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2. wound without a tear
For synthesiser, electronics, electric guitar, sample from recording, male voice, field recordings
‘wound without a tear’ is based on the tsimpito ‘Ελληνική Απόλαυσις’ - ‘Greek enjoyment’ by George Katsaros. The piece can be characterised as a trip between soberness and drunkenness, life and death or consciousness and unconsciousness. In this composition I included field recordings of a priest when he was doing my grandmother’s yearly memorial at the cemetery next to the Saints Constantinou and Helen church - ‘Ναός Αγίων Κωνσταντίνου και Ελένης’ (see sound-map link for location) on Holy Friday and a recording of nuns’ psalm on Easter Monday at St Charles Church. In the priest recording the use of a church smoker with bells is used. I approached the piece as an oral tradition and tuned the guitar (from low to high) as D G D G B D. The electric guitar in this composition can be found in three recordings in clean sound, reversed and processed through two pedalboards playing sometimes simultaneously. The first pedalboard is a ‘Jazz fusion’ with a compressor, vintage overdrive, modulator, chorus, and delay. The second pedalboard is a ‘Synth bass’ including an octave, a fuzz, a flanger, a Graphic EQ and an Echo. The synthesiser mainly used the notes of the tuning. About the text-setting, I included just the second stanza of the song. In the composition, there is a sample from a Linguaphone English course I found on an old vinyl. The sample is about a man who travels by boat to meet his partner and thus his story is related with the song’s story. The sample was deconstructed and it was used as a narrative of this piece’s ‘trip’. Instead of using a taqsim in the start of the piece which is common in rebetika, I decided to place a drums’ improvisation in the middle to the end of the piece. The improvisation was achieved after giving suggestions to musician Fidias Ferekides. The idea of this drums’ improvisation relies on Roy Haynes lick played in groups of 7s in triplets and 9s in triplets merged with the swing cymbal beat which is the fundamental drum jazz rhythm. The 9s in triplets are inspired by the zeibekiko rhythm of 9/8 which is used in the original song in the bass line and the 7s in triplets from the Greek kalamatiano rhythm of 7/8. This composition is a fusion of rebetika (as it uses the rebetiko mode - tuning), of byzantine music (use of psalms from field recordings) and of jazz swing rhythms.
lyrics
Lyrics of original song:
GR:
Ελληνική απόλαυσις
Άντε, σα πεθάνω τι θα πούνε
Πέθανε και ένας μπεκρής, ένας μπεκρής
Αντε, πέθανε και ένας ντερβίσης
Σα κι εμένα νυχτογυριστής, αμάν, αμάν
Άντε, της τριανταφυλλιάς τα φύλλα
Θα τα κάνω φορεσιά, βρε, φορεσιά
Άντε, να τα βάλω να περάσω
Figure 1
Άντε, να σου κάψω την καρδιά, κι αμάν, αμάν
Άντε, σα’ποθάνω στο καράβι
Ρίξετε με στο γιαλό, αμάν, γιαλό
Άντε, να με φαν’ τα μαύρα ψάρια
άντε, και το αρμυρό νερό, αμάν, αμάν
ENG:
Greek enjoyment
Ante, if I die what will they,
An alcoholic died
Ante, a poor man died
Like me, a night-owl, aman, aman
Ante, the leaves of the rose
I will make them a costume, vre, costume
Ante, I will wear it and pass by
ante, to burn your heart, and aman aman
Ante, If I’m dying on the boat
Throw me on the shore, aman, shore
Ante, the black fish will eat me
Ante, and the salt water, aman, aman
credits
from sound adaptations of rebetika tsimpita,
released April 1, 2022
Antonia Kattou: composition, electronics, synthesizers
Antonis Hadjiantonis: voices, clean guitar samples
Fidias Ferekidis: drums samples
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