Racines releases today their debut album “Arilos Mennar”, on Locomotiv Records, together with focus track “Zorahayda”.

Racines, the electronic duo formed by artists Rokeya and Anissa, releases today their debut album “Arilos Mennar”, on Locomotiv Records, together with focus track “Zorahayda”.

Seeds, fire, roots. Racines is a project that weaves plural identities and imaginaries, bringing tradition and contemporaneity into dialogue, archaic sounds and electronics.

Preceded by the singles Market Miracolo e Meken Merteh, Arilos Mennar translates this vision into a sonic narrative in which personal and collective experiences meet and cross-pollinate. Arilos are the seeds of the pomegranate, a fruit rich in meaning across the Mediterranean: resilience, rebirth, death, life, union. Mennar, from the Algerian, means "from fire": a primal and generative feminine force. Racines lift these seeds from the earth — mother of traditions — and ignite them with the energy of electronics.

Listen to "Arilos Mennar" HERE

The album moves between pulsating rhythms and different languages, in a soundscape that belongs to no specific place — and inhabits them all. Contemporary electronics, ancestral traditions, global imaginaries: a journey that takes root in the past and burns towards the future.

The lyrics reflect this plurality without hierarchies: Arabic, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek and Ladino merge into a single voice. A search for the sound of words even before their meaning — stories, resilience and desire that emerge from the very substance of language.

“Arilos Mennar” unfolds in nine chapters. Market Miracolo opens the journey as a hymn to inner travel, transforming the market into a metaphor for the encounter between cultures, stories and identities. Meken Merteh tells instead of the courage to fall and be reborn, in a search for freedom and resistance that finds refuge in one’s own inner self.

With Nari (feat. Borda), passion and darkness meet in a constant tension, while Fluir celebrates water as a symbol of life, movement and rebirth. Buttana di to Mà brings Sicilian tradition and that of the Arab Mediterranean into dialogue, giving voice to a song of freedom that crosses borders.

In Zorahayda the rose becomes the image of an unresolved desire, while Aman sings a fragile but persistent joy, capable of resurfacing even in the most difficult moments. Taqfiz transforms nostalgia into movement and dance. Closing the album is Rumman (“pomegranate”), an essential composition in which voice and oud intertwine in a reflection on roots, distance and memory.

The sonic dimension of the album is built with care and precision. The percussion of Taha Ennouri and Ali Belazi amplify the ritual; the wind instruments of Carmelo Colajanni — duduk, zampogna, bansuri, arghul, overtone flute — open evocative spaces; the oud of Simone Santarelli adds timbral depth. On the track "Nari", the production of the mysterious Borda lends the track a hypnotic explosiveness that fully embodies the universe of the album.

The feminine runs through the entire work as a gaze and as a poetics — a force that generates connections and new imaginaries. A vision that is also reflected in the visuals: the artwork is by Marie Cécile, the visual production by Andreola Mejia.

Tracklist

1. Market Miracolo

2. Meken Merteh

3. Nari (feat. Borda)

4. Fluir

5. Buttana di to mà

6. Zorahayda

7. Aman

8. Taqfiz

9. Rumman

ABOUT RACINES

Racines (Roots), is a female duo born in 2022 from the encounter between Rokeya and Anissa.

Rokeya, London-based with Indo-Italian-Welsh roots, is a producer, performer, selector and curator. She has produced site-specific works for organisations such as Ableton and L-Acoustics and has released music with various labels, including Timpan Records, Lump, Kosa, La Tempesta, Mamboz, Beached Records, Kirmana Records and Volubilian Records.

Anissa, Italo-Algerian, is a powerful voice in the traditional canon, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She collaborates with artists such as Moni Ovadia and Max Gazzè and moves between music and theatre, also composing original music and soundtracks.

Two apparently distant worlds, which, when they meet, give rise to a dialogue between traditional heritage and contemporary electronics.

Daughters of multiple cultures, the two artists interweave their musical souls to create the sound of Racines: ancestral, powerful, earthy and cross-pollinated, inspired by the lands facing South.

Marie Cécile was born in the Marche region of Italy, where she currently lives and works. She is a frequent collaborator with Čapek magazine and the Ratatà Festival. As an illustrator, her research centers on the female subject, exploring the deep-rooted connections between women, the earth, and nature. She also regularly participates in collective exhibitions and collaborative projects.