NYN

opis:
multikulti.com:
Długo musieli czekać fani talentu Kristi Stassinopoulou & Stathis Kalyviotis na drugą płytę. Ale warto było!
Album "NYN" to absolutnie wspaniała kontynuacja świetnie przyjętej na świecie płyty "Greekadelia" z 2012 roku.
Minęły raptem cztery lata od wydania w angielskim wydawnictwie Riverboat Records pierwszej płyty, ale ostatnie cztery lata dla Greków to cała epoka. Tym bardziej urzeka muzyka wypełniająca ten album, a jest ona niezrównanego piękna i pomysłowości.
Grecja dzisiaj to kraj pogrążony w gniewie, ignorancji i powierzchowności, duet zaangażowanych artystów Kristi Stassinopoulou & Stathis Kalyviotis w umiejętny sposób dotykają greckiej tradycji i tworzą muzyczną, wielobarwną opowieść osnutą wokół głębokiego piękna i prawdy o tej tradycji.

O poprzedniej płycie pisano:
(...) Grają ludowe piosenki z całej Grecji (nie ma tu ani jednej ich kompozycji), a w ich aranżacjach dominuje psychodelia. Oczywiście, nie można się dowiedzieć, że to Kristi śpiewa i gra na tabli i tamburze, a Stathis zajmuje się produkcją sampli, loopów i grą na lauto (czyli greckiej lutni po prostu). Ani tego, że te wersje stoją okrakiem między tradycją i nowoczesnością, jednocześnie będąc bardzo plastycznymi. Wystarczy tylko zamknąć oczy i ujrzeć błękit Morza Egejskiego, gaje oliwne na stokach gór, białe plaże, ale przerażająco puste. Choć to demotika, pieśni ludu, aranżacje na "Greekadelii" są bardzo surowe i zimne. Jednak to zupełnie inna pustka niż na drugiej płycie The XX, nie wynika ona z braku pomysłów, lecz jest swoistym hołdem dla nieprzyjaznej greckiej przyrody. Jest też tym, co najmocniej wprawia w trans, zapętlone dźwięki lauto, monotonny, beznamiętny głos Stassinopoulou, plamy z loopów kierują "Greekadelię na wschód, do Iranu i dalej, do Indii, wydobywając ten pierwiastek greckiej muzyki, na którą przecież Azja miała ogromny wpływ, nie tylko w czasach osmańskich (...) naobrzezach.pl

(...) Kristi Stassinopoulou jest rodowitą Greczynką, pochodzącą z Aten. Artystka, wokalistka, kompozytorka i autorka powieści science-fiction od lat działa na greckiej scenie undergroundowej. Wspólnie z producentem muzycznym i aranżerem, Stathisem Kalyviotisem nagrała już cztery albumy. Najnowszy, który premierę będzie miał 18-19 czerwca 2012, prezentuje ich autorskie opracowania tradycyjnej muzyki greckiej z różnych regionów (geograficznych i kulturowych), prezentując muzyczne zagadnienie "demotiki" (greckiej muzyki ludowej) oraz "rebetiki" (dawnej greckiej muzyki miejskiej). Tradycyjne melodie przepuszczone zostały przez samplery, a ich brzmienie wzbogacono miedzy innymi indyjskim harmonium. Kristi i Stathias zapraszają do podróży po dawnej i nowej Grecji razem z kapitanem, którego głos zapowiadający odbicie statku od brzegu nagrano wiele lat temu. Dziś jest to symboliczny głos podróży i przygody z grecką muzyką (...) etnosystem.pl

(...) W interpretacjach a czasami wariacjach na tradycyjnych tematach kunszt i muzyczna wyobraźnia dwójki muzyków olśniewa i zdumiewa swoją siłą a rewelacyjna energia i świeże pomysły realizowane w sumie oszczędnymi środkami przykuwają uwagę na długo.
Niezwykle emocjonalny głos Kristi Stassinopoulou przywodzi na myśl samą Haris Alexiou, także jej kunszt instrumentalny jest tutaj nieoceniony, choć oczywiście grecka lutnia, na której gra Stathis Kalyviotis pełni tutaj rolę instrumentalnego kontrapunktu dla głosu (...) multikulti.com

“A highly original, compelling set” | 4**** stars, The Guardian

“Nice to find something upbeat coming out of Greece” | 4**** stars, The Independent


"NYN" to spójny, dojrzały i innowacyjny album!

Editor's info:
In times of pain, musicians become nurses of the soul: tending to wounds, bonding deep scars and whispering quiet words of gentle hope amidst the gale. Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis’ music offers salve to their home country Greece: a place that has worn many bruises these last years.

Greece’s financial stability was rocked to the core after the 2008 Wall Street crash plunged Europe into a recession of depths unheard of since the 1930s. Shut out by the financial markets, Greece hurtled towards bankruptcy – an outcome which could have triggered another global meltdown. The International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission offered bailouts. The aftershock of these agreements included intense austerity measures, a sharp rise in taxes and searing cuts to the national budget. Extrapolating global economics can desensitize the issue, crashes and spikes become the everyday machinations of big business. But what this financial failure actually means for the everyday Greek citizen is devastating. Poverty has risen and unemployment is at roughly 25%. Resentment lingers high in the air as Greece searches for a solution, as yet unfound.

Kristi and Stathis’ called their album NYN which means ‘Now’ in Ancient Greek. The title sums up the central message, to live in the here and now. Not to ponder the uncertain future or to indulge in fuzzy nostalgia-laden memories of a once glorious past. The album closes with a choir of friends singing ‘All things come and go... so passes life’. A meditative prayer sung true.

The idea of ‘nowness’ is heard in Kristi and Stathis’ musical mix too. They draw from tradition lacing their offering with Greek traditional folk, rebetika and modal Byzantine chanting, then they kickback, pumping psychedelic rock, punk, contemporary electronica and other far-ranging sounds through the main artery of their sound. Their sound is ‘Greekadelic’, make no mistake.

The opening track ‘Erhetai Heimonas (Winter is Coming)’ features a Mellotron, a tape replay keyboard first released on to the market in 1963. The whirling ethereal sound was well-loved and well-used by The Beatles and immediately connects NYN’s sound to the hazy high points of the psychedelic movement. Indonesian looping rhythms are invoked via a Gamelan sample on the trance-like groove ‘Ithela Na’mouna Nero (I Wish I Were Water)’. The manipulated sound of the native Greek lauto spits out grizzly chewed-up distortion on ‘Ouden Oida (I Know Nothing)’. ‘Strati Strati (Step By Step)’ opens with jingle-jangling cow bells that immediately quantum leap listeners to a Greek hillside complete with journeying Balkan shepherds treading their ancient path. The hum of cicadas keeps time beneath bending mournful strings on ballad ‘Allaxokairia (Weather Changes)’. ‘Mystic Rap’ is a multi-coloured kaleidoscopic trip with Kristi’s hushed vocal drawing closer at each refrain. ‘Pare Me Agera (Take Me Wind)’ ups the pace with island dance rhythms pounding on hand percussion. The song considers the great power, beauty and dangerous wrath of the Aegean Sea. Title track ‘Nyn’ is a haunting ode to the power of ‘Now’, laced-up electronic dance music oozes gently through the arrangement.

With NYN Kristi and Stathis offer up a musical manifesto for their times. Their message is to be mindful, to live in the present, to seize the day not rue the last. What Kristi and Stathis do so well is harness this mantra and realise it both lyrically and musically. Within every rising scale, heart-beat tempo and huskily sung line we hear their incantation.

Irish Times * * * *
From a Greek nation battered and scarred by the Euro crisis, Kristi and Stathis offer a personal and philosophical response, rooted in nature, the elemental, and the “now” (“nyn” in Ancient Greek).
Lyrically poetic (English lyrics included), these are songs of beauty and transcendence, and the electro-acoustic settings range from cicada rhythms to gamelan samples to driving riffs. The root is Greek folk music, but times are too desperate and challenging to fall back on old tropes.
Greekadelia was the title of their previous album, and it well applies here in the distorted lauto, the looped guitar, and the Indian harmonium. Kristi’s voice resonates with the spirits of a departed folk-rock generation but with rich inflections from further East. Contemporary folk music for troubled times.
by Nigel Wood


rootsworld.com
With NYN, Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis have created an absolutely wonderful reprise to their Greekadelia. Here they are, addressing the meltdown of Greece by offering music of incomparable beauty and inventiveness.
No one I know has combined psychedelica and traditional music like this duo. But still, I unwrapped this CD expecting a letdown. After all, almost every other contemporary Greek artist has been drawn in to the maelstrom of the financial crisis that has been ravaging the country since 2011, forcing them to either write some kind of agitprop blandness or to withdraw completely. Artists have been twitter-bullied because of their positions regarding the crisis. Others have stopped getting music out for financial reasons or because, frankly, who cares about art when people are going hungry all around us?

It's very difficult to produce music when as an artist you seem irrelevant and when your audience cannot buy it. According to a recent survey, each record is expected to sell around 1,000 copies.

Yet, this music comes pouring out of the speakers: "Winter is coming" sings Stassinopoulou and each one of us Greeks knows what she's all about. "The new Middle Ages are coming, but hush: we'll be together." The more the song plays, the better you feel: they are addressing the issue head on but still produce innovative music in a song about togetherness, toughness, determination and love. The bass in the music drives the point in, following a rhetorical question: "Would a sacrifice save us? Or should we just hug and forget it all?" and you know very well which one is their choice. "Let's change the world starting from ourselves" she sings, while people around her are busy carrying sacrificial lambs.

The record continues on a high note with "Ouden Oida," a song that lyrically brings together the Mediterranean from side to side, offering the only mantra for difficult times: "the only thing I know is that I know nothing." The start-stop rhythm section combined with the very Eastern vocal will have you whirling like a dervish, seconding Stassinopoulou in asking: "Why?"

"Strati Strati" takes us up the mountains, where the Greek soul has resided since time immemorial. It is there, among the trees, the stones and the cattle, that the bells invite us into the song.

"Mystic rap" in the hands of less capable artists could have been excruciating. But Stassinopoulou and Kalyviotis have created the record's manifesto, the lyrics pulsating between the cosmological and the ontological, "In my body I feel the tide of the water, I am one drop of the big ocean." It is an ode to the universe in us, the universe that is us.

"Pare me agera" is a love poem to their beloved Aegean, so traditional in her vocal, so avant garde in the musical score with its pulsating, whirling electronics.

"Allaxokairia" declares the emotional need for a safe haven, a secure home to protect your soul and spirit in difficult times. The vocal is more westernized this time, more like a pop ballad.

"Kyma to kyma" has an Iberian feel, rooted in what sounds like bagpipes.

"Ithela na'mouna nero," a fluent, minimalist love poem, is perfectly produced by Kalyviotis, with a rhythm section that seems to be carried by a sampled gamelan.

In "NYN" Stassinapoulou sings, "I threw away the past in the garbage bin." It's one of the most revolutionary phrases ever uttered in Greece, a country that sometimes seems exists just to justify its ancient history. In this hymn for the here and now they sing "I'll just lie down in the Ypsilon of the NYN," the ? of the ??? in Greek letters.

"Ola pane ki erhondai" is the last track, its lyrics revisiting the cyclical theme of the record. "Everything comes and goes. Everything goes and comes," the chorus sings. Good times, bad times, it's just a life. Dance, love, and feel nature, Tao and friends. Hug the earth and the sky!

All of the various strands of their previous work have come together in a cohesive, mature, innovative, brilliant recording. Whether you are new to their work or a long time fan, start with NYN. It is their towering achievement.
by Nondas Kitsos

The Guardian:
Four years ago, with the Greekadelia album, Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis shook up their country’s folk scene by matching the traditional lauto lute against electronica and samples. Now they apply the same technique to their own songs, written in response to their country’s continuing economic crisis.

There are echoes of 1960s psychedelia in the drifting, hazy opening track, featuring mellotron and harmonium, while elsewhere Kristi’s cool, laidback vocals are set against electronic riffs or samples of Indonesian gamelan. The lyrics – with translations thankfully provided – are more personal than directly political, stories of survival and living for the present. In Winter Is Coming, she advises “Let’s lock the door and hide away – everything out there is getting hostile”, while the spoken Take Me Wind contrasts the beauty of the Aegean sea with the dangers faced by refugees trying to cross it.

A thoughtful, gently powerful set.
by Robin Denselow