Various

Flee is proud to present its new project: Tarantismo: Odissey of an Italian Ritual. Dedicated to Tarantism, this project tells the story of a centuries-old choreo-musical ritual from Southern Italy, mobilizing frenetic rhythms and maniac dances, to exorcise women of a mysterious evil caused by the bite of a spider. Trans-disciplinary, this effort of documentation and artistic re-interpretation of one of Europe’s most mysterious trance phenomenon is comprised of a double LP vinyl compilation and a hardcover Italian / English book.

A gatefold record: this double LP captures original field recordings of musicians-exorcists taken by Diego Carpitella, Ernesto de Martino and Alan Lomax in the late 1950’s in Puglia as well as six unique reworks by contemporary vanguard electronic musicians and producers such as: Bjorn Torske & Trym Søvdsnes (NO), LNS (CA), UFFE (DK), KMRU (KE), Bottin (IT), and Don’t DJ (DE).

A hardcover book: With nine essays focusing on various dimensions of the ritual, this bilingual publication gives the voice to artists, photographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and catholic priests. Witnesses, experts or actors of the history of this music exorcism, the book contains the contributions and exclusive photographs of: Chiara Samugheo, Edoardo Winspeare, Claudia Attimonelli, Pamela Diamante, Luigi Chiriatti, Salvatore Bevilacqua, Gino Di Mitri and Mattia Zappellaro.

The release of the book and the record will be followed by a cycle of exhibitions and conferences, deploying FLEE’s year-long research on Tarantism, as well as its numerous commissioned artworks.