Rhabdomantic Orchestra - Almagre LP

Rhabdomantic Orchestra - Almagre LP (Agogo/Germany )

They Say:

After 6 years from the acclaimed album “albore”, Rhabdomantic Orchestra is back with a new full length born from the meeting with the Colombian singer Maria Mallol Moya.

“Almagre” is a sort of novel in music inspired by surrealism aesthetics and south american magical realism. Set in an imaginary Mediterranean, crossroads of encounters and clashes between cultures, red as the blood that keeps staining its waters, almagre is a visceral, reactionary, spiritual yet political album that marks a change of direction from the sense of purification of the previous work towards a continuous tension to the sublime.

After the allusion to the white of albore, now is the time for “almagre” an arabic-hispanic word used to name the red color obtained from iron oxide.
The album was composed and arranged by Manuel Volpe with the intention to create a musical Babel made up of continuous contrasts of languages and suggestions with a strong narrative approach to orchestration. Each episode develops itself in linearity through the superimposition of cyclical figures where the instruments act as characters in continuous exchange with Maria's eclectic vocal shades.

“What I would like to explore with Rhabdomantic is the evocative and narrative power of the arrangements to achieve a sort of magical realism where the imaginative power of music can speak for it self.” (MV)

Afrobeat, spiritual jazz, mediterranean melodies, salsa, kraut rock drifts and library music are just some of the ingredients used in this record, condensed and blended with the aim of giving back a fluid vision of what we call world music.

“Almagre” was recorded and mixed by Volpe at Rubedo Recordings, Turin. the master is by Kelly Hibbert and the artwork is by the italian illustrator and collage artist Beppe Conti.

We Say:

If Peter and the Wolf is a symphonic fairy tale for children where the instruments represent the characters in the book, Rhabdomantic Orchestra is a trip around the world for adults. Pulling influences from all over the world: Afrobeat Spiritual Jazz, Sufi, Balinese gamelan, salsa, krautrock, Nigerian funk, upbeat sun soaked near east melodies, ostinato poliphonies, Italian library music (the group is from Turin, Italy), the cathartic grandeur of Bjork's Homogenic, and the freedom of avant garde experimentalism are all tied together with the evocative, often celestial voice of Maria Mallol Moya. During a time when the world feels more divided than ever, Almagre allows our ears to imagine the seven continents uniting seamlessly like long lost puzzle pieces. This is the global village I want to build my forever home in. Best of 2022 alert and in stock now.