Kristi Stassinopoulou & Stathis Kalyviotis: Greekadelia

Let me start by saying 'Highly recommended." This Greek duo returns with a thoroughly rootsy and yet completely modern take on Greek folk music that includes ancient instruments with modern technology. I usually try to keep the hyperbole to a minimum, but this is quite brilliant.

The invented term 'Greekadelia' perfectly captures the far-out spirit of this album. First, of course, Kristi and Stathis are both Greek and draw their central artistic inspiration from their homeland. Second, the pun on 'psychedelia' relates to the duo's ability to create music that shape-shifts, twisting and turning their listeners' expectations, and plunging them deep into a new world of expression.

Their head-turning approach of playing old demotika songs, mixed with quirky samples, Kristi's vocals, a traditional Greek lauto, an Indian harmonium and various frame drums, all underpinned by live looping, is sacrilege to some conservatives on the folk scene. Undeterred, Kristi and Stathis are keen to break away from the preservationists and explore something fresh and, importantly, resolutely Greek. They speak with concern that the youth of today – including those with their ears clued in to the supposedly 'underground' scene – are relishing copycat English and American indie bands over home-grown Greek outfits. This album is intended as an antidote to the situation, hopefully inspiring the youth to support contemporary Greek arts and to rediscover their roots … before it is too late.

Kristi and Stathis' musical partnership goes right back to 1989, when they began to play together and formed the ethno-punk fusion band Selana. The urban, attitude-soaked style of their first band has undoubtedly crept into the aesthetic of Greekadelia. 'Rodo Tis Protanastasis' includes a thumping sampled bassline that wouldn't sound out of place in a dance anthem, while 'Me Gelasan Ta Poulia' is a dark and relentless dance about the inevitability of death that echoes the feel of much fast, hard-edged punk characteristic of the early 1970s. Undoubtedly, though, the fundamental inspiration for the album is traditional demotika songs and dances from rural Greece.

Kristi and Stathis have travelled all over Greece, learning the songs via osmosis from village locals and pulling inspiration from the sounds they heard along the way. The opening track on the album, 'Matia San Kai Ta Dika Sou', begins with a recording of a captain announcing his boat's arrival at an island. Nowadays, microphone-shy captains are spared the task, and have been replaced by recorded announcements that herald the vessel's arrival at the touch of a button, with perfectly calculated enunciation. But, as Kristi explains through laughter, for many years the sounds of mumbling captains – speaking first in Greek, then in often somewhat hilariously incoherent and English – was synonymous with travelling to any Greek island by sea. So, with this first humorous track, Kristi and Stathis launch their musical voyage through Greece, each track taken from a different island or region of the country.

The haunting sailor's song 'Anamesa Nissirou' is from the Dodecanese Islands. The song tells of a ship in dangerous waters and of the crew's prayers for help. Kristi's vocals leap and linger on mournful phrases, while Stathis' lauto loops slow, resigned phrases. In the second half of the track, the sampled sound of cresting waves is heard, adding a cinematic depth to the work. In a similar tempo, 'Erhomai Ki Esy Koimasai' is a slow patinada, a tune sung while walking, from old Asia Minor. On this track Stathis also uses samples of sounds from nature, this time including the fleeting, sharp tweets of birds at night. The dislocated tweets layered on top of a lauto riff, spacey electronic effects, harmonium figures and Kristi's sliding, melismatic melody line add to the heady, trance-inducing ambience of the work.

A common theme in the songs included here, and in the demotika repertoire, tells of a longing for a love who is far from home. In 'Halassia Mou', a song from the northwestern region of Epirus, the speaker yearns for their absent beloved: 'My blue-eyed one, you've been away for so many years.' The music is meditative, with a low drone anchored below a gentle, rippling interplay between lauto and percussion. 'To Ponemeno Stithos Mou' tells of a pain, 'because my heart weeps within'. Such strong words are matched by dramatic musical gesture – we hear a pounding frame drum, accented strums on the lauto, deep brooding harmonium chords and Kristi's pained vocal sung in high range.

The subject matter of the Thessalian song 'Kato Sta Dasia Platania' tells of a darker side to the old village way of life. The song tells the tale of Diamandoula, a young girl who was raped in the forest. As the song plays out, she admits the dark truth to her brothers. The track opens with a simple two-note oscillation layered across instruments and effects, before a lauto solo takes prominence. Kristi sings accented vocal phrases across a harmonium drone and cyclical lauto loops. The haunting mood of the song is conveyed by Kristi's expressive, pained vocal.

Kristi and Stathis decided to record this album as a duo in order to retain the gentle intimacy of their live performances. Here, Kristi sings, and plays percussion and the Indian harmonium, a free-standing keyboard instrument. She bought her harmonium in India, inspired by the Velvet Underground's Nico, and the beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg, who used the instrument to accompany poetry readings. Kristi's influences give an insight into the bohemian music scene that so inspires her, an influence that is manifest in the music heard here. Stathis plays the lauto, a Greek lute, and uses a groove sampler and live-looping techniques to unfold his intricate electronic style. With minimal instrumentation Kristi and Stathis carve out a unique soundscape, and present their own truly original, and entirely beautiful, take on the folk music of Greece.
- CD roots

Fresh take on Greek folk material by veteran duo

Growing up in the 1960s and 70s, Kristi Stassinopoulou absorbed influences ranging from Jefferson Airplane and the Velvet Underground to Middle Eastern radio broadcasts reaching Kalamáta, her father’s hometown. After playing Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar, and representing Greece in the 1983 Eurovision competition, she shifted to underground rock. More recently, she has described herself as a “Balkan ethno-trance artist,” or a practitioner of techno-folk-psychedelia.

Despite these predilections, Stassinopoulou is no stranger to the folk idiom. Now she, and life/musical partner Stathis Kalyviotis are back with 13 often stunning takes on traditional songs from different regions of Greece, using a relatively spare palate to generate a full, textured sound, helped along by some judicious live looping. Kalyviotis’ plangent licks on the laoúto (island mandolin) encounter Indian harmonium, assorted frame drums, Stassinopoulou’s penetrating voice (sometimes filtered, but always sounding tailor-made for the material), and evocative samplings of provincial Greece such as surf, flocks of birds, the sonar-like hoot of a Scops owl, sheep-bells and cicadas. It is quite a struggle to single out a standout track but highlights include ‘Anamesa Nissirou’, ‘Kato Sta Dasia Platania’, with its dark subject matter and excellent laoúto solo, ‘Erhomai ki Esy Koimasai’, featuring Kalyviotis on backing vocals, and ‘Rodise I Anatoli’, with Stassinopoulou’s voice showcased against meaty harmonium.

Purists, as the liner notes predict, will be outraged, but this seems a respectful, even diffident, set compared to some of Stassinopoulou’s more outré past outings.
- SONGLINES, UK, Review by Marc Dubin

Nice to find something upbeat coming out of Greece, though that's not the first word this charming CD calls to mind.
"Reinvented folk" is how these young musicians like to describe their art, but with its ancient vocal undertones their down-home reinvention goes back to the music's source. They set urban demotika, sailors' songs and village sagas to traditional Greek lauto, an Indian harmonium and frame drums, which they soup up with the aid of live looping.
- INDEPENDENT, UK, Reviewed by Michael Church

There has been little good news from Greece in recent months, so it's great to find a Greek duo doing inventive, contemporary re-workings of traditional songs. Kristi and Stathis are not exactly newcomers – they once played together in a punk band, and have recorded a series of albums including the European bestseller The Secret of the Rocks – but for this set they are working by themselves, with Kristi's cool, clear vocals backed by lauto, the traditional Greek lute, Indian harmonium (it seems they were influenced by Nico and the Velvet Underground), along with samples and electronica. The traditional demotika songs come from the Greek islands, and right across the country, but are now transformed into a sometimes edgy, rhythmic style that veers from slow, drifting songs to the stomping Rodo Tis Protanastasis, which is driven on by an insistent sampled bass line. A highly original, compelling set. - GUARDIAN, UK, Reviewed by Robin Denselow

The all-star fRoots 30th Birthday Concert at the Roundhouse a few years back was a night of celebration and revelation. Even those whose music had previously failed to strike a chord with me delivered short sets that hit the spot. Chief among these were the duo of Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis, who flew in especially from Greece to perform one song. My previous encounters with Stassinopoulou and her band had left me cold. A gifted singer with an interesting take on updating Greek traditions, but delivered in a somewhat over-fussy musical setting. Hearing her with just one accompanist, I realised what a wonderful expressive voice she's got (you can hear for yourself as the performance is up on YouTube.)
This album - like June Tabor & Oyster band's Ragged Kingdom - was catalysed by that night, just Stassinopoulou and Kalyviotis, the former on harmonium and percussion as well as vocals, the latter on lauto (Greek lute), live looping and electronics, performing a set of tunes from the rural Greek demotika tradition. As the album's title suggests, these are not straightforward interpretations - Greece's branch of the Folk Police will no doubt be issuing a warrant as I write - but the delivery and arrangements are pleasingly understated and clearly made by people who love the material. Kristi's voice quite rightly takes centre stage and it really is a thing of beauty, neither florid nor overly dramatic, she just sings these songs of love, longing and loss like she means every word. The electronics and looping don't get ideas above their station, adding a little colour or a beat to the overall sound. I like things best when they're slow and haunting, as on Halassia Mou and the closing Rodise i Anatolie which features just Kristi and her harmonium.

- fRoots, UK, Reviewed by Jamie Renton