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Writer's pictureSparky
6 days ago8 min read

Ilienses - 'Ours is a 360-degree dual music. Life, death. Earth, sky. Stars,



Mauro Medde & Natascia Talloru are Ilienses and their superb new record is Jae. An album that encapsulates the tradition and culture of the Sardinian lands.  The language, sounds, traditional instruments, themes and inspirations, it is deeply atmospheric, personal and an authentic experience that reflects the desires and the emotions within. It is an all-consuming experience reflected through the power of voice.


Mauro: Ilienses was born spontaneously as a union of common passions, not only for music, but also of history and archaeology, spirituality, poetry and legends.


‘It was also born from a need to describe our island and its wild nature in music. Life in Sardinia still makes you connect a past that is still alive with music, poems, stories and legends, told by our grandparents but also crystallized in the landscape and in our granite stones.


‘We started playing thinking about how to recreate a soundtrack for all this and so we've come here.

 

 The creation of ‘Jae’ and the use of the autochthon language?

 

Mauro: The use of language is also a spontaneous choice, above all because it is with our language that we are able to express ourselves best, but also because it has its own musicality and its own sound that cannot be replaced.

‘In addition to this, we use in the lyrics of the songs, many poems by ancient poets who wrote in the Sardinian language, which we would like to point out differs from country to country, even at a distance of a few kilometres.


‘We are fortunate to possess a very rich language with different shades from area to area and even from country to country, a very rich vocabulary within the same island, which being sparsely inhabited, if we are not careful, we risk losing. In fact, we belong to those places in the world with a language considered a minority, but very important for us to preserve our history and culture. 


‘The text of the song of the same name 'Jae' is inspired by a Sardinian poet, where man, paraphrasing the verses, claims to reach the limits of the known world but also of elsewhere, to reach that upside down or subsoil that rises towards him stars and descending towards the abyss; he would also like to get to know what lies beyond death and time travel, these are themes that have influenced all our work.


Is it a quest to reconnect with the Barbagia region?


Natascia: Well certainly the reconnection, after years of colonization and positioning of physical borders, literally, is one of the aspects that we are interested in transmitting through our music.


‘Music in itself is a means that can connect various cultures and within the same culture it can connect people. In this case, through our sounds we believe that people in the world, but also Sardinians, can identify and be more aware of their historical value, as peoples who in the past remained united in their fights for the preservation of the land and their own culture.


Natascia: Our traditional sounds they have always belong to us, we are born with these sounds and in Sardinia we cultivate various shades of tradition through instruments, through ‘Canto a Tenore’, dances etc. since childhood.


‘Certainly, knowing the international musical scene, but also our studies of music, have allowed us to bring innovation to our traditional sounds and to place them more clearly in one or more genres that we believe are in line with our vision not only of music but also of life.


Such as the Northern European music scene which includes bands like Wardurna, Heilung etc.



It’s a very ritualistic record?!


Natascia: The ritual also born spontaneously since it is inherent in our traditional sounds which in ancient times had the objective of creating a spiritual dimension through dances, singing etc. in the attempt by our ancestors to connect to their pagan Gods and find meaning in what was happening in their lives. In particular, the passage between life and death was considered a very important moment, for which our ancestors built a series of places of worship that are still present and can be visited in Sardinia, ‘Giants’ Tombs’, ‘Domus de Janas’, but not only that, there they are a series of rituals that are still respected precisely on the Celtic Samhain for example, or when some member of the family dies, which have nothing to do with Christianity but come from very distant times. And we repeat them without asking ourselves how or why.

 

The rhythms are complex with the use of native Tenore chants?  The inspiration for this and the emotions they create?

 

Mauro: In Ilienses the timbric matrix is ​​strongly characterized by the sound of the ‘Tumbarinu’(percussion), which is deconstructed and recomposed, reinterpreted with respect to its role in the tradition where its obstinate, apparently simple rhythm is performed in the traditional dance.


‘As regards tenor singing, within this tradition there are many aspects that are sometimes overlooked in relation to this type of singing, such as the poems, the interpretation or the role of the 'guiding' voice within the choir, all aspects that push us to consider it a very powerful instrument, capable of characterizing a composition of modern origin, of harmonizing and enriching, directing the listener towards a primordial and mystical but absolutely original sound.


‘We focus a lot on highlighting all our traditional personnel, trying to enhance them by giving them important roles in the compositions and underlining their musical potential.

‘The inspiration comes from the places themselves, we live on one of the most fascinating islands in the world, known mainly for the sea but in reality, also the mountains, the internal places, as well as the small villages, are able to capture and enchant you. All this creates continuous emotions in us, life here is slow and we are able to appreciate the changing colours of the trees for example, or the changes in the sky respecting their time. In addition to the Sardinian tradition and history, it was the island itself, its thousand naturalistic facets, that inspired us in the creation of our music. This is why we see it as an entire soundtrack of Sardinia.


It is beautiful record where your original compositions aim to inform and continue the natural evolution of Sardinian culture? 


Natascia: We thank you for appreciating our work, we are honoured. Certainly, as we have also said in previous answers, ours is an attempt to conserve the memory and preserve the Sardinian culture which, like all places in the world, suffers the contamination of modern times. Music, and images, both real and created through the mind, can be important in this historical moment to preserve the culture of all places in the world.


‘The music of the future, if we think about it, could contribute to the preservation of people's identities.


This included the creation of your own instruments?


Mauro: That's right, our instruments have always been the result of manual and artisanal work by families. In Gavoi, the town of the Tumbarinos, each family owns one or more self-built Tumbarino or made by local artisans. Tonara, the town of cowbells now made only by a few families, an activity that was about to disappear if some of them had not revived and valorised it.


‘We also create our own instruments that we use in recordings and live shows, we like to build an intimate relationship with them, even before seeing them born, in choosing the skins to use for example, or the wood and in their processing. Each of these materials then characterizes a unique sound for each instrument, unrepeatable


 Your disregard for modern sounds and styles?


Natascia: No, we won't say disregard for modern sounds. We believe that despite everything, even modern music still has interesting proposals that obviously need to be carefully evaluated, not everything should be thrown away. Certainly, music has changed, it is often homologated, crystallized, compared to other moments in which real musical currents were born and within them there were numerous noteworthy artists, each with their own recognizable style.


‘It's a matter of personal taste ultimately. Music is communication and if we really have to be honest, we feel more connected and represented by other musical genres that today are a little more in the shadows than mainstream music.


This authenticity includes the locations for your live performances?


Natascia: Our performances are thinking to be proposed in historical and naturalistic places, therefore archaeological sites, churches, abandoned places, woods, parks etc. are the ideal locations.


‘This doesn't mean that we can't also play in clubs, in fact we must say that so far they have worked great there too, but certainly the atmosphere created in a ‘Nuraghe’ for example, or in a Tomb of the Giants is decidedly different.


The reflection of emotion is represented by the shades and colours of your music? 


Mauro: Yes, we try to insert the emotions that our land arouses in us every time we observe it or every time, we discover a new story about it within our sounds. We hope to pass this on to anyone. In a word, belonging to one's land and one's roots. And perhaps also a sense of revenge for the abuses suffered by our people.



 The juxtaposition of your music? Does this reflect the duality and emotions of life?


Natascia: Well yes, everything we create starts from darkness, from that underground of shadows that have characterized our history and then emerges in the form of light, represented by the messages hidden within poems and legends, but also through the sounds themselves which seem dark but which ultimately, having the objective of preserving the culture, contain a message of light to give to future generations.


Is it part of the question if darkness vs light? Joy vs Despair? The essence of time itself?


Natascia: It can be said that ours is a 360-degree dual music. Life, death. Earth, sky. Stars, abysses. Precisely the themes addressed in 'Jae' enclosed in a no time and no place within which we can all find ourselves, because ultimately, we all face the same dramas and experience the same feelings, in times and different places, in different forms.


The quest for fulfilment of destiny and understanding all the elements of it?


Mauro: Good question. Man has always tried to understand his own life, his own destiny. Perhaps influencing him through his own thoughts or beliefs. There are mysterious aspects that we are not yet aware of and we believe that the direction that humanity has been taking for some time now is exactly opposite to this research and understanding. Paradoxically we believe that our ancestors were almost closer to discovering the truths of existence than modern man can be.


Licenses is not just music but an all-encompassing experience?


Natascia: We think so, the advice we give is to let yourself go to our sounds and create your own imagination wherever you live, whatever your cultural background. We invite our listeners to create their own imaginary soundtrack with Ilienses music.

 

What is next?


Mauro: In the short term we would like to increasingly bring our music around the world, so we hope to be able to dominate our sea in such a way as to connect more with our listeners but also with other artists who have the same mission as us. In the long term we would always like to have the possibility of creating lots of other music, of preserving this thirst for research and knowledge of our roots, keeping ourselves and our principles intact.

 

Top six albums of all time?


Mauro: This question is very difficult because we have listened to a lot of music by artists from all over the world and of different genres. I wouldn’t know where to start.







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