NIKOLAS SKORDAS & ALEXANDROS AIVALIOTIS - Facing Infinity
Slam Production SLAMCD594
Nikolas Skordas, soprano sax, tarogato, traditional flutes; Alexandros Aivaliotis, hocchicu, shakuhachi; Sophia Koroxenou, guest voice track 12
The tarogato is a single reed woodwind instrument believed to originate in Turkey and often associated with Hungary and Romania. It looks something like a clarinet. The hocchicu is a bamboo pipe with four holes along the front, one at the back for the opposing thumb. Generally used for Zen meditation because of its ‘raw’ construction, it requires a high level of technical skill. The shakuhachi is very similar and both these latter instruments have roots in Japan. They are thought of as flutes (no reed) but are end blown.
The combination of such unusual instruments (I include the soprano in this) introduces to us a very singular, special kind of music that has grown out of dissimilar musical legacies and wants to inhabit this world exploring its own life. It does not want to be seen as a copy of somebody else’s ethnological heritage, to be ‘folk music’: it is much deeper than that.
It seems that as each track ends it leaves behind an enchanted aether through which there is a flux, quietly moving, of an unfathomable interchange of semiotic signals through which the musicians flag their musical intentions. Finally and a little bizarrely, Sophia’s voice is added to the mix which changes it and I’m left hoping for more.
This is a thoroughly mysterious and charming album, one which you may find impossible to categorize – so just listen to it instead.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Slam Production SLAMCD594
Nikolas Skordas, soprano sax, tarogato, traditional flutes; Alexandros Aivaliotis, hocchicu, shakuhachi; Sophia Koroxenou, guest voice track 12
The tarogato is a single reed woodwind instrument believed to originate in Turkey and often associated with Hungary and Romania. It looks something like a clarinet. The hocchicu is a bamboo pipe with four holes along the front, one at the back for the opposing thumb. Generally used for Zen meditation because of its ‘raw’ construction, it requires a high level of technical skill. The shakuhachi is very similar and both these latter instruments have roots in Japan. They are thought of as flutes (no reed) but are end blown.
The combination of such unusual instruments (I include the soprano in this) introduces to us a very singular, special kind of music that has grown out of dissimilar musical legacies and wants to inhabit this world exploring its own life. It does not want to be seen as a copy of somebody else’s ethnological heritage, to be ‘folk music’: it is much deeper than that.
It seems that as each track ends it leaves behind an enchanted aether through which there is a flux, quietly moving, of an unfathomable interchange of semiotic signals through which the musicians flag their musical intentions. Finally and a little bizarrely, Sophia’s voice is added to the mix which changes it and I’m left hoping for more.
This is a thoroughly mysterious and charming album, one which you may find impossible to categorize – so just listen to it instead.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
