"Further ammo for those who believe that the Med is where it's musically at right now. [On] this latest from multi-instrumentalist Bob Salmieri's quartet of Italian roots adventurers (...) they're joined by locally based Iraqi-Tunisian singer and oud player Marwan Samer to put musical flesh on the lyrical bones of the wordsmiths of Sicily's "Arabic Domination" (827-1091). According to the press release, the poetry is full of yearning and loss for love and homeland, which is just what it sounds like to these ears (...) and Samer sings the hell out of everything ... The instrumental accompaniment is sensitive, trancey and somehow both contemporary-sounding and appropriate to the ancient roots. The rhythm section's tight, but it's Salmeri's masterful embellishments on various stringed and wind instruments (both Western and Arabic) that really steal the show on this project and let it fly way beyond the dry academic exercise it could have been to become something living,breathingand bursting with musical ideas".
