ANTICO (A)

A project born from the meeting of Alfio Antico, Lorenzo Urciullo (Colapesce), and Mario Conte. Their debut album, released in 2016, connects one of the deepest expressions of Sicilian oral tradition with guitars, analog synthesizers, drones, and sound design. Ten years later, the record returns in a new edition for Bongo Joe Records, an important international label. The tenth-anniversary reissue, scheduled for late 2026, will feature a new master, an unreleased track from the original sessions, and a renewed visual identity. Far from a simple commemorative release, this new edition reopens the dialogue at the heart of the project.

At the center of ANTICO are the voice and frame drums of Alfio Antico. A shepherd until the age of eighteen, Alfio learned music before knowing how to write it, growing up in a landscape filled with animal calls, bells, livestock, wind, and silence. His knowledge was formed through listening, repetition, error, and invention—methods unique to an oral tradition passed directly from one body to another. Before becoming an instrument, the skin of the drum belonged to a living being. For Alfio, this memory continues to exist within the sound. The drum is therefore not just a rhythmic instrument, but a resonant body in which gesture, voice, and memory become inseparable.

ANTICO was born around this core. The work of Lorenzo Urciullo and Mario Conte follows Alfio’s breathing, reacts to his unpredictability, and lets itself be transformed by his way of singing and playing. Ten years after its first release, ANTICO continues to show how it is possible to engage with a tradition without rebuilding it or reducing it to folklore: the past remains alive when it continues to connect with the present.