Almamegretta - In Spiritus Dub (Echo Beach)

The six-piece band was founded in 1991 and in the meantime has collaborated, among others, with Adrian Sherwood, Massive Attack and Italian dub wizard Paolo Baldini. 'In Spiritus Dub' contains songs that were already featured on the band's previous albums (2006's 'Dubfellas', 2008's 'Vulgus', 2010's 'Dubfellas Vol. 2', the 'Not In My Name' EP from 2015, and 2017's 'Ennenne Dub'), and can therefore be considered as a kind of 'Best Of' or the ideal calling card for those who still have to get to know Almamegretta.

The name of the band stems from an old Italian dialect that represented the transition from classical Latin to modern Italian, and loosely translated means something like "wandering souls" or "migrant souls". The gentlemen of Almamegretta often sing in Neapolitan dialect, making 'In Spiritus Dub' sound like the ambient dub-soundtrack of the excellent Italian mafia series 'Gomorrah' here and there. Our recommendations from the track list: 'Ciucculatina Dub' a dub version of a song on 'Ennenne', 'Rescue', produced by Paolo Baldini, opening with soundbites from news items about The Weathermen or the Weather Underground Organization, an extreme-leftwing terrorist organization active in the US at the end of the nineteen sixties and seventies, 'Just Say Who', a trippy dub remix by Anglo-Italian producer Daniele Gaudi aka Gaudi Rootical of Horace Andy's classic, and especially 'Musica Populare', a remix by none other than Dennis Bovell, also featuring Neapolitan folk singer Carlo D'Angio. Excellent Neapolitan dub trip!