The Ketch'em Alive Summer Concert Series features a truly interesting band on Tuesday, Aug. 2. Fiamma Fumana comes from Italy, where they are renowned for playing traditional music over a modern techno beat.
Fiamma is Italian for flame, and fumana means fog or mist. Their musical aim is to "remember what is being forgotten in local cultures and bring the songs back through a pop music medium." They have a "cumulative sound that mixes club beats and folk viruosity," wrote Tower Pulse.
The band is fronted by Fiamma Orlandi on vocals. According to her bio, she learned to sing from her grandmother and great-grandmother in the Emilian countryside, where she grew up feeding on tortellini, manga and postpunk. It's this rich culture that is most prominently apparent in the band's music.
Classically trained, Lady Jessica Lombardi plays a piva Emiliana bagpipe, flute, bass and vocals. Loop artist Medhin Paolos uses electronica as a percussion instrument. The sole male in the quartet, Alberto Cottica, plays accordions, acoustic guitar, piano and vocals.
"We had this idea, the basic elements were Fiamma's voice ... and myself as a sort of spokesman for traditional music," recalled Cottica in an interview with globalidiotvillage.com. "But we didn't have a band. We talked to friends and had them come over and play. Since then we've evolved into a permanent band, which includes someone who wasn't there before, Jessica, who plays a lot of instruments, but mainly the Emilian bagpipes, which is something we're really happy with, because it's a very local instrument."
The opening band, Ketchum World Beat Street Band, is a relaxed percussion and rhythm sextet consisting of Wood River Valle-based artists and one high school student.
INFO
Ketch'em Alive
Free community concert Tuesday, Aug. 2
Ketchum World Beat Street Band. 7 p.m.
Fiamma Fumana, 7:30 to 9 p.m.
Forest Service Park, 1st Ave. & Washington St. in Ketchum
Fiamma Fumana
