JUSTIN ADAMS & MAURO DURANTE (GREAT BRITAIN/ITALY)
HEARTFELT PLAYING AND THE POWER HIDDEN IN SIMPLICITY
A BRITISH GUITARIST AND AN ITALIAN VIOLINIST, PERCUSSIONIST, AND SINGER WHO SEARCHED SO LONG THEY FINALLY FOUND EACH OTHER IN SOUTHERN ITALY’S SALENTO
Every time they come together, it becomes clear that whatever they touch veers frighteningly close to music that isn’t complex at all—yet is absolutely brilliant. They follow a simple recipe: they don’t shy away from genres and they play from the heart, without desperately trying to create “art.”
Their formative influences—Salento’s tarantism, desert blues, and North African traditions—aren’t locked into rigid forms that only work when played exactly the same way every time. They always leave room to spontaneously leap from there into sharp-edged rock’n’roll or into the sweet release of Arabic melodies.
Adams’s blues-rock guitar riffs and Durante’s trance-inducing pizzica can launch us sky-high like a rocket one moment, only to let us float gently back to earth like a feather the next.
Photo: Ray Tarantino
