2 years on from his self-titled debut album, Italian DJ and producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea releases his sophomore full-length Sacred Love, a musically borderless album that draws from African rhythms and atmospheres and blends them with spiritual jazz, Balearic inspirations and Mediterranean sounds.

Italian DJ and producer Massimo Napoli aka Galathea presents his new album Sacred Love, in which he once again avails himself of the collaboration of his friend, producer and bass player Salvo Dub, as well as a combo of respected musicians: singer Kadi Koulibaly – originally from Burkina Faso – who already featured on the first album, Giulia La Rosa, author of the lyrics and vocals of the title track, pianist Mario Pappalardo, percussionist Sergio Spitaleri and drummer Luciano Cantone.

Sacred Love is definitely a more mature, intense and profound journey than the previous album, and progresses with a magical, dreamlike and spiritual atmosphere that draws from African rhythms and beats and blends them with jazz sounds that have evolved in the West.

The album guides the listener along a path of multi-ethnic contaminations: “Divinité”, “Ouaga” and “Koloko” see singer Kadi touch on the sacredness and mysticism of the African continent. In “Divinité”, the spoken word of French poet Diego Hernandez tackles the themes of faith, life and the relationship with one’s ‘self’, with references to French chanson productions, in which Kadi‘s spiritual song conjures images of the Sahara, as it intersects and expands into cosmic space.

The title track, “Sacred Love feat. Giulia La Rosa”, was the first single extracted from the album and was also released on 7″ in two versions. This tune is an Afro-American gospel with a typically afrobeat rhythm, vaguely reminiscent of Nina Simone‘s “See-Line Woman”.

North Africa is represented in “Equator”, while we climb further north up into the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with “Medican Blues”, to land in Stromboli with the deep jazz of “Ginostra”, whose title recalls the village of the marvellous island in the Aeolian archipelago.

Then we have the Cuban track “Caminito”, a sort of cha-cha with a romantic piano melody (à la Chucho Valdez) well performed by maestro Mario Pappalardo; and then again “Eos”, strongly Balearic with a Brazilian mood; “Impression”, a dreamy journey of impact; “Sirens”, already present on the first album and here reworked in a new spiritual-ambient version produced by Agosta.

Sacred Love is thus an original and musically borderless album, which expands a certain African sacred culture and naturally blends afrobeat, jazz and blues atmospheres with the Balearic sounds of Mediterranean culture.