Franco Pavan’s recent forays into the exciting world of folk/early music with Laboratorio ’600 are stylish and exciting. His combination of poignant programming with crisp, exacting performances shows that he has a finger right on the pulse of current trends in musicology. This latest album, ‘Occhi turchini’, brings the ultra-expressive and colourful voice of Pino de Vittorio together with some fascinating research into various cultural influences on southern Italian music; the result is a selection of traditional Calabrian songs and instrumental works full of surprises.

The sources for this music are fascinating in themselves. A 16th-century collection entitled Antiche Ariette Nazionali / Anche / De’ Piu Remoti Paesi … provides two stunning instrumental pieces well suited to the versatile plucked strings of Laboratio ’600: Arietta grica has an improvisatory feel and La calabreisa is full of taut, energetic rhythms. One particularly atmospheric instrumental track, Canzona a morto, comes from Rocco Rossetti, one of the last Viggianese itinerant harpists, and showcases the exquisite playing of Flora Papadopoulos. In other cases, such as the title-track Occhi turchini (‘Blue eyes’), songs have been sourced from field recordings. Pino de Vittorio is a gripping communicator, running a huge range of emotions in the folk material yet finding a devastating stillness when recounting Clorinda’s death in Carlo Cusentino’s 1731 Calabrian version of Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, sung here to the tenor of the Romanesca.

Throughout this album I am reminded that when Alan Lomax embarked on his Italian recording project for Columbia Records he promised the broadcaster RAI that his work would inspire a folk-song revival. It is heartening, therefore, to see Lomax’s recording of Veni sonne de la muntagnella cited as the source for Pino de Vittorio’s haunting performance of the same song. Yet this disc is so much more than a revival, it is a celebration of Calabrian diversity and history.