You can't help but feel that you are in the presence of antiquity when you first listen to the four men singing in the Canto a Tenore style. That's understandable for no one knows just how old the music actually is. It is found rooted most strongly in central Sardinia where it's traceable to the poets of antiquity. For the style is a trio of background singers who produce the nonsense syllable setting on which the bache, or solo voice, sings the melody and poetry text. But it isn't quite that simple. The bassu and contra singers produce a guttural effect by tension of the vocal chords with nasal overtones, creating a resonance found only in Morocco, Northern Syria, and Tuva. Combined with the mesa 'oche, a high register voice that we would think of as tenor, a cascade of natural harmonics is produced called concordu by the Sardinians.