Decca Records presents Rituals, the third album from the talented Italian musician Nicola Conte.

"Rituals", which confirms the multifaceted talent of the artist and instrumentalist from Bari. Also this work first of all develops around the historical faithful team which follows the artist in the live shows. Here we find again Pietro Lussu, Pietro Ciancaglini, Fabrizio Bosso, Lorenzo Tucci and Daniele Scannapieco, with whom Nicola elaborated lots of tracks contained in the album. Afterwards the band has been flanked the other friends of theirs, Gianluca Petrella, Gaetano Partipilo and Till Bronner, who also attended the previous "Other Directions".

Also this album grew up through several production phases, and shows a sharper appearance, thanks above all to the love for both the overseas and European jazz.

The utilization of the voices gives us great artistic importance and depth. These voices belong to Chiara Civello and Alice Ricciardi and express all the warmth and intensity typically Italian.

Nicola Conte's album we find some male voices, as well as those of the newer and original ones of the international market. Josè James, a singer from New York who has been acknowledged by the European media thanks to the intuition of Gilles Peterson.

"Rituals" signals a switch in Nicola Conte's artistic career, further developed thanks to his effort in the creation of the songs and lyrics of the record. Just as it happened in the previous album, also here we find references to the literary culture dear to Nicola which helped him find inspiration during the writing phase.

There are some pieces in the album which were inspired more than the others by the literature of two writers. The first one is "Like Heavens In The Wind", whose lyrics were performed by Josè James. His words are accompanied by the wind instruments with Till Bronner and Sandro Deidda, a valued musician from Campania who is present in seven pieces of the album.

The other two songs in question are "I See All Shades Of You", with Alice Ricciardi's classical interpretation, and "The Nubian Queens", where the drumming by the Finn Teppo Maikinen leaves immediately its mark. The solos by Fabrizio Bosso and Timo Lassy seems to be unbreakable till the end of the song.