Vinicio Capossela is a phantasmagorical singer-songwriter, poet, writer, but also illusionist, showman, and band-builder. He debuted in 1990 with the album All’una e trentacinque circa under the aegis of Renzo Fantini, winning Targa Tenco Opera Prima, an award he would receive three more times in the following years. After the first pre-biographical albums – the telluric Ballo di San Vito with Marc Ribot and Evan Lurie, the explosive Live in Volvo with the Balkan brass band Kocani Orkestar – from the pataphysical Canzoni a Manovella (2000) on, he shifted his attention to more universal themes, often inspired by classical literature, from Melville to Céline, Dante and Homer. Works such as Ovunque Proteggi, Da Solo and Marinai, Profeti e Balene have been staged as total works of art. In 2004 he wrote the book Non si muore tutte le mattine, which gave rise to a shadow play performance and the Radiocapitolazioni broadcast by Radio 3. He dedicated his most recent works to Greece and rebetiko, ’more than music, a way of life’: the album Rebetiko Gymnastas, a documentary made with the filmmaker Andrea Segre and the book Tefteri, published by Saggiatore and translated into Greek and Spanish. In 2013, he also started a new project with Banda della Posta, an elderly but still wild bunch of frontier serenaders, between Buena Vista Social Club and The Pogues, whom Capossela produced and toured with in Italy and abroad. The years 2015 and 2016 were very important for Vinicio: his new book Il Paese dei Coppoloni, the documentary film Nel Paese dei Coppoloni and his new studio album Le Canzoni della Cupa, were the crown of his 25 year-long career. Both works are the result of a deep elaboration about Irpinia (from Hyrpus, ancient name of the wolf), the Land of the Fathers, neglected by History, but full of legends, fairy-tales and fabulous music.