To say that the traditional taranta pizzica dance from the heel of Italy is infectious provides an insight into where Nidi d’Arac and band leader Alessandro Coppola are coming from. The title of the album – referring to the container vessels that virally connect every port and culture – provides another. The music of Nidi d’Arac infects the traditional with the beats and styles of modern dance music – dub, techno, rock – and from it’s base in the beautiful city of Lecce, sets out to infect the world.

However this updating of traditional music is done with great respect for the source material. The band has worked hard for the past 12 years, tracking down singers and dancers and learning from them. A typical Nidi D’Arac song starts with the traditional rhythm, played by the most traditional of acoustic instruments: the violin and tamburello (tambourine), before the heavier electric guitar, bass, drums and electronics storm in. It’s a successful recipe that’s seen the band become a regional live draw and sparked renewed interest in the old music for a new generation.

The live sound of the band is a key element to their success and Alessandro Coppola wanted to get that feeling across on this new album. To this end seven songs are taken from the previous six albums (published between 1998 and 2007), but rearranged to capture the live sound of the band. Alessandro puts it like this: “The best way to live a song is playing it. After hundreds of concerts since 1998 it has become important to revive these songs in a new drive through the interpretation of musicians and instruments in recent years have given rise to concerts Arac’s nest in Italy and worldwide”.

Of course, the music of Nidi d’Arac is not immune to infection itself and the Taranta Container has undergone some interesting mutations in its trip around Europe. Taking as their source book Nidi D’Arac’s earlier album exploring the timeless folk roots of Salento (2007’s Salento Senza Tempo) some of Europe’s finest musical contaminators push the taranta into new, 21st century convulsions. Gaudi from multi-ethnic London propagates some bug-dub on Ci Fice Lu Mundu; Dj Click from Paris offers an infectious Ipocharia; DJ MPS Pilot from Amsterdam goes viral with a Kuduro remix of Quante Tarante?; The excellently named Mr Tos from Portugal, comes with a downright contagious version of 29 Giugno and finally an inflammatory remix of Klama performed by Anglo-Italian singer-songwriter Piers Faccini, a great fan of the music of Salento.