Jorgos Skolias - vocals
Antonis Skolias - percussion, vocals
Kolos
HEVHETIA 0101
By Adam Baruch
This is a wonderful duo album by Polish vocalist/composer Jorgos Skolias and his son Antonis Skolias, who sings and plays drums and percussions. Together they perform nine original songs, all co-composed by the father/son team, which feature lyrics in the Greek language. Three of the songs have lyrics by the Greek poet Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, and who is now recognized as one of the finest Modern Greek poets. Another four songs originate in songs Jorgos remembers from his childhood.
Jorgos Skolias is one of
several musicians active on the Polish scene, who belong to the Polish Greek
community, members of which arrived in Poland
as political refugees escaping the persecutions following the end of the civil
unrest in Greece
after WWII and the defeat of the communists in 1949. Poland, a "young"
socialist country at the time, opened its doors to the Greek exiles and they
became integrated within the Polish society, producing such great musicians as Apostolis
Anthimos, Milo Kurtis, Konstanty Joriadis and others.
The album is a bold statement
of originality; featuring just vocals and percussion where the limitations seem
insurmountable, and yet the duo manages to create a fully fledged bona fide magical
musical environment, which seems completely natural and misses nothing. Of
course Jorgos Skolias is a phenomenal vocalist, a fact known to all his
followers since many years, who is able to use his vocal chords in ways nobody
else tried before. His ability to create wordless vocalese is a class in itself
and he is able to carry a melody like an entire set of instrumentalists. In
some ways this album is another facet of his work with the Oles Brothers and
their trio called Sefardix, which features vocals supported solely by a rhythm section,
which also works out fabulously.
It is quite impossible to label
this music stylistically, and perhaps this quality is one of its strengths. There
are Folkloristic elements here, but also improvisation, Rocky rhythms, Jazz
& Poetry manifestations and a whole bunch of other elements, all beautifully
amalgamated into a musical experience, which is fascinating from start to
finish. Skolias manages to create aesthetic tension and his deep throaty voice has
simply no parallels.
Kudos to Jan Sudzina and his fabulous
Hevhetia label for releasing this music, which has no chance in a commercial
environment in spite of its intrinsic values; this tribute to the Greek and in
fact the entire Mediterranean group of cultures shows the diversity of the
European Culture and the magnificent ingenuity of musicians, who are able to
completely ignore imaginary boundaries. This is definitely a unique gem, which
will award its listeners a stunning experience, full of surprises and delightful
thrills.
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