NZIRIA’s ‘Hard Tarantella’ harnesses psychomagic to explore their Neopolitan roots in a hardcore take on ‘musica neomelodica’

, 19 May 2022
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NZIRIA, aka Tullia Benedicta, is releasing LP XXYBRID via Bergamo’s Never Sleep on May 20. The twelfth release on Italian producer Gabber Eleganza‘s label, the album sees singer-songwriter and hardcore producer Benedicta—also known for their post-rock/shoe gaze band Grace—exploring their Neopolitan origins through what their press release calls a “psychomagic act”.

Reappropriating the dialect of the Southern Italian region, NZIRIA draws on the untranslatable term for “the obstinate and unprovoked tantrum of children when they’re tired” in their project name, while combining their solo trance, gabber and Italo dance sensibility with the vocal-led, mid-Seventies genre of Neomelodic music. On ‘Hard Tarantella’, Benedicta applies an androgynous vocal to a bass and breakbeat-heavy electronic take on the fast and upbeat Neopolitan folk dance in a queer, contemporary reclamation of pride and tradition.**

NZIRIA’s XXYBRID LP is out via Bergamo’s Never Sleep label on May 20, 2022.