Racines, the Italy-based electronic duo of producer Rokeya and singer-songwriter Anissa Gouizi, make their recorded debut with “Market Miracolo”, a slow-burning track built on layered vocals in Arabic, Italian, Spanish, French and Ladino, ceremonial percussion and deep electronic production. It is the first single from Arilos Mennar, due 5 June on Bologna’s Locomotiv Records.
The duo formed in 2022, drawing on sharply different musical histories. Rokeya, born in London to an Italian-Welsh mother and an Indian father, is a producer, field recordist and sound collector whose solo work threads tribal rhythms through electronic textures. Gouizi, an Italian-Algerian vocalist and multi-instrumentalist raised across North African and Mediterranean traditions, composes in multiple languages and has long explored migration and belonging through song. Together they make electronic music that holds the texture and weight of acoustic tradition, shaped by specific instruments and specific places.
On “Market Miracolo”, percussion from Taha Ennouri and Ali Belazi sets a steady, ceremonial beat beneath the vocal layers. Carmelo Colajanni‘s wind instruments, a palette spanning duduk, bagpipe, bansuri, arghul and overtone flute, open wide atmospheric spaces across the stereo field. Simone Santarelli‘s oud brings timbral warmth in the lower registers. The electronics wrap around and through these acoustic elements, and the track accumulates slowly, gathering voices and textures until the whole thing feels immersive and enveloping.
The market of the title works as both image and structure. Racines describe it as a living space of cultures, languages and encounters, and the track mirrors that: fragments of melody, vocal lines in different tongues, and shifting instrumental colour moving through a shared frame. The album title deepens the picture. Arilos refers to the seeds of the pomegranate, a fruit loaded with Mediterranean symbolism around cycles of life, death and renewal. Mennar, from Algerian Arabic, means “from fire”, a generative, feminine force.
Listen to “Market Miracolo” HERE, and pre-order your copy of Arilos Mennar following THIS LINK