Karakoz
Roman producer Toni Cutrone, better known as Mai Mai Mai, has carved out a singular space within Italy’s experimental underground. Emerging from the capital’s leftfield electronics and noise circuits, he built his reputation on a body of work that treats Mediterranean folk memory as living matter rather than archival relic. Releases such as Nel Sud and Rimorso intertwined field recordings, ritual percussion and grainy synth atmospheres, often hovering somewhere between drone, industrial murk and sub-heavy sway in an exploration of Southern Italian and wider Mediterranean folk traditions. Across Rome’s alternative circuit, he’s as active behind the scenes as on stage, helping shape and sustain some of the city’s most progressive listening spaces.
His 2026 full-length record, Karakoz, arrives via Maple Death Records, the consistently adventurous Italian label known for championing artists who blur psych, folk and experimental electronics. Recorded largely during a 2024 residency in Ramallah and Bethlehem, the album reflects direct engagement with Palestinian musicians, voices and everyday life. Rather than sampling from a distance, Cutrone folds chants, percussion and ambient sound into his own shadowy production language.
Tracks like “Grief,” featuring Maya Al Khaldi, foreground voice as invocation, while the title piece nods to shadow theatre traditions, unfolding as a slow, ritualistic build. “Echoes of the Harvest,” with saxophone contributions from Alabaster DePlume, drifts into meditative territory without losing its grounding. On “Dawn of the Cremisan Valley” (named after the rural valley on the outskirts of Bethlehem in the West Bank, cut in two by Israel’s separation barrier), Mai Mai Mai is joined by Palestinian artist and vocalist Julmud, whose work often moves between experimental sound and politically charged expression. Here, his eery, distorted voice threads through the sonic landscape, acting as both witness and echo. Throughout, and especially in moments like these, Karakoz situates its sonic experimentation within the lived reality of occupation, allowing landscape, memory and resistance to resonate through sound rather than slogan.