Watersong

Savina Yannatou, Primavera en Salonico, Lamia Bedioui

Watersong
Release date: 11.04.2025 ECM 2773
CD18,90 €add to cart
Play Sample
EN / DE
Savina Yannatou’s fifth ECM album revolves around the theme of water in its many manifestations. Water as a blessing and a curse. A life-sustaining source and a mortal threat in the elemental power of the storm.  Shakespeare’s The Tempest with the spirit Ariel’s song, “Full Fathom Five”, provided an inspirational starting point for Greek vocalist Yannatou and the Primavera en Salonico band in a project in which they are also joined by Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui. There’s a special magic that occurs when Savina and Lamia sing together – as was already evident on Yannatou’s Terra Nostra more than 20 years ago. In the present recording Bedioui embodies the desert realm, as the Arabic language and the Bedouin dialect intersect with the languages of Mediterranean Europe and elsewhere. Songs come from many compass points and historical epochs. A traditional piece from Egypt segues into one from North Macedonia. A setting of a 10th century poem by Arab prince Abu Firas al-Hamdani is situated between a South Italian lament and a Greek carol. An Irish Gaelic song precedes a Corsican tune and Primavera En Salonico’s unique take on the African-American spiritual “Wade In The Water.” Multi-cultural in their musical passions, and daring in their stylistic juxtapositions, Savina and friends also illuminate the connections between the traditions.
Das fünfte ECM-Album von Savina Yannatou dreht sich um das Thema Wasser in seinen vielfältigen Erscheinungsformen. Wasser als Segen und Fluch. Eine lebenserhaltende Quelle und eine tödliche Bedrohung durch die elementare Kraft des Sturms. Shakespeares „Der Sturm“ mit dem Lied „Full Fathom Five“ des Geistes Ariel diente der griechischen Sängerin Yannatou und der Band Primavera en Salonico als inspirierender Ausgangspunkt für ein Projekt, an dem auch die tunesische Sängerin Lamia Bedioui beteiligt ist. Wenn Savina und Lamia zusammen singen, entsteht ein besonderer Zauber – wie schon auf Yannatous Terra Nostra vor mehr als 20 Jahren zu hören war. In der vorliegenden Aufnahme verkörpert Bedioui das Reich der Wüste, indem sich die arabische Sprache und der Beduinendialekt mit den Sprachen des mediterranen Europa und anderswo überschneiden. Die Lieder stammen aus vielen Himmelsrichtungen und historischen Epochen. Ein traditionelles Stück aus Ägypten geht über in eines aus Nordmazedonien. Eine Vertonung eines Gedichts des arabischen Prinzen Abu Firas al-Hamdani aus dem 10. Jahrhundert steht zwischen einem süditalienischen Klage-  und einem griechischen Weihnachtslied. Ein irisch-gälisches Stück ist einer korsischen Melodie und Primavera En Salonicos einzigartiger Interpretation des afro-amerikanischen Spirituals „Wade In The Water“ vorangestellt. Transkulturell in ihren musikalischen Leidenschaften und kühn in ihren stilistischen Gegenüberstellungen, beleuchten Savina und ihre Gefährten auch die Brücken zwischen den Traditionen.
 
Featured Artists
  • Savina YannatouVoice
  • Lamia BediouiVoice
  • Primavera en Salonico
  • Kostas VomvolosQanun, Accordion
  • Harris LambrakisNay
  • Kyriakos GouventasViolin
  • Yannis AlexandrisOud
  • Michalis SiganidisDouble Bass
  • Dine DoneffPercussion, Waterphone
Recorded

March 2022 & March 2024, Sierra Studios, Athens

Original Release Date

11.04.2025

  • 1The Song of Klidonas
    (Traditional)    02:43
  • 2Naanaa Algenina (Garden Mint) / Ivana
    (Traditional, Traditional)    06:42
  • 3Ai Giorkis (Saint George)
    (Traditional)    02:59
  • 4A los baños del amor (At the Baths of Love)
    (Anonymous)    03:59
  • 5Perperouna
    (Traditional)    04:11
  • 6Con qué la lavaré? (With What Shall I Wash it?)
    (Anonymous)    03:15
  • 7Sia maledetta l'acqua (Cursed Be the Water)
    (Anonymous)    02:21
  • 8Mawal (To the Mourning Dove, I Said)
    (Nazem al-Ghazali, Abu Firas al-Hamdami)    03:54
  • 9Kalanta of the Theophany
    (Traditional)    04:10
  • 10The Immortal Water
    (Traditional)    04:46
  • 11Full Fathom Five
    (Robert Johnson, William Shakespeare)    03:03
  • 12An Ròn (The Seal)
    (Traditional)    02:20
  • 13O onda (O Wave)
    (Ghjuvan-Petru Lanfranchi)    04:40
  • 14Wade in the Water / Allah Musau (God of Moses)
    (Traditional, Traditional)    07:23
Her new album with Greek jazz ensemble and long-term collaborators Primavera en Salonica and Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui is a global tour of traditional songs about water: how it can be balm and curse, source of life and storm. […]  The album jumps across the centuries, from Ireland to Iraq, Corsica to Calabria, but it is filled with intensely modern moments. Michalis Siganidis’s double bass in Greek carol ‘Kalanta of the Theophany’ has motorik-like propulsion. The 10th-century Arabic poem ‘Mawal (To the Mourning Dove I Said)’ comes across as an avant garde contemporary prayer, setting a tangle of percussion against Yannatou and Bedioui’s spoken-word delivery, full of contrapuntal whispers and wails. Traditional instruments such as Kostas Vomvolos’ qanun (an Arabic zither) and Harris Lambrakis’s ney (a Persian flute) also add drama and dreaminess. This album sets traditional music flowing and crashing in many unexpected, wonderful directions.
Jude Rogers, The Guardian
 
After 44 previous albums, Greek vocalist Savina Yannatou has interpreted songs and styles from many ancient traditions in the 21st century. During her career, she's become one of the world's great vocal improvisers. ‘Watersong’, her fifth album on ECM, reunites her with longtime collaborators Primavera en Salonico and Greece-based Tunisian singer and storyteller Lamia Bedioui […] The pairing of these two singers on ‘Watersong’, when combined with Bedioui's and Primavera en Salonico's canny accompaniment and improvisation, offers a casebook in marrying historic musical traditions to modernist arrangement and improv; it preserves tradition even while expanding its reach into a world that has almost forgotten it.
Thom Jurek, All Music
 
 
If this is a multicultural exchange of musical ideas and texts, drawing as it does on from sources from the 10th and 15th centuries, its success can be attributed to the work, care and devotion of not just Yannatou but also Kostos Vomvolus who is responsible for arranging the songs and the ensemble Primavera en Saloncio with Savina, and has worked with her on her previous ECM releases. The skill of the arranger and use of traditional instruments such as the oud, nay and zither-like qanaug bring not just an authenticity to the music but also an intriguing blend of sounds to delight the ear. The ensemble has a seemingly inexhaustible array of rhythms, textures and melodic devices at their disposal, and with Savina’s voice create a unique acoustic soundscape in which to present the age old stories inherent in theses traditional world songs.
Nick Lea, Jazz Views
 
Gemeinsam mit ihrer Instrumentalallianz, der Primavera en Salonico und der tunesischen Sängerin Lamia Bedioui, erkundet sie auf ‘Watersongs’ musikalisch die Jahrhunderte, den Zauber und die Macht, die Erlösung und die Gefahr, die das Wasser auf die Menschheit ausübt. Es sind demütige wie respektvolle Lieder, die auf ‘Watersong’ Eingang gefunden haben. Sie umschreiben die verschiedenen mediterranen Kulturen, dokumentieren die historischen Lebensumstände in einer emotional berührenden Art, beschreiben die Sehnsüchte während langer Trockenperioden und das Glück, das anschließend der erster Niederschlag vermittelt. Letztendlich sind es Tod und Fruchtbarkeit, die hier ihren Ausdruck finden. Savina Yannatou interpretiert Kompositionen aus der Renaissance, süditalienische Klagelieder und korsische Volksmelodien, sie vertont ein Gedicht des arabischen Prinzen Abu Firas al-Hamdani aus dem 10. Jahrhundert und, als Gegensatz hierzu, ein afro-amerikanisches Spiritual. Ihr begleitendes Instrumentalensemble spielt auf der Oud, dem Quanun, der Violine, dem Akkordeon, auf Trommeln, dem Kontrabass und dem Waterphone, einem Hybrid aus Wassertrommel, afrikanischem Lamellophon und einer Nagelgeige. Doch über allen strahlt und berührt die Stimme Savina Yannatou. Ihre respektvolle Ausdruckskraft zeichnet sich durch hingebungsvolle Leidenschaft aus, dabei immer auf der Suche nach einer seelischen Balance zwischen mediterranen Dialekten und Sprachen und einer melancholischen Verletzlichkeit, die dieses Album zu einer der berührendsten Aufnahmen dieses Frühjahrs werden lässt.
Jörg Konrad, Kultkomplott
Dark-toned but ambrosial, highly disciplined yet seemingly bursting with a soul of pure flame, the rather staggering Athens-born singer Savina Yannatou is a virtuosic chameleon adept at an extensive range of vocal traditions…not just interpreting but leaping off from these old folk musics with a daring, exploratory technique and far-flung tonal scope that allows her to stamp it all with a brash intelligence.
 – Los Angeles Weekly
Greek singer Savina Yannatou’s fifth ECM album revolves around the theme of water in its many manifestations. Water as a blessing, and a curse. A life-sustaining source, the medium of baptism and spiritual rebirth, and a mortal threat in the elemental fury of the storm.  Shakespeare’s play The Tempest with the spirit Ariel’s song, “Full Fathom Five”, provided an inspirational starting point for this project, its imagery conveying the sea’s power to effect startling metamorphosis: “Full fathom five thy father lies/Of his bones are coral made/Those are pearls that were his eyes/Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea change/Into something rich and strange.” The richness and the strangeness are embodied in the playing here, with percussionist Dine Doneff drawing ghostly harmonics from a bowed waterphone, while Savina freely interprets the 17th century melody of English composer and lutenist Robert Johnson.
 
As ever, on Watersong Yannatou moves gracefully among a multiplicity of cultures and dialects, as she addresses music from Greek, Cypriot, Corsican, Spanish, Italian, English and Irish sources… A recent German radio portrait described her as a time traveler and an initiator of avantgarde world music.  The geographical range of that music is expanded this time with the addition of Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui on several pieces. There’s a special magic that occurs when Savina and Lamia sing together – as was already evident on Yannatou’s ECM debut Terra Nostra more than 20 years ago. In the present recording Bedioui embodies the desert realm, as the Arabic language and the Bedouin dialect intersect with the languages of Mediterranean Europe and elsewhere. “I really enjoy working with Lamia,” Yannatou has said. “Not only because she interprets the songs in Arabic so beautifully but also because I am able to improvise over her vocals. Our voices are very different, but fit together well.”  At the climax of Watersong, Primavera en Salonico cross reference the African American gospel melody “Wade in the Water” and the Egyptian traditional “Allah Musau (God of Moses)”, songs of escape and spiritual liberation, with Yannatou and Bedioui as lead singers and interweaving free improvisers.
 
Bedioui is to the fore on “Naana Algenina” from Aswan, on the banks of the Nile, with Yannatou singing countermelodies. The nay flute of Harris Lambrakis bridges the transition into the North Macedonian song “Ivana.” Lamia also has a central role on “Mawal” a 10th century poem by Arab prince Abou Firas Elmhamdani, set to music by Iraqi singer-songwriter Nazem El Ghazali.
 
*
 
Primavera en Salonico was formed in 1993 to play Kostas Vomvolos’s arrangements of Sephardic folk songs with Savina Yannatou, and the core line-up has been stable since then, as a collective of players whose work has touched on idioms from classical and folk music to jazz, experimental music and improvisation.  Accordionist and qanun (zither) player Vomvolos has written music for dozens of theatre productions, apt background for shaping instrumental scenarios for Yannatou to inhabit as she moves between songs of different traditions.  Oud player Yannis Alexandris works also as a luthier, and like violinist Kyriakos Gouventas, has much experience in the worlds of rebetika and traditional music.  Bassist Michalis Siganidis is active in contemporary creative music, and recently issued an album for bass and electronics. Harris Lambrakis has shaped a new role for the nay inside Primavera en Salonico, where this ancient flute is often a lead instrument, responding directly to Yannatou’s voice. Lambrakis is also a featured soloist on Eleni Karaindrou’s album Medea. Heard here as percussionist, Dine Doneff (also known as Kostas Theodorou) is a multi-instrumentalist equally at home on bass and guitar. Lamia Bedioui, born in Tunis, has lived in Greece since 1992. In addition to her own projects and collaborations with Yannatou, she has appeared in concert with Jon Balke’s Siwan ensemble.
 
Savina Yannatou  studied singing in Athens with Gogo Georgilopoulou and Spiros Sakkas, later attending postgraduate studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She became widely known in Greece through her radio collaborations with composer Lena Platonos. In the 1980s she was a founding member of the Athens Early Music Workshop. In  the 1990s, in parallel with the beginnings of Primavera en Salonico, Yannatou intensified her investigations into free improvised music, working with Peter Kowald, Barry Guy, Floros Floridis and others. Her music today reflects all of these influences.
 
On ECM, in addition to her albums with Primavera en Salonico – Terra Nostra, Sumiglia, Songs of an Other, Songs of Thessaloniki and now Watersong – Savina Yannatou can be heard on Eleni Karaindrou’s Tous des Oiseaux and Arild Andersen’s Electra.
 
Watersong was recorded at Sierra Studios, Athens, in March 2022. The album was produced by Manfred Eicher.

Related Recordings