tragoudia

i have always somewhat had some greek music on my radar, but i had trouble finding stuff i like after coming to the states. however, my recent trip to cyprus and the proper re-connection with my friend artemis has helped me tremendously. turns out i am a fan of rebetiko, for one. for those who don't know, it is essentially greek folk music spawned in urban areas. the main reason for my recent bout with this music is the.... haunting, i want to say, melodies. and then with those come the often nihilistic lyrics about life in the mid 20th century.

as per more modern music, i have become a fan of stuff like giannis aggelakas' "i hamogelasti anifora" (the smiling uphill), imam baildi in general (they have a lot of rebetiko stuff going on, especially in imam baildi iii), and ekmek's (yes, that's two greek groups with turkish foods as names) "o fygas" (the runaway/fugitive). that last one also has a song that's mostly in spanish, if one is into that kind of thing.

and also on that last note, quite interesting that in recent memory i have found two pieces of music in spanish but by non-spanish speakers (the other is from a french group called la belle and the album is "teatro lucido")