Malutempu – Farchinoria (Skené Cultura, 2025)
Calabrian multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and producer Antonio Olivo launched Malutempu, a fantastic project that reconnects more than twenty years of international activity with his roots in southern Italy. The group’s fearlessly original music combines traditional instruments, Mediterranean influences and contemporary arrangements into an accessible style.
A new phase of Malutempu is presented in 2025 with this EP titled Farchinoria, released on 17 November 2025, produced by Franco Eco. The work dives into the most ancient layers of Calabrian culture, drawing on myths, ritual figures, pastoral legends and magic-religious traditions. Inspired by Giovanni De Giacomo’s rare 1914 ethnographic text La Farchinoria: eros e magia in Calabria, the EP explores an imaginary world populated by werewolves, witches, nocturnal rites and ancestral formulas. Olivo restores to the voice a central role as a vehicle of evocation.
The core band is joined on Farchinoria by two guest performers: Sasà Megna, a leading figure in traditional Calabrian song, and singer-actor Marzia Ruggieri, who embodies the archetypal figure of the magàra (wise woman, healer, or witch). The project takes on a ritual and narrative dimension, with the language and dialects of Papanice, Cutro and Crotone used as expressive tools that serve to conjure, protect and narrate.
The masterfully crafted material is deeply grounded in Calabrian tradition. Olivo and his colleagues present an engaging, flavorful, and modern vision of Calabrian music through the use of propulsive lyres, accordion, guitars, charismatic vocals, transfixing rhythms and dialogue-like exchanges between the musicians.
The artwork by visual artist Francesco Giordano extends the symbolic universe of the release through dense, material painting that references myth, landscape, and the interior worlds of an archaic Calabria.
Malutempu’s debut album Mala Tempora Currunt was released on 25 May 2024, produced by Franco Eco and distributed by Skené Cultura. The record drew strong national attention, gaining coverage in leading Italian music magazines and positioning Malutempu within the contemporary world music landscape. In December 2024, Italian newspaper Il Manifesto listed Mala Tempora Currunt among the five best albums of the year, and the project received a nomination for the Premio Loano.
To bring the material to the stage, Olivo assembled a lineup of gifted Calabrian musicians: Olivo on guitars, Domenico Ierardi on accordion, Antonio Petitto on bass and double bass, Giovanni Squillacioti on percussion, and Francesco Denaro on Calabrian lyre and Cretan lyre. Their concerts focus on immersive performances that structure the repertoire as a journey through stories and sounds from Calabria.
Following the Mala Tempora Currunt release, the band undertook an intense run of shows at venues and festivals including the Museo Archeologico di Capocolonna (Crotone), the final of Ethnos Festival in San Giorgio a Cremano (Naples), and Mesoraca in Festival. At the Festival della Colonna Sonora in Sutri the group presented previously unreleased reinterpretations of music by Ennio Morricone. On 23 February 2025, Malutempu played its first international date at the “Bruxelles terre d’asile” festival, performing Mala Tempora Currunt in full.
Musicians: Antonio Olivo on guitars; Domenico Ierardi on accordion; Giovanni Squillacioti on percussion; Antonio Petitto on bass, double bass; Francesco Denaro on Calabrian lyre, Cretan lyre; Sasà Megna on vocals, tromba degli zingari (Gypsy jaw harp); and Marzia Ruggieri on vocals.
Introductory Text: Nights Without Saints. Memories and Sound Remnants (Notti senza santi. Memorie e restanze sonore) by Antonello Lamanna (University for Foreigners of Perugia / Voxteca – Archivio della Voce)
Mixed and mastered by Max Mungari – October 2025.
Buy Farchinoria.
Author: Angel Romero
Angel Romero y Ruiz has dedicated his life to musical exploration. His efforts included the creation of two online portals, worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. In addition, Angel is the co-founder of the Transglobal World Music Chart, a panel of world music DJs and writers that celebrates global sounds. Furthermore, he delved into the record business, producing world music studio albums and compilations. His works have appeared on Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Indígena Records and Music of the World.