Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Yarákä
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
To our first listening: the three of us are pretty different on this: Gianni has always been into classical music but he’s also a curious listener to various genres, Virginia is more bound to jazz, gospel and progressive rock, Simone to traditional music and various.
Another memory comes also from the environment where we live: in southern Italy we live surrounded by traditions, so the three of us are bound also to traditional music, like the ones played by the marching band during a patronal feast.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Same here: three different paths.
For sure everything has started with the necessity to express ourself through music.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Yarákä was founded in 2015 by Gianni Sciambarruto. In the beginning, our project was a tribute to Brazilian popular music, but over time, we felt the need to connect with our own roots in Taranto, Puglia. We found that the perfect link between these worlds was rituality. For us, music is a way to explore the ancestral bond between humans and the natural elements. A great example of this is our track Maletìmbe, which is based on an ancient prayer our grandparents used to recite to St. John to protect the land from storms. This connection to our history is what drives our creative journey today.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
We define our sound as Experimental World Music. We don’t just play traditional songs; we use sound to create images and atmospheric suggestions. In our album “Curannera,” we explored the traditions of Taranto and its province, but also included influences from other Southern Italian regions like Basilicata and Sicily. It is a visceral and emotional sound where the Taranto dialect meets Mediterranean rhythms. Our goal is to maintain an organic, acoustic feel that sounds both ancient and modern at the same time.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
Being in connection and listening with everything that surrounds us.
Everything comes out plain if we give things the right time and amount of listening.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Our creative process is a mix of technology and craftsmanship. We use Ableton during the experimentation and pre-production phases; it’s an essential tool that helps us quickly visualize the structure of a song. However, when we perform or record, we prefer a natural, acoustic approach. Gianni, Virginia uses essential pedalboards to expand the textures of their instruments, and we sometimes use low synth drones to blend the trio’s sound together. Our priority is always to push the limits of our acoustic instruments without losing their “human” soul.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
There’s several: we listen to different artists such as Fatoumata Diawara or Bab L’Bluz, mainly we focus on world music’s scenario.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
Mostly in the way we approach our instruments: we’re strictly connected to them to the point that everything we feel inside comes out easily as we play.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
That being in a community, living in connection with it, it’s essential for our well-being.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
Those things change and we change with them.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
MH, good question. Actually we’re humbled and feel lucky for all the venues that we have seen so far, speaking of that, Womex has always been a dream venue and got the honour to be there. In the future we just hope to play our music as far as we can and continue to have the opportunity to explore and get in contact with these places.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
We don’t have a name, but we would like to collaborate with artists who share our artistic vision and will to communicate different musical traditions.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
You can find our music and support us on all major platforms like Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, and Facebook. We highly recommend checking out our album Curannera and following us on Instagram for the latest updates. We are also very proud to work with our agency, Zero Nove Nove, who supports us with great passion. We have some very important news coming soon, including the release of our next album, so stay tuned!
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Our dream is to leave a real mark on the international World Music scene by sharing the culture and dialect of Taranto, which is still a very unexplored area. In our next projects, we will focus even more deeply on the Ionian-Taranto identity. In a world that is becoming more and more “artificial,” we want to preserve the human element in music. We want to keep the memory of our ancestors alive and bring back the beautiful values of the past, making people feel deep emotions through our sounds.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
What’s behind what we play, the true meanings behind the words and the traditions that we try to bring up through our music.
