From the musical mind of Samuele Strufaldi via Música Macondo Records comes a collaboration between him and the citizens of Gohouo-Zagna, a town in Ivory Coast. Davorio pays tribute to the townspeople, their traditions, culture, and daily lives through a stunning traditional, African, jazz, electronica, and Western classical album.

After meeting Boris Pierrou, a djembe player from Ivory Coast, Strufaldi travelled back with Pierrou to his new friend’s home country. Strufaldi, an Italian composer, was taken with the community, and together, they created an album with the express purpose of raising money to build a new community library space in Gohouo-Zagna for local people to learn about and make music.

There’s no chance Davorio won’t deliver its message to listeners. While it expresses the musicianship of Strufaldi and company through skilled instrumentation displayed on tracks like “Cammino, senza sapere dove” and aptly shows the group’s emotional range in songs like the haunting “Tutte le cose dentro,” more than anything, Davorio expresses the joy that music brings.

Yes, the album is genre-bending. Yes, it seamlessly blends modern with traditional, just as Strufaldi hoped to do. But where it truly shines is in its wholeness, celebrating the gift that is being alive and all the good that we can do in the world while we have that gift. Davorio’s title track sums it up quite nicely: fully immersing oneself in a new culture and using it to create something that benefits the people of that culture. May we all be so fortunate as to experience something as beautiful and as wholesome as Strufaldi’s visit to Gohouo-Zagna, and may we all be so good as to share those experiences with the world through music.