Interview / portait, Francisco Lopez Frias
Read this interview in Spanish
Kristi Stassinopoulou, who in the past emulated singers such as Nico, Patty Smith, Blondie or Kate Bush and has since been compared to vocalists such as Marta Sebastyen or Björk; whilst her music has been compared to that of groups like Malicorne,Hedningarna, Steelye Span or Dead Can Dance, was one of the final artists to perform at the culture forum in Barcelona over this past frenetic music-filled summer and will remain indelibly stamped in our memories. Indeed, Kristi managed to captivate us with her personal legacy, christened balkan ethnotrance with touches of psychedelic rock, on three warm evenings in the late summer; a summer that in fact was already over in everything but the weather.
This was the first time Kristi performed in Barcelona and, much to my regret, I was unfortunate to only attend the third and last performance – a day before this interview – in which she decided not to repeat her repertoire, in contrast to the majority of the other artists at the concert. As luck would have it, this multifaceted Greek singer – with parallel studies in dramatic art, Byzantine music and classical voice training, also a published author of two novels “Seven times in Amorgos” and “The Fiery Sword”, who demands so much of herself, included only a few touches of her excellent last album “The Secrets of the Rocks” in this third concert.
“We never play the same song list from one concert to the next, as we usually include songs from all three albums that Stathis Kaliviotis and I have made together.”
Α performance in which she managed to show off her talent as an interpreter.
“I don’t act on stage, but rather I like to communicate on all levels, not only on a musical level; I like to also use body language. I love dancing – I studied ballet dancer when I was young.”
After these statements, the first thing that came to mind seeing her face, is her extraordinary resemblance, in my personal opinion, to Canadian harpist and singer, Loreena McKennitt, with whom she shares some less prosaic and more artistic similarities including a certain aura of mysticism that surrounds her on stage and her obsession with vocal harmonies.
“I know Loreena McKennitt. In 1991, before producing the three most important albums of my career as an artist, we performed a repertoire of folk songs from all over the world, many of which were songs from around the Mediterranean with very different arrangements (for example, in African key). At a certain moment a person approached me and gave me an album that reminded her very much of me (laughter). But the career of this Greek singer took off a few years back when she was chosen to perform musical operas such as Jesus Christ Superstar (in which she played Mary Magdalen) and Evita (in which she played the lover of General Peron), and subsequently in 1983, when she participated in the Eurovision Song Contest – a curious coincidence noted in other singers of world music such as Ofra Haza from Egypt and Dulce Pontes from Portugal with similar Eurovision exposure. With the passage of time these could be interpreted either as simply necessary steps in a performer’s progress to develop their own true forms of musical expression that are of a less commercial nature; or as professional errors to regret because of their important repercussions.
“In the beginning of my career as a singer in Greece, the first thing I did, before even studying, was to play in rock groups at school. I wanted to make music and to be able to produce my own work. This was a difficult task, as the type of music I always wanted to interpret is not easy to classify or categorise. I grew up with rock, but at the same time I was fascinated by folk music, both from Greece and the Balkans. I also enjoyed rock-operas like “Jesus Christ Superstar”, which I used to perform with my band, at school. So when the show came to Greece, I went for an audition and I was offered the part of Mary Magdalen. My participation in the Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of an accident, because the songwriter was a friend of mine; he requested that I record the song for the demo, which in the end was selected for the contest. Moreover, in 1986, I released my first album, which was pop music and was a great commercial hit. At the time I thought that this was the best manner to proceed and be able to attain what I was most interested in. But this was a big mistake, as the major labels classified me as a typical girl able to record commercial pop successfully. As I did not agree, I did not release many albums between 1987 and 1997, which was the year in which I finally released “Ifantokosmos”… Although, actually there was another album before that in 1993, with a different composer. But I must admit that in general I have always tried to make the best of all my experiences. And all of this constituted a great experience in order to discover what I should avoid in the future. If you are able to go against other people’s views and take decisions that are risky, everything becomes a very good lesson and the experience is transformed into a pleasant one, in the sense that it teaches you a lot”. In this respect it appears that a key event for Kristi, was meeting Stathis Kalyviotis, in the nineties, who composed almost all the songs in this new phase in which the artist was reborn as an artist. “Yes, it is true that I started doing my own thing in my albums and working with small companies when I met Stathis Kaliviotis, my songwriter, who is also my husband and with whom I have lived for the last 15 years. We started making ethnopunk music as a group, but did not receive the support of the major record companies, conversely though we were a great success with the people frequenting the small Athenian clubs. The next step was the album “Ifantokosmos”, the first of the three, which I now consider to be more in my taste and the type of album I like to produce.”
This album, which was produced in 1997, was followed by “Echotropia” in 1999 and, finally, “The Secrets of the Rocks” in 2002 (which was released in Spain by Resistencia, in 2003). Three musical offerings, which nevertheless, do not have major similarities. “No, the first album contains more of a folk-rock sound and is less electronic. Most of the songs were played live at the studio, with our band at the time. We had more studio time at our disposal for the second album, because the first album let us get a better contract, which was the reason why we managed to experiment more with electronic technology. This third and latest work was put together in our small studio at home, using the computer a lot, making use of sampling, live looping etc. In this case we only went to a big studio in order to remix the recordings. This was for reasons of convenience, as when you work at home, it is possible that the sound achieved lacks the perfection of the studio, but you actually perform it at the perfect moment. The album is entitled“The Secret of the Rocks”, because it was conceived on the beaches of the Islands of the Aegean (Cyclades), where there are no trees, few plants and only rocks and sea. A landscape in which goats and lizards amicably co-exist. Where, apparently, the night is filled with whispers, insinuations, intriguing laughter and footsteps on a backdrop of pebbles in a rocky coastline with the wind caressing the waves. This is the bucolic setting that they become a part of with their own instruments: the guitar, the flute and the minidisk.
“We started the process of recording in the following manner: firstly we started with the original songs, interpreted with the help of only the lute or the baglama, but without pre-recorded sounds, except for some small samples that were used later when recording at my house. Those sounds were recorded in the atmosphere you have described, living freely next to the sea, sleeping on the beach. This is what we have always done since I was very young, when I started out as an artist. Once we had put together all the songs for the album we started to add these recordings or samples of waves, pebbles, goat bells…” From this coastal enclave, our artist experienced her first dose of Mediterranean music (Italian, Turkish, Balkan, including Byzantine…). The foreign broadcasting stations that she captured on her long wave transistor radio started forging Kristi’s important relationship to the sea, the sounds of nature and the environment, a frugal life without urban comforts in which symbols of integration were as simple as practicing nudism and basic sustenance. Something, which made me think, in her case, of the perfect links, such as those of a chain, between the counter-cultural aesthetics of the hippy movement in the 60s and 70s and the philosophical – vital new age position of the 70s and 80s.
“I believe that you might well be right in that there is a connection between the hippie movement and new age. By that I mean that after the nineties this culture and way of life is starting to make a come back, especially among very young people. Musically speaking, I believe with these trends and types of music are expanding and evolving in circles all the time. I am not overly preoccupied with what is considered in or out, at a given moment in time. On the other hand, I don’t feel part of the New Age movement or any other movement or category as such classifications end up limiting you. What I personally do as an artist, is try to make music with the means that I have at my disposal. So if this is called world music, ethnic, new age, or electronica, it makes no difference to us. But I also understand the need at certain times to have recourse to particular terms in order to describe what each artist is doing. I simply don’t like to be classified or placed in a specific box or section, because certain people like to use those terms in order to describe ideology along with music.”
In fact her second album of this new phase, “Echotropia”, reached number six in 2000 and at the end of the same year ranked no 35 in the World Music Charts Europe. And the success of “Secrets of the Rocks” was even greater, reaching number 1 in 2003 and with a year-end ranking number of 6. Something which Kristi assimilated without qualms. This success is similar to the results achieved by other popular Greek artists who have in recent years increased their international presence as a consequence of an audience that shows an increasing interest in ethnic music and roots. Vocalists like Giorgos Dallaras, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Alkistis Protopsalti, Haris Alexiou or Savina Yannatou, but Kristidoes not appear to share their goals.
“No, I don’t have anything in common with those musicians, except Savina Yannatou. But this does not mean that I have anything against what they are doing; they are very good artists. Only that they have taken a different direction from me. They are involved in projects that, for the most part, are more related to the idea of singing and less to creating. When I was younger I felt more like them, a singer, but now I must admit that I enjoy the process of writing and composing more, because I enjoy the way that we work together with Stathis, sitting in the studio compiling songs and collecting, changing, selecting, editing sounds. Though I have already mentioned that I respect them very much as artists. Savina Yannatou is a very good friend whom I consider as one of the best singers around. She is also doing her own thing and in Greece we are both considered as artists belonging to the same style of interpreters, far removed from the circle of Eleftheria, Alkistis or Dallaras …Although I repeat they are very well known and, of course, a lot more popular than us in Greece.”
Something which comes through very clearly is that she adores the Mediterranean Sea, a main source of inspiration to her both as an artist and as a person. Therefore, it is logical that she shares the idea of a supra-national culture of all peoples bordering on this sea, the existence of cultural and musical identities with common links that can unite or link the Balkans of Goran Brejovic to Mallorca of Maria del Mar Bonet or Sardinia of Elena Ledda to Naples of Eugenio Bennato …
“I know Maria del Mar Bonet and I find many connections in the music of those Mediterranean artists that you mentioned. As I said in the beginning, in 1991, when I hadn’t yet recorded any of those three albums with Stathis, I received a demo, which in actual fact was a compilation of new arrangements on songs from the Mediterranean written by artists like Radio Tarifa, Goran Bregovic, Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popular, musicians from Tunis… At the time we were making covers of those songs in order to include them in our concerts, and christened the performance “Lingua Franca”, as this was the language spoken by 12th Century merchants in the Mediterranean. A mixture of languages, which permitted them to communicate with each other. We thought it the best name for the type of repertoire demonstrating how many things Mediterranean countries have in common”.
