Cry With Tears: Greek-Albanian Songs Of Many Voices

Description

Isokratisses (from the Greek "women who sing the 'iso' or 'drone'") is a vocal ensemble composed of eight women who perpetuate the ancestral tradition of polyphonic songs from Epirus, a region located in northern Greece and southern Albania. Born and raised in the Greek-speaking villages around Deropoli and Politsani in Albania, the women of Isokratisses have been singing these songs since childhood. The group, whose members range in age from 19 to 56, includes sisters and an aunt among its members. Rocked by this ancient music, they listened to and sang it with family and friends. These songs are passed down from generation to generation. The group began its artistic activity in 2015, driven by singer Anna Katsi, who encouraged the younger members to perform regularly. The collective dimension of polyphonic singing helps revitalize an art form that has been in decline in recent years and reaffirms the prominent place of female voices in the Southern Balkans. Singing these songs weaves an invisible link between the present and the past. The past, childhood memories, rhythmically marked by daily life. On October 14, 2022, Third Man Records released a full album of these polyphonic songs as a solo project, produced by Grammy Award-winning Christopher King. This is social music, intimately tied to the social fabric of poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised communities. Many of these songs are variations of mirologia (songs of fate, morning songs) once sung throughout the Southern Balkans, but which have largely disappeared from popular culture, except in Epirus. Structurally, these songs are pentatonic (five notes without semitones) and composed of three or four distinct melodic voices that intertwine organically yet unexpectedly. The other members of the group provide the iso, or 'drone,' which corresponds to the low tonic note of the melody.