Prominent Greek singer Savina Yannatu releases her fifth ECM album, based on the theme of water in its many forms across several cultures.
~ Courtesy of DL Media
Greek singer Savina Yannatou’s fifth ECM album revolves around the theme of water in its many manifestations. Water as a blessing, and a curse. A life-sustaining source, the medium of baptism and spiritual rebirth, and a mortal threat in the elemental fury of the storm. Shakespeare’s play The Tempest with the spirit Ariel’s song, “Full Fathom Five”, provided an inspirational starting point for this project, its imagery conveying the sea’s power to effect startling metamorphosis: “Full fathom five thy father lies/Of his bones are coral made/Those are pearls that were his eyes/Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea change/Into something rich and strange.” The richness and the strangeness are embodied in the playing here, with percussionist Dine Doneff drawing ghostly harmonics from a bowed waterphone, while Savina freely interprets the 17th century melody of English composer and lutenist Robert Johnson.
As ever, on Watersong Yannatou moves gracefully among a multiplicity of cultures and dialects, as she addresses music from Greek, Cypriot, Corsican, Spanish, Italian, English and Irish sources… A recent German radio portrait described her as a time traveler and an initiator of avantgarde world music. The geographical range of that music is expanded this time with the addition of Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui on several pieces. There’s a special magic that occurs when Savina and Lamia sing together – as was already evident on Yannatou’s ECM debut Terra Nostra more than 20 years ago.
In the present recording Bedioui embodies the desert realm, as the Arabic language and the Bedouin dialect intersect with the languages of Mediterranean Europe and elsewhere. “I really enjoy working with Lamia,” Yannatou has said. “Not only because she interprets the songs in Arabic so beautifully but also because I am able to improvise over her vocals. Our voices are very different, but fit together well.” At the climax of Watersong, Primavera en Salonico cross reference the African American gospel melody “Wade in the Water” and the Egyptian traditional “Allah Musau (God of Moses)”, songs of escape and spiritual liberation, with Yannatou and Bedioui as lead singers and interweaving free improvisers.
Bedioui is to the fore on “Naana Algenina” from Aswan, on the banks of the Nile, with Yannatou singing countermelodies. The nay flute of Harris Lambrakis bridges the transition into the North Macedonian song “Ivana.” Lamia also has a central role on “Mawal” a 10th century poem by Arab prince Abou Firas Elmhamdani, set to music by Iraqi singer-songwriter Nazem El Ghazali.
Primavera en Salonico was formed in 1993 to play Kostas Vomvolos’s arrangements of Sephardic folk songs with Savina Yannatou, and the core line-up has been stable since then, as a collective of players whose work has touched on idioms from classical and folk music to jazz, experimental music and improvisation. Accordionist and qanun (zither) player Vomvolos has written music for dozens of theatre productions, apt background for shaping instrumental scenarios for Yannatou to inhabit as she moves between songs of different traditions. Oud player Yannis Alexandris works also as a luthier, and like violinist Kyriakos Gouventas, has much experience in the worlds of rebetika and traditional music. Bassist Michalis Siganidis is active in contemporary creative music, and recently issued an album for bass and electronics. Harris Lambrakis has shaped a new role for the nay inside Primavera en Salonico, where this ancient flute is often a lead instrument, responding directly to Yannatou’s voice. Lambrakis is also a featured soloist on Eleni Karaindrou’s album Medea. Heard here as percussionist, Dine Doneff (also known as Kostas Theodorou) is a multi-instrumentalist equally at home on bass and guitar. Lamia Bedioui, born in Tunis, has lived in Greece since 1992. In addition to her own projects and collaborations with Yannatou, she has appeared in concert with Jon Balke’s Siwan ensemble.
Savina Yannatou studied singing in Athens with Gogo Georgilopoulou and Spiros Sakkas, later attending postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She became widely known in Greece through her radio collaborations with composer Lena Platonos. In the 1980s she was a founding member of the Athens Early Music Workshop. In the 1990s, in parallel with the beginnings of Primavera en Salonico, Yannatou intensified her investigations into free improvised music, working with Peter Kowald, Barry Guy, Floros Floridis and others. Her music today reflects all of these influences.
On ECM, in addition to her albums with Primavera en Salonico – Terra Nostra, Sumiglia, Songs of an Other, Songs of Thessaloniki and now Watersong – Savina Yannatou can be heard on Eleni Karaindrou’s Tous des Oiseaux and Arild Andersen’s Electra.
Watersong was recorded at Sierra Studios, Athens, in March 2022. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher.
