Summer music. More precisely: Mediterranean music. With Jolly Mare, the project of the Italian producer Fabrizio Martina, one is rather directly confronted with the fact that the tendency in Italo-disco to use North African instruments, especially percussion, in addition to lush synthesizers, makes sense topographically. After all, the distance between Italy and Africa is not exactly large in kilometres. The fact that the Mediterranean used to be a cultural area with a lot of exchange is somewhat lost over the EU’s isolationist tendencies of recent years. With Jolly Mare, these distances have been abolished. Sounds from north and south of the Mediterranean come together over his drum machines. Very friendly eccentric, right from the first piece »Sabbia bianca« you think you hear a musical greeting to the great cantautore Franco Battiato, who died this year and sang about a »Summer on a Solitary Beach« 40 years ago. Melody, a bit of New Wave and a debauched synthesiser solo are the prelude to further whimsical individual passages. Occasional pop flights of fancy like »Vivo« included. You don’t have to imagine the sea of Jolly Mare as a happy one. It is just that.
Epsilon
