** 500 copies white vinyl** An ongon is an important shamanic tool inhabited by spirits. An anthropomorphic ritual object, highly abstract in form or more realistic, that at the same time attracts and contains spirits. A fetish. In the same way, some traditions, some melodies, some rhythms, sounds and instruments attract special spirits and energies. "Exuvia" is the first work in which Antonio Bertoni uses the pseudonym Ongon. Ongon's music originates from multiple influences and researches: gnawa music, African traditions and jazz are just some of the paths. An indispensable reservoir of his work, the precious contribution of numerous ethnomusicologists and the recordings of traditional musics. Ongon's music proceeds on hypnotic trajectories, between ancestral sonorities and electronic and psychedelic impulses. The magic instrument of this journey is the guembri, an African bass that combines the percussion of the skin with the timbre of the gut strings, but Ongon creates using many other tools: self-made instruments, percussion, guitar, electronics, sampling.

"Like drinking tea in the desert with a guardian of the Gnawa tradition and William Burroughs nodding mockingly and absently behind a dirty glass in a sordid Tangier apartment. A record that is a wild and refined invitation to lose, to let go of the reins. To try the ritual ecstasy of dance and deep listening." (Nazim Comunale)

"Exuvia rely on hypnotic, repetitive rhythmic patterns of the ancestral guembri, Bertoni’s self-built bowing instruments and assorted, raw percussive sounds. But Bertoni, methodically and patiently, intensifies, layers and samples in real time these exoticl sonorities with subtle electronic samples, spacey vintage synthesizers sounds and atmospheric electric guitar lines." (Eyal Hareuveni)

"Exuvia places itself in that small number of products that try to remove the mistreatment that today the gnawa music suffers due to the heavy western productions and to reveal the original load, the trance that constitutes its essence, through an intelligent combination of the elements. In Exuvia the main instrument of shamanic transmission is used (the guimbri, an instrument that timbrically recalls a bass) and the trance is connected to a weave of electronics, samples and concrete synthesis built ad hoc by Bertoni." (Ettore Garzia)