story by GEORGE PISSALIDES
Most people would probably not make a connection between Greek bagpipes and psychedelic rock guitars or electronica, but not so in the case of Kristi Stassinopoulou. The singer and lyricist is one of the best exponents of Greek ethno-punk, a style that has its roots in the Greek folk-rock of the 1970s and its eyes on the future. In a country with a 5,OOO-year musical tradition, and where rockers try to suppress the Greek part of themselves for fear of being considered nationalistic, Stassinopoulou dares to be different, bringing Greek folk and a hippie attitude to world-music audiences around the world. Her mixture of Greek folk. world music, psychedelia. and electronica is what makes her uniquely appealing, and a distinguished artist to boot.
The 46-year-old singer remembers how it all began: “The greatest influence on my career was the music I listened to as a child in Kalamata, the birthplace of my father in South Pelopponissos.You see, Kalamata is the southernmost limit of continental Greece. and closer both to the Middle East and the Maghreb. So every summer I went to Kalamata (where I’d be standing) on a crossroads between Europe, Asia and Africa. The Aegean Sea would let the music travel on the airwaves undisturbed. There, my older peers were experimenting with home¬made radios tuned to radio stations from these neighboring countries. We would listen to Oum Kalthoum, Ottoman classical music, and Bulgarian female choirs. Of course then I did not know who Oum Kalthoum was. I just listened to this great voice every time we tuned to Egyptian radio stations.”
“Another influence was the psychedelic music that was heard around Kalamata and the coast in the 1960s and early 1970s. Kalamata was among the first places in Greece to be loved by the hippies who were coming in numbers. My father had a hotel, and the whole day I was living among these people. I looked at the clothes they were wearing and I listened to the music they listened to. So hippies and music from neighboring countries were inseparable in my mind.”
Her big break came to 1979 when she played the role of Mary Magdalene in a Greek production of Jesus Christ Superstar, causing critics to rave about her acting and singing. She represented Greece in the 1983 Eurovision Contest and released a typical pop/rock self-titled debut album in 1986. From that point forward, Kristi refused to be pigeonholed as a pop singer.
In 1989 Stassinopoulou and guitarist Stathis Kalyviotis formed Selana an underground group in which they mixed garage punk and psychedelia with Greek traditional dances and rhythms. Selana, a cult favorite in certain circles. sowed the seeds of a sound that later blossomed in such albums as Ifantokosmos and Echotropia. As Kristi explains, “Since my youth I had been listening to albums by the late great Simon Karras, the father of Greek ethnomusicology, that featured Greek folk songs and (medieval Greek) Byzantine hymns. The Greek artists who influenced me were Dionyssis Savopoulos and Mariza Koch, who mixed Greek folk and rock, in the early 1970s.”
“Another influence on my music were psychedelic groups such as Jefferson Airplane, Velvet Underground, and The Grateful Dead. I always believed that there was an underground correlation between rock music and Greek folk. These styles have in common the tensive rhythm and the Dionysian spirit that try to communicate to you. Both of them have repetitive motives and simple rhythms and uncomplicated Western-styled arrangements. This is the connection between two seemingly different musical styles: rock. psychedelia, trance or generally Western dance music, and on the other hand Greek folk and Byzantine hymns.”
In 1992 Stassinopoulou released By the Lake with the Poppies, expressing for the first time her love of world music. In 1993 her book of stories, Seven Times in Amorgos, was published; two years later came her mystery novel, The Fiery Sword.
From 1993 to 1997 she and Stathis Kalyviotis, the composer and multi-talented instrumentalist who is now her life partner were writing the songs that later were included in Ifantokosmos (Woven World). She started taking her new songs into small, more friendly, candlelit clubs (usually not of a rock variety) and accompanied her songs with little stories she invented particularly for each one.
Kristi Stassinopoulou talks about her fascination with ancient religions and mythology, themes that are best represented in ”Sol Invictus“ from the Echotropia album (Tinder Records). “Music is vibrations in space and time, and for a sensitive receiver of these vibrations it is only natural to be swept away and travel in the depths of the human subconscious and collective unconscious, to meet and have intercourse with these archetypal religious beliefs and beings and try to revive them and to bring them to the surface in our daily life, through music, My preoccupation with these things, and consequently the references in the songs, is something that is so vital to me and self evident as playing music.”
All these years her shows included favorite songs from Greek folk to British folk-rock and world music, turning her into a cult singer of the Greek scene. But it was the release of Ifantokosmos in 1997 on the now defunct label Thessis (currently distributed by Lyra) that gave her a greater recognition in Greece, Critics hailed a rocker who at last was based in the traditions of her country. It was also the album that gave her international recognition, The title track opened the double compilation Grecia De Oriente y De Occidente (Resistencia: Spain), whereas her ”Anixandario“ (Opening Hymn) was included in Voices From the World (NMC: Israel), among songs from Deep Forest, Lorena McKennitt, Madredeus, and other artists.
Ifantokosmos seems to represent the ideal of Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis. Here is an album that mixed Greek folk with world music and psychedelia and played with a punk drive. One of the most famous songs of the album, ”My Locked Heart“ was also included in The Rough Guide to the Music of Greece. Also included in the album were ”Stars“, a folk song from Crete, and folk-based originals such as ”Donousa“, ”Anafi“ and ”I Flower and Wilt“. Finally, out of the Selana songbook came ”Dionyssios and Pan“ one of their most popular songs.
To Kristi, tradition is “about things that you have known since you were a child, things that you recognize as your own and come from the place or country where you were born. As far as folk and rock fusion is concerned, she declares. “I don’t work it as recipe. I have grown up listening to both of these styles. It is completely natural when Stathis writes a melody or when I write lyrics to include these things. I do not plan it that way. When you’ve grown up in Greece in the 60s and 70s these things just come from within. On the contrary many Greek rock artists tried to suppress this side of themselves on purpose. They did this because in their minds Greek folk music was associated with the military junta (1967-1974) or with a conservative background,”
In 1999 Kristi and her group recorded Echotropia (Sound Colors) on the Greek label Lyra. The new album took their music a step further: they added electronica in the mix and took their psychedelic sound to its natural limit. The album was so trippy that one critic said, “even ol’ man Timothy Leary would love it.” The album hit number six in World Music Charts Europe in May 2000, and a year later it was being distributed in North America by Tinder Records.
Echotropia includes songs with a variety of influences. ”We Are Flying“ the opening track, mixes Indian tables and electronica, ”Trygona“ is a folk song from Epirus. “We usually listen to contemporary arrangements of Epirotic songs with a rich sound and big reverb effects” says the singer. “We wanted to arrange it in a more simple form, in an electronic way with just a repetitive melody that reminded us of the crying of a bird. I heard ”Majnun“ from the Schal Sick Brass Band and I added lyrics inspired by the fateful love of mad prince Majnun and Leyla, one of the greatest tales of Arabic literature.” Recently Schal Sick paid back the honor and recorded ”Anafi“ featuring Kristi for its forthcoming album.
One of the best tracks in Echotropia is ”Sol lnvictus“. I asked Kristi to tell me the story behind its pagan lyrics with their references to “masquerades in sheepskin” and “frenzied dance of the people jumping over the fire” She explains “This song is written in Greek Thracian rhythm. It was written when I looked up in the encyclopedia about the cult of Mithra and the religious rituals dedicated to the Sun God, that survive in Thrace with the Anastenarides (fire walkers of May 21), dedicated to St. Constantine and St. Helen.”
Has Kristi Stassinopoulou ever thought that there might be critics who complain that she distorts folk tradition by using loops or psychedelic guitars? “We do not distort tradition,” she replies. “We just play folk songs with instruments we have at hand in our apartment. We are like the gypsies who can’t buy a folk instrument and play solos from zourna or folk clarinet with a straw. When I was fifteen I didn’t have a lute. I had an electric guitar. But I love these songs and nobody can say anything to me. It is not just the music of my grandfather. It is mine, too. What belongs to the world of my grandfather is the idea that you should play a folk melody as handed down by a previous generation, (like classical orchestras playing Mozart]. There are many artists who play this way. Nobody can prevent me from doing anything with them the way I want. They are mine, or, at least mine, too!”
