A1: SNAKE CHARMING (feat. Ali Moe & Tatchi2)
Here's one of the most ubiquitous melodies ever. It was used countless times in all sort of genres without mention of the author, to signify something oriental, arabic, exotic - or to mock someone. It has become a sort of "eastern" musical meme for western audiences. It was first published (but not copyrighted) in 1845 by Franz Hünten as Melodie Arabe, then repurposed for an exotic attraction in 1893 (snake charmers, belly dancers and other stereotypes) with the title Streets of Cairo or The Poor Little Country Maid. The earliest recording is from 1895. This beautifully symmetrical 4 part melody has been also widely appropriated for mockery tunes, nursery rhymes, sport and political chants (like the popular italian Te ne vai o no) in many european countries: They Don't Wear Pants in the Southern Part of France by John Bartles is an example, and so is Alimò e Taccitù, a 60s insult song in roman dialect which managed to be both offensive and casually racist. I've learned it first in this version as a kid, but then heard it again in endless variations on tv, in movies, cartoons, etc: anytime there was an exotic ingredient in a story, there came this tune. I've been fiddling with it since forever; meanwhile I have looked into actual Arabic/North African/Central Asian music both classical and popular, but I always wanted to pay tribute to this demented yet adorable musical meme which delighted me as a kid and still makes me smile - also for different reasons: once I got to know other cultures, the whole Euro Exotica aesthetic became both horrifying and hilarious to me. It seemed appropriate to give this tune a grooving engine, featuring a variation of a very popular old school Ska bassline, used in many hits from that era. At one point, for some reason, it made sense to slice in Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss.

A2: INNO MUTANTE
(Gianfranco Salvatore, SIAE, P.A.)
This melody is a true killer. Written by my longtime friend Gianfranco Salvatore for a radio piece in the mid 80s, I heard it a few times then and remembered it perfectly for decades. I actually checked: I played Gianfranco this version and the melody is right. I just love the southern european feel of the line, and how the B of the theme replies gracefully to the A: it's a fabulous melody. The arrangement is yet another example of my longtime fixation for fake Jazz. But this time the Jazz isn't totally fake: some parts are actual samples from 1920s recordings.

A3: PIGMY
(Mel Brown, Billy Larkin, Hank Swarn)
The original, released in 1965 (split in two parts), is insane, some kind of Punk teenage Jazz paroxism: it was Billy Larkin and the Delegates' only hit. The 1967 cover by Booker T & the MGs is where I started: supercool, steady and funky. This rhythm, based on a two bar snare drum pattern, is really different from anything I've ever played before and it took a while to learn. Having been written in 1965, in 2026 this tune bears a controversial title: Pigmy (or Pygmy) is a generic, western (and to some offensive) term that describes a group of indigenous peoples from central Africa, folks who prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, such as Aka, Ituri, Baka, Ba-Benzélé, and so on. Some of these groups have amazing musical traditions and instruments, such as the one note reed and voice Ba-Benzélé Hindewhu technique (illustrated on YouTube by musician and musicologist Francis Bebey), famously used by percussionist Bill Summers for the introduction of a 1973 seminal Funk-Jazz tune, Watermelon Man, in Herbie Hancock's Headhunters. I have the album, no mention of any of this anywhere. So I figured that Herbie's Ba-Benzélé (modified and adapted) should meet the Delegates' Pigmy and have a little party on my track.

A4: UNIVERSE
(text by Carl Sagan)
voice artist: Andy Caploe
When I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking I loved the introduction written by Carl Sagan (1934/1996) - one of last true visionaries we've had. Steve Jobs? Elon Musk? Please: in 1977 Sagan sent music, including some of my favorite tunes, into deep space. You don't believe me? Look it up. He's a true Rock'n'roll icon, besides being "an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, science communicator, author, and professor." He could write too, and this text is perfect. So when I came across the audiobook version I isolated that part, edited it a little and saved it for later - later turning out to be 10 years. I built a groove around it, a reggaefied variation of my Amara Terra Mia beat (from Sensual Musicology), and sent it to my longtime co-conspirator and incomparable voice artist Andy Caploe. I've known Andy for almost 40 years and I've always thought he should be in one of my tunes. Andy's performance gives it an even more head spinning dimension, taking listeners through a brief but intense journey that makes them question very deep stuff.

We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world. We give little thought to the machinery that generates the sun light that makes life possible, to the gravity that glues us to an Earth that would otherwise send us spinning off into space, or to the atoms of which we are made and on whose stability we fundamentally depend. Few of us spend much time wondering why nature is the way it is, where the cosmos came from, or whether it was always here; if time will one day flow backwards and effects precede causes, or whether there are ultimate limits to what humans can know. What is the smallest piece of matter? Why we remember the past and not the future? How it is, if there was chaos early, that there is apparently order today? And why there is a universe?

B1: FLY AWAY (So very high)
(Lenny Kravitz)
My version of Fly Away (Hell Yeah rec. 2021) was the gift the gods gave me during the pandemic. It came out as a single with five marvelous remixes, each special for its own reason; it's one of my most streamed song on the various platforms. But the truth is that my version of Fly Away was always meant to be Reggae, so much so that the vocal part you hear in this version is the same as the original. I know Roots Reggae is not universally popular, so I made the original version plainer, but this One Drop beat (one of my favorites rhythms ever, and a bitch to play right) was what I always had in mind.

B2: SLOW BURNING LOVE
(James Taylor)
Drum Programming: Little Tony Negri aka David Nerattini
This delicate and crafty tune is a real hidden gem. It's hidden in James Taylor's eight album In The Pocket, 1976. The original is unbeatable, with a miraculous halftime beat and a very enticing melody laid on a rather unusual harmonic pattern repeated throughout - except in the special (which features a lovely fingering surprise if you play guitar - the song was obviously written on it). I've played this tune for years (just for myself) so it was a natural candidate for my Vocoder treatment, despite being aware that no one can sing like James Taylor. I took Slow Burning Love's impeccable vocal phrasing and built this little R'n'b number with the invaluable help of mr Little Tony Negri who gave it the perfect beat using Rhythm Ace samples. One of the peculiarities of this tune is its structure, which I kept, except at the end. The miraculous melody of the verse happens only at the beginning, and it's over in less than a minute. This makes me want to play it again and again, yet more evidence that less is actually more.

B3: DREAMS
(Stevie Nicks)
Sometimes I like hit songs. In Sensual Musicology there is a cover of Michael Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel. But that was a very different version from the original, while in this case I kept the song structure intact. I slowed it down about one third, enought to bring out the many layers of meaning in the lyrics. This is a break up song written under extreme conditions, and performed for years with both parties (Stevie Nicks who wrote the song and Lindsay Buckingham, whom the song is for) sharing the same stage. It's a tune full of feelings, of anger but also of sorrow and self doubt, and I find the original too fast to savour them all. The way the song is structured is what makes it a Pop masterpiece: it has the same two chords throughout but it manages to have three separate parts. Slowing the tempo also brings out the stunning melody: no wonder this was a huge hit for Fleetwood Mac - and still is.

B4: FADE INTO YOU
(Matt Jenkins, Shane McAnally, Trevor Rosen)
This tune was written for the ABC tv series Nashville (2012/18). The magical album version was produced by T Bone Burnett (who curated the soundtrack of the whole series). It's a great country song with a simple but unusual harmonic progression, a beautiful melody and killer lyrics about love and death. The phrasing is great, the structure is perfect, I just added 4 bars before the final verse and simplified the finale. Besides the official release (on the Nashville Season 1, Volume 2 Original Soundtrack album, 2013), on YouTube there is a live version (at the Ryman Theater, the Church of Country Music, no less). This song was written as a duet performed by actors-singers Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio. I think casting Nashville was not easy: you need actors that are also credible singers. They struck gold with Clare Bowen, who can act (the part of a southern american woman, being australian) and sings like an angel. Palladio is cute, a decent cowboy looking actor but not as glorious as Bowen at singing. Burnett's arrangement is subtle and rolling, mine is more ethereal, somber and no longer a duet of lovers who want to fade into each other, but the fantasy of someone who might be singing to someone else or not.

C1: UNIVERSE (Fireside)
(text by Carl Sagan)
voice artist: Andy Caploe
A radically different version, again featuring Andy's incredibly versatile voice performance.
C2: YOUR HIGHNESS
In 2017 I discovered I have Autism of the mild variety, formerly known as Asperger syndrome. This discovery led me to understand a few things about my life and my music. One of the symptoms of Autism (in most forms) has a very poetic description: need for sameness. This is certainly true in my music: I like endless loops, interlocking repetition and recurring sounds. There is another feature of my music which could be caused by Autism. The two most common comorbidities of this condition are anxiety and depression, I've lived with both ever since I can remember. It could be the reason why sometimes my music is serene, calm, blissful, ecstatic and, as someone pointed out, "always changing but never really changing". It's the case of this tune, which belongs to a family of tracks I'm very fond of (Round Robin, Joe Gillis Theme and Nowhere Special are some examples from my previous releases): not Jazz, not West coast, not Blues, not Country but somewhere in between. Named after that special sensation only you really know.

C3: MARE NOSTRUM (Deep Black)
If you look at a map of the Mediterranean sea, where I was born, you'll realize Italy (and more precisely Sicily, where my family comes from) has borders not just with EU countries up north, but with all the nations who share that coastline. So if I had to describe to an alien where I come from, I'd point to the Mediterranean sea: that's my home. Since a few years my home has become a graveyard of migrants, people that for many reasons (some obvious, some not so much) move north across the sea (sometimes in overcrowded inflatable boats, often at night) to find a better life, or in some cases just a life. Many make it, many don't. This is unjust and wrong: the right to free movement should be a "basic human right guaranteed to all", everywhere. This one is for my brothers and sisters who ran from something or had a dream, and now rest in the deep black of our sea.

C4: AFTERCARE LULLABY
More blissy sounds from the Four Twenties, featuring the Ebow ( (a magnetic pick for guitar that allows endless sustain, also heard elsewhere on this album). If you practice Aftercare, feel free to use this tune at the end of your sessions, as it was written specifically for that purpose. Be warned: it might lead to kissing.

EPILOGUE: UNTIL
(text by Haile Selassie)
A stain on our history as italians is the horrible way we behaved in Ethiopia during the war (1935-36), something that should not be forgotten for many reasons, including that we fought against one of the most amazing figures of that era. Haile Selassie ("Member of the Solomonic dynasty which claims lineage to Menelik I, believed to be the son of King Solomon and Makeda the Queen of Sheba") was the first leader to imagine Africa as one entity. What you hear is the translator of the UN General Assembly, translating from Amharic one of the most inspirational speeches of the 20th century, given by Selassie on October 4, 1963. You heard this speech before? Yes: Bob Marley used it verbatim for one of his most powerful songs, War. A message that is relevant today as it was over 60 years ago, not only for Africans.

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned. Until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation. Until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. Until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race. Until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained. Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will. Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven. Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil.

EXTRA TRACK: MANDELBROT MINUET
Some musical oddity, a gentle reminder that there is life beyond 4/4. With Greek, Techno and Country/Bluesy ingredients, it sounds to me like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra after someone laced their drinks with speed. Based on a 6/8 loop (generated through an ungodly procedure with some satanic software on a nameless device), at one point it switches to 4/4 for 4 bars, three times. Why? Well, one reason (besides my perversion) is that the track has a 4 on the floor type beat (in this case 6 on the floor, being the track in 6/8) so it seemed fun to switch back and forth. Mandelbrot is of course Benoît.

Mixed and Mastered by Paolo Mauri

All tracks written, performed and recorded by Sergio Messina (SIAE, P.A.) except where indicated.

Please note that, despite I have no prejudices against it, no AI was used in the making of this album.

Thank you: Doctors & Staff @ U.T.I.C. Piacenza, PM, Andy Caploe, David Nerattini, Gianfranco Salvatore, Andrea Balleari,  Adolfo Massazza, Stefano Cardini, Franco Fabbri, Kix & Roxie.

In the past two years I've lost two very important persons, Rossella Bertolazzi and Pinotto Fava. This album is for them.

I have a (still free) Substack publication called Mosche, you can also follow me on Facebook and Instagram.

P & © 2026 Sergio Messina • Finora (FNR-DIG-M-3) • contact page for all enquiries