ARTICLE
2006 10 Favourite Labels

ALBUMS
aMute
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Asphalt Jungle
Joseph Auer
Avia Gardner
Tommi Bass
Caural
Cdatakill
Christ.
Conjoint
Contriva
Cursor Minor
DJ Soul Slinger
DJ Wally/DJ Willie Ross
DoF
Electric Penguins
Encre
Flashbulb
Fuckpony
Funckarma
Cedric Gervais
Eglantine Gouzy
Greater Than One
Greg Haines
François Houle
Housemeister
Jan Jelinek
Eleni Karaindrou
Kode9 + Spaceape
Takagi Masakatsu
Mini
Move D
The New Law
Nuuro
Qwel & Meaty Ogre
Rant
Max Richter
Janek Schaefer
Svarte Greiner
Thighpaulsandra
Unwed Sailor
Geoff White
Wilt
Yellow6
Jesse Zubot

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
4 Women No Cry Vol. 2
Analog for Architecture
Assemblage Sessions
Jimmy Van M
King Unique/Nubreed
Monza Club Ibiza
Pop Ambient 2007
Rub-N-Tug
Thankful
The Rorschach Suite

3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
Baseheadz
Big Toe
Franco Cangelli
Richard Chartier
Deadbeat/Monolake
Depth Affect
Diebombshelters
DJ Koze
Eltron
Johan Fotmeijer
Hellothisisalex
Mitsuaki Komamura
Múm
Ozka
Seekers Who Are Lovers
Strategy
Tandem 5
Andi Teichmann
The Twilight Sad
Ray Valioso

Eleni Karaindrou: Elegy of the Uprooting
ECM

Elegy of the Uprooting is not Eleni Karaindrou's Symphony of a Thousand, regardless of the impression left by the massive orchestral and choir forces adorning the two-disc set's cover photograph. Seated at her piano, Karaindrou seems almost dwarfed by the collective magnitude of the 110 musicians but long-time devotees of the Greek composer's music needn't worry: Elegy of the Uprooting is wholly free of bombast. If anything, the concert document (recorded March 27, 2005 at Megaron, Athens) is both a culmination and overview of this remarkable composer's oeuvre, with selections from her previous ECM releases newly embroidered into what she calls “a scenic cantata.”

Because the albums are such fully integrated works characterized by recurring themes (specifically soundtrack pieces composed for films by Theo Angelopoulos, Lefteris Xanthopoulos, and Christoforos Christofis and music created for a 2001 production of Euripides' play Trojan Women), one might expect that reconfiguring their component parts into a large-scale concert presentation would prove jarring; surprisingly, the pieces comfortably cohere into a new whole that's ultimately more homogeneous than not. Even when an extreme shift occurs, like the segue from the Traditional Instruments ensemble (santouri, ney, kanonaki, et al.) in “For the Phrygian Land Vast Mourning” to the solo piano setting “By the Sea,” Karaindrou's distinctive composing signature seamlessly bridges whatever gap separates them. Another unifier is the music itself which, driven by themes of loss, exodus, and exile, is predominantly somber.

Typically, the individual pieces are performed by small groupings drawn from the larger entity, so the selections lose none of the intimacy heard on the original recordings; furthermore, many of the key contributors to Karaindrou's past releases—oboist Vangelis Christopoulos, French horn player Vangelis Skouras, singer Maria Farantouri, clarinet player Nikos Guinos—re-appear, lending the new work a satisfying familiarity. In the opening “Prayer,” the mournful cry of Socratis Sinopoulos's Constantinople lyra meshes perfectly with the hushed choir and delicate French horn and accordion accents while the Constantinople lyra and oboe partake in a melancholy duet in “Dance.” But as splendid as such moments are, isolating them seems misguided when virtually every one of the thirty-eight pieces offers rapture of one kind or another. (Trainspotters take note: Elegy of the Uprooting includes previously unrecorded material from Tonia Marketaki's The Price of Love and Jules Dassin's production of Chekhov's The Seagull .)

December 2006

This review also appears in Signal To Noise, issue 43.