In the seventh of a series of quick QnAs with artists performing at Womad NZ this year, Alessandro Coppola from Nidi D'Arac (pronounced nee-dee dah-rak) of Italy answers a few questions.

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In the seventh of a series of quick QnAs with artists performing at Womad NZ this year, Alessandro Coppola from Nidi D'Arac (pronounced nee-dee dah-rak) of Italy answers a few questions.

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Southern Italian folk music has been reconstructed for sharp modern ears by Nidi d’Arac. Lacing the rural tarantella musical traditions with rock, electronica and contemporary dance beats, singer Alessandro Coppola has led this quartet through a decade of innovative recordings and performances.

What (or who) did you want to be when you were growing up?

I would have like to be a black singer...Terence Trent d’Arby or Prince. But this is only because at the time there weren’t already Lenny Kravitz or Ben Harper!

Name three people – alive or dead – you’d invite to your ultimate dinner party & why?

Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Michel Petrucciani...because they are all my neighbours at the moment; they are all buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

What are you reading at the moment?

I am reading one of my many books on the American Mafia.

What’s currently playing on your iPod?

I do not have an iPod (nor an iphone!) but lately I have been listening to Siouxsie and the Banshees, Daniel Lanois & Black Dub....plus some very rare traditional songs from Salento recorded in the early ’70s.

What do you hope audiences will take away from this work?

I hope that people will say ‘ Wow, I am surprised that this music comes from Italy! So there is also ‘avantgarde’ music produced in Italy, afterall!’

What else are you currently working on?

Yes, I am currently working at our new album, which should be due in 2014. It will be the evolution of our work which we started in ’98 . I want the album to have no borders between different music genres or categories or periods. There will be wave, pop, dub, indie, electronic and traditional and ancient music from Southern Italy. Its songs will tell us stories from the past and from today.

Will this be your first visit to New Zealand?

First time and very excited!

Do you have any artist/ cultural/ personal connections with New Zealand already?

I feel very close to the Maori singer Tiki Taane. I find his artistic and personal path (development) very similar to mine. My actual manager who lived in New Zealand in ‘98/99 (we were just friends then and didn’t work together) introduced me to Salmonella Dub because she found that they sounded a bit like us at the time (we were experimenting with Dub and drum’n’bass at the time). Funny enough, we still have loads in common. Would be cool to finally meet and do something together, we’d love that!

Nidi D'Arac will be performing at WOMAD, Taranaki, March 15-17 2013