet soundtrack, and the stark contrast of looping rhythms on both ‘Xiv - Pavo’ and ‘Monte’ deploys a driving, intentful break from the moments of worldly human interactions served by the field recordings.”