MBE series

Trance Mediterranea: Ecstatic Greece

Genre: FOLK / ROOTS

2 x Cassette Box

Boomkat Product Review:

Following instalments by Beatrice Dillon and the Nyege Nyege crew, the MBE series offers us a spectacular two hour set exploring the incredibly rich spectra of Greek folk music >> a joyous ethnomusicological salvo documented by Alyssa Moxley, Ramona Stout, and Stéphane Charpentier, replete with photozine booklet.

Spiritual successor to Beatrice Dillon’s Folkways deep dive, ‘Trance Mediterranea: Ecstatic Greece’ focuses on folk music, popular dances and rituals from Greece, spread over 2 hours of fascinating field and documentary recordings. Casting an observant ear over the Med, relatively close to MBE’s Naples base, the twin tapes offer a guided tour of ancient rituals that are thriving in the modern age, drawing links across aeons that help us understand and mark cultural distance travelled over the ages, identifying a familiar need for hypnotic rhythm and sound to aid humans transcend themselves. It's an unmistakably joyful and spirited celebration of rites rarely heard outside their island locations, and one that speaks to the composite nature of Greek music as a product of its mosaic-like make-up, absorbing traditions from proximal regions in Bulgaria (Thrace), and the Balkans.

Tape 1 features an audio documentary of the Pan-Cycladic Tsabouna Festival in Santorini (2011), alongside field recordings of panigiria / festivals held in honour of regional saints, especially in the Cyclades and the Dodecanese islands. Side A features Ramona Stout narrating and in conversation with players of the tsabouna, a member of the bagpipe family that can only play 6 notes, explaining its role in evoking a state of ecstatic trance through sound, and its recent cultural renaissance in Greece, cut with field recordings of its mesmerising tone deployed in situ. Side B focusses on Santorini and the celebration of the pan-cycladic tsabouna festival in Ikaria, plunging listeners into the thick of the celebrations with ecstatic, febrile results that prove these customs are very much still alive this century.

Tape 2 takes listeners on a fire walk, offering documentation of an urban Anastenaria - or fire-walking ritual - in Akademia Platonos, Athens, Greece. Acknowledged as one the oldest rites in continental Europe, with roots in ancient Thrace (modern day Bulgaria), the Anastenaria is practiced by communities from northern Greece and descendants of refugees from the Balkan wars, usually over the course of a three day festival, presented here as an hour of blazing horns and excited chatter that soundtrack processions, icon blessings, animal sacrifices and ecstatic dancing, before culminating in the dancers trampling hot coals, somehow unscathed.

Anyone enchanted by Jay Glass Dubs’ solo gear or work with Wild Terrier Orchestra; Christos Chondropoulos’ AI-augmented revival of microtonal Greek musicks; or the feistiest Sublime Frequencies: will surely be in awe of these tapes. Highest recommendation.

2 x Cassette Box (6)

Edition of 100 copies, double tape edition housed in an oversized resealable bag with an A6 photo-zine served in a bubble bag. Everything individually stamped and numbered.

Play All 2 x Cassette Box (6)