Ongon is a Mongolian shamanic ritualist object inhabited by spirits, but common also in Turkish mythologies. According to these mythologies and traditions, after death, this object attracts and contain spirits and becomes a fetish that uses the spirits energies to create melodies, rhythms and sounds. Ongon is also the pseudonym of Antonio Bertoni, Italian double bass player, home-made instrument builder, guitarist and player of the African bass, the Moroccan guembri.

«Exuvia» follows the mystic beliefs associated with the ongon and adopts fitting spiritual musical traditions – the sub-Saharan Gnawa music, African trance music and spiritual-psychedelic jazz, but suggests a fresh blend of these musical legacies. «Exuvia» offers an interpretation that corresponds with today’s techno music and minimalist electronica.

The four pieces of «Exuvia» rely on hypnotic, repetitive rhythmic patterns of the ancestral guembri, Bertoni’s self-built bowing instruments and assorted, raw percussive sounds. But Bertoni, methodically and patiently, intensifies, layers and samples in real time these exoticl sonorities with subtle electronic samples, spacey vintage synthesizers sounds and atmospheric electric guitar lines.

And, indeed, «Exuvia», sound as Bertoni’s version of a shamanic healing ritual that may exorcise with its powerful spells the evil spirits that currently inhabit his own country political map. Hopefully, this ritual may affect also the evil spirits that lead now the superpowers of this planet.

«Exuvia» was released in 500 copies of white vinyl plus download options.

Eyal Hareuveni

Antonio Bertoni (guembri, elec, synth, samples, self-built instruments, perc, g)