Mario Crispi

Generally when you say that someone's full of hot air, it's considered to be an insult. But on Mario Crispi's new solo album Soffi (literally 'puffs' or "blows' in English) it's a positive boon. Especially when the hot air in question can be heard coursing through wind instruments from all over the world including the ney (Persian, Turkish and Arabian), the selijefloyte from Lapland, he North African zummara, the Sardinian launeddas, the Egyptian arghoul, the Balkan clarinet, the Andean antara and sikus, the Turkish duduk, the Sicilian marranzanu, and the Australian didjeridoo. But this is no dry academic exercise. Crispi, a co-founding member of the group Agricantus, literally breathes life into this project with stunning results. Far and away the best cut is "Vientu 'I Rina" which in my bad Babelfish translation of the Italian liner notes comes out as "free inspiration from a song of miners of sulfur." It is a wonderfully atmospheric mix of Persian Ney and full throated Sicilian vocals. "Gasbah" features a duet between didjeridoo and gasbah, a reed instrument used throughout rural Algeria, again with an old meets new approach that seems to span continents. It is ironic that a CD filled with such ancient instruments would sound so contemporary, or even futuristic. This is music from everywhere for anywhere, the perfect antidote to mass-market induced media fatigue on a cold rainy day.
Eric Iverson - RootsWorld (2000)

I Flauti Magici di Mario Crispi
“Nel variegato programma del VI Festival della Val d'Orcia, tra i vari appuntamenti musicali, uno in particolare ha attratto la nostra attenzione: Soffi - Viaggi sonori attraverso i venti. Ne era ideatore ed esecutore Mario Crispi, una delle anime del noto gruppo etno-fusion Agricantus, che da anni si dedica all'esplorazione e alla scoperta delle possibilita' degli strumenti a fiato. ... E di strumenti Mario Crispi ne maneggia e ne suona in una quantita' che nessuno immaginava. Addirittura alcuni se li inventa di sana pianta, creandone di nuovi e insospettabili da tubi di plastica (che siamo abituati a vedere quotidianamente come scarichi di lavandini o come condutture di gas o acqua!) oppure aggiungendo protesi a strumenti gia' esistenti e infondendogli vita col "soffio" primigenio.

L'autore ha spiegato, tra un brano e l'altro, l'origine di alcuni strumenti e il suo modo di procedere nella composizione e nell'esecuzione: il soffio, il vento, e' l'origine di tutto; anche la voce, quindi, viene considerata da Mario Crispi come facente parte dell'universo degli strumenti a fiato e l'uso "primitivo" ed evocativo che ne fa ci trasporta verso un mondo di suoni quanto mai suggestivo e inaspettato. Crispi fa tutto da solo: con un campionatore registra la base ritmica costituita da "soffi" in strumenti di vario tipo, da flauti di pan a flauti modificati con l'aggiunta di ance speciali, da lunghi strumenti etnici australiani, i didjeridoo, a tubi in pvc, combinando ritmi e armonie in maniera originale; dopo questo rituale ricorrente inizia a comunicare col pubblico attraverso i timbri delle launeddas, delle bombarde, dei flauti iraniani, incantandolo con melodie virtuosistiche e carezzevoli, aspre, languide e violente, che vengono da una frequentazione del patrimonio sonoro del Mediterraneo,dell'Oriente, ma anche del Sudamerica, fusa con un'altra frequentazione, quella del jazz e del minimalismo, creando qualcosa di veramente mai sentito e originale. Le influenze dell'Arabia, dell'Africa, dell'Iran che si ritrovano nel canto del carrettiere siciliano permeano ogni brano del concerto, unico nel suo genere, offerto dall'interessante festival. …E la sensazione di essere stati ipnotizzati dal pifferaio della favola ci ha fatto sentire come i bambini che si entusiasmano davanti alla scoperta di un mondo diverso.
Leonardo Monteverdi settembre 2001 - Gli Amici della Musica.net - Nuove Musiche

Musica Sulle Bocche - Santa Teresa Gallura (OT) - 26-30.08.2005
“Soffi di Mario Crispi ovvero grovigli di cavi, microfoni, campionatori, processori, armonizzatori, sequencer che se la intendono a meraviglia con una miriade di arcaici strumenti a fiato, con il lento respiro delle onde, con la bizzarra invadenza del vento. E' un magnifico gioco di incastri, di sovrapposizioni, di ripetizioni, con elementi ritmici che appaiono gradualmente e altrettanto gradualmente si disperdono nell'aria e la melodia che fluisce ininterrotta grazie alla respirazione circolare sapientemente utilizzata dal musicista siciliano”.
Vincenzo Roggero - allaboutjazz.com

“…Mario Crispi, the Italian flute maestro spell bound the audience with his haunting melodies”.
Staff Report Daily Times (Lahore) 11 Novembre 2006

“Mario Crispi, from Italy, who mixes different traditional wind instruments with techno beats he samples, raised numerous astonished reactions, within the 1000 person crowd. The sound he produces varies from traditional Scottish atmosphere to an extremely progressive rhythm-led mood…this music is really interesting, and experimental”.
Staff Report DAWN Lahore 12 Novembre 2006

“a well known Italian musician Mario Crispi, who has won numerous awards, gave his performance on the flute and the music captivated the audience. Crispi’s flute playing echoed around the hall and took people into the realm of imagination.”
Staff Report The Post (Lahore) 22 Novembre 2006

“…who would like to participate with another great artist at the festival – Mario Crispi will perform once more.
He will create sound from a bottle and invites the whole audience to join in by playing on their own bottles – an experiment we have not heard and seen before at this festival”.
Jakob Steiner DAWN Lahore 15 Novembre 2006

“Mario Crispi, the famous Italian musician’s one-man show attracted the attention of the audience on the first night of the festival. He blended his folk tunes on the flute with drum.
He said that this work is based on his passion to bridge the cultural gap of the world... Mario said that it is a historical movement for him to perform here”.
Omer Khan The Sun (Lahore) 13 Novembre 2006 - AA.VV.

...The World Music Night’s programme appeared to be as international as its name seems to suggest. It started with the American dance band Grupo America from San Diego and ended up with the Syrian band Ziryab Art Creation staging a visual and auditory show on ancient Syrian civilization. The programme of the music night was quite heterogeneous. Mario Crispi from Italy, who mixes different traditional wind instruments with techno beats he samples, raised numerous astonished reactions from the crowd. The sound he produces varies from traditional Scottish atmosphere to an
extremely progressive rhythm-led mood.
According to Yasir, 28, an engineer by profession, who came to the performance with
his wife and 8-month old daughter Asma, “this music is really interesting and
experimental and explores new ways”. Mario Crispi’s solo performance gave contrast
to the one of Psalteria, a female quartet playing medieval songs from different places of
Europe (Spain, Italy, Eastern Europe...).
- Academy of the Punjab in North America

We are not accustomed to the sounds proposed by Mario Crispi, that in "Arenaria" - his latest work - takes us into unknown lands, or noise, however, infrequent. "Arenaria" is not an easy album, like its predecessor was not "blow" as it is not easy to take the viewpoint that the Sicilian, always prefers to search the easy approach to music. A work that Crispi proposed, as soloist or with Agricantus requires attention, meditation, dedication because the music, passed through the intuition of the musician Palermo are never trivial but sound and cultural experience. Its not only an artistic product, pleasant or not, but the result of deep research into their roots and also the need to transform these roots into something intelligible, to be shared even with those who are far from the sounds and culture proposed by Crispi. And just as well had impressed "Soffi" (Breaths) also "Sandstone" impresses the listener, whether conscious or not, in a world full of beautiful fantasies, never ends in themselves but deeply rooted in tradition and the past of the "earth mother . A brave album "Sandstone", an album that questions who will listen about the direction of research is often misunderstood, sometimes considered a snob, but necessary and important for the maintenance and dissemination of a culture that helps to observe what unites us than what divides us than other cultures. Maybe those closest to us ... - L'isola della musica italiana

Jam Journey in Music
July / August 2009 No. 161

Mario Crispi
Sandstone
Suono

Mario Crispi second solo that continues to support the personal experience of an attentive observer of world music to that of Agricantus band which he founded.
Sandstone is a poetic work on Sicily, perhaps as an excuse to talk once again of the cultural crossroads that have characterized the history and tradition. In order to feed energy ancestral certain locations, Crispi was equipped with a mobile studio and went to record some Neolithic settlements with perfect or even the fish market in Palermo. It is working out a true taste, rich colors and sounds, seemingly far away. To give a hand, a large group of talented musicians, of course, all Sicily.

Roberto Caselli - Jam Journey in Music July / August 2009 No. 161

THE JOURNAL OF MUSIC 06/09

drives & media p.. 70
Dancing / Italy

Enchantment of Sicily

Mario Crispi

Sandstone

Sound Records

Pietra d'Aspra (Aspra's Stone), the name Palermo of arenaria (sandstone), is a metaphor of island culture and research of multi-instrumentalist Mario Crispi Agricantus sound mind and accustomed to the dialectical relationship between breath sound of horns traditional sounds of the environment and reproductive technologies sound. Crispi chose to emphasize individuality and acoustics symbolic sites of Sicily, registering some sequences but wise influence of the magic of places. Arenaria is a labor of bridges sound of interlocking rhythm, melody and timbre, the reinvention of musical forms and styles of Sicily. Crucial collaboration of Maurizio Curcio to stick Massimo Laguardia to frame drums, guitar Joseph Lomeo, Enzo Rao, whose research is the violin the same wavelength as that of Crispi. We found the piano improvisation of Salvatore Bonafede in "Cuntu ri guerra" (narration war, with vocals and duduk); in "Gurfah" a melody on double clarinet Nubian (arghoul) is based on a rhythmic "tammurriata" and Tarantella. Voices of the sale of the fish market in Palermo entering "Cala." But there is much to discover in the thirteen tracks on this disc sound dense sediment. - THE JOURNAL OF MUSIC 06/09

Suono Records 2009
To listen Arenaria (sandstone), the new album is a sweet surrender Mario Crispi night.
The Sicilian instrumentalist, best known as one of the founders of Agricantus, engages in the second solo album after the 2000 Soffi (puffs)
Arenaria tells the method and the soul of the artist's search for records and Mediterranean influences, gracefully blends the history of his land, the experiences of his travels and technology.
Areanria tells the sound of a land, and not rhetoric, but the artist with a minimum equipment recorded her songs in various places of Trinacria (old name of the Sicily), a crossroads of cultures.
The Caves of Gurfa (Alia village, Palermo), the Tomb of the Prince's (Sant'Angelo Muxaro village), Palace Mineo (Palermo), Alcara Li Fusi, are only part of the locations that Mario Crispi involves charging for acoustic and ancestral.
The opening is with Cala 4:12am, to the fish market in Palerm,o and we imagine the 'smell and movements that are repeated in the same rhythm of work, life and death for days and dialect.
The palermitan cunto (vocal tecnique for the popular actors), instruments like the Armenian duduk, able to play the song of carters Bagheria we discover in carrittera and beyond.
Violin, sinth, woodwinds, vocals, percussion, drums and electronics create rhythmic grooves that lead the listener in a dreamy and slightly suggestive.
Accomplices are essential Salvatore Bonafede, Maurizio Curcio, Massimo Laguardia, Joseph Lomeo and improvised a song with the musical collective FolkLab.
13 tracks to explore for sediment that contains the same sandstone.

Francesca Grispello - Francesca Grispello by Ferro & Tabacco

Saturday, May 16, 2009, 12:52 - Reviews
Mario Crispi - Arenaria - Sound Records - SR 003
I have great pleasure to report to you this album of Mario Crispi, hoping not to get up some purists objected: "But this is not jazz." And who cares? This is a record of high level, original, full of ideas, well structured and well executed as I believe that jazz fans will enjoy quite a bit.
Mario Crispi musician is well known as it was, inter alia, the founder of Agricantus one of the best groups in the Italian world music. Musician "omnivorous" in the best sense, Crispi has traveled extensively around the world settle a range of knowledge that led him to a conception of music "open", intolerant of any schematic or label.
And this album is proof: Mario started from his land, from Sicily so full of mystery and fascination, to enliven his music with a number of drivers who come from different worlds and the most diverse situations. Is to unify the great sagacity of the musician to achieve its objectives of real sincerity and directness of expression used compositional techniques, interpretation and recording at all unusual.
CD recordings were made with a portable studio around Sicily in places of particular interest in noise and evocative as "the caves of Gurfah Alia" (better known as the caves site Saracens), "the tomb of Prince" Sant'Angelo Muxaro seventh century BC or even the famous fish market in Palermo.
Concerning the compositional techniques and interpretive Crispi refers to certain styles of their oral tradition of western Sicily as the "hand carters and especially that" cunto Palermo "that was used to narrate the deeds of the paladins of France: in ' album was rediscovered for the song "re Cuntu War" which describes, with great emotional intensity, a daily fact of war and flight, to the success of the song contributes little improvisation on the piano by Salvatore Bonafede, another extraordinary musician (jazz ) Sicilian who has not yet received the recognition he deserved.
And so every song deserves a citation to the meanings that encapsulates the stories he tells. But maybe you should stop here and leave the listener a taste of the exciting discovery. - A PROPOSITO DI JAZZ, di e con Gerlando Gatto