Since the release of Volume 1 we started to work on the visual project of Napoli Segreta, adding some fun but also a kind of “side view”, functional to the project and to it’s beautiful peculiarity.  It has been therefore quite natural this time come to manage and design the whole project of Napoli Segreta Volume 2, from the Artworks to a brand new fun Website.
So, playing around the city in search of the good photo and of the right artwork that would represent that magic new project, we casually found in a dream the two more magic cards added to the deck. This is Napoli Segreta Volume 2, or…

Napoli plays uncovered cards. You know everything about it: songs, verses, sounds, rhythms. You have been digging into the hidden corners of the dustiest shelves of the most remote vinyl markets haunting for the disco and funk sonorities of the only city on Earth where the rooster crows only if accompanied by a mandolin, but you have been unable to pick one single ace from the deck: only few scartinas*. Why? Because Naples is a well-known card. If you come to town and somebody tries to palm Napoli Segreta Vol.2 off on you, tell him you do not need it; you have Napoli Segreta Vol.1 already†. The cardsharp will insist. He will swear that Vol.2 is better than Vol.1, that it is a journey into the ‘70s and the ‘80s that uncovers unknown artists who looked at the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, South America and Africa. He will tell you stories about overwhelming rhythms, heartbreaking harmonies, loves and betrayals, and brave flybys over the sea of a tradition that keeps talking to the world without retreating into itself. He will shout at you that when you see the right cards on the table, you must do scopa! Yet, if you are cold to the diamonds’ call‡, here it comes the real deal: you guess where the ace of bastoni§ is, among the three covered cards, and he will give you the vinyl for free. Thus, «scarta fruscio e piglia primèra**» – my friend – because when you are not good at bastoni, either you are a white card†† or you are playing a loosing game… as love. “Zitto” a chi sape ’o juoco…

*A scartina is a valueless card in a cards game.
†To do the dealing.
‡Literally, you do not hold any diamond card in hand to adequately respond to the call for a diamond card; (by extension) reluctant to pay any money.
§Bastoni, a Neapolitan card-suit with the image of a stick, here the winning card in the three-card trick.
**Literally, to exchange a score for an equivalent one, (by extension) nothing is going to change. Same-same.
††A newbie.

www.napolisegreta.com