Calabra Mazzara Return

Calabra are London based duo DJ Toni Rossano and musician Neil Simons.

Having hung out as teenagers in the Midlands the friends went on to pursue different musical paths in the capital. Neil has engineered, mixed and produced a wide variety of artists whilst Toni, a DJ/Producer, was part of the pirate soul explosion as Blackbeard in the noughties and currently dabbles under the Gospel guise as The Showfa. Now many moons later...

The idea for Calabra was born during fuzzy after-party hours on the pebbles of a brisk Brighton beach and is the musical yearning for adventures on warmer Balearic shores. Sunshine inspired beats and melodic guitars lead a cast of analogue synths, percussion, fender bass, oboe and voices all lovingly coloured by 70’s art rock, New Age, folk and inspired Ghanaian High Life.

Picked up by Gerd Janson the Calabra EP features four debut tracks. The leading ‘Mazzara Return ’has a midtempo Balearic-like feel with lead guitar, house-up styled beats and electronica inspired atmospherics. Followed by the sci-fi synth driven ‘Half Baked ’with melodic spanish guitar riffs and sequenced synthesizers for that old skool analogue sounding thrill! ‘Hustle ’launches with a rolling live played bass and synth line on top of the guitar chill-out like licks fused with congas, bongos and cowbell rhythm courtesy of Yam Who? percussionist Des Morgan. ‘Respiro ’the EP’s grand finale introduces vocalist and songwriter Penelope Rossano and is a folk/jazz style ballad showcasing not
only a poetic gentle beauty in the song but also her own oboe composition to make a perfect book ending with the bonus of an instrumental added for measure for this debut EP on International Feel.