Greek folk ensemble "Bir Taifa". Dzhanym.

Anyway, they are excellent albums, both of them! Prekrasnye!

Two new publications with music of the Azov Greeks, almost 20 years after the legendary publications by Alexandr Ashla (which are commemorated in the rubric “Old but still new”). 20 years, and incredible changes have swept the region, thousants of greek-originating people have migrate from the northern coast of the Black Sea to Greece and, the borders being open, the cultural as well as the financial exchanges, are everyday practice. What has been changed, what is still as it was? Sartanski Samotsvity, the “Gems of Sartana” interprete songs in the regional greek language which, while borrowing Slavic and Turkic words, keeps its Greek torso to an extend comprehensible by the (Greek) listener. It keeps also many elements of the Greek musical tradition –modes, rhythms etc– although, as it comes through a system of formal education, has a kind of contemporary Bulgarian hint. Bir Taifa, the “One family” are a nice surprice as, in spite of their Greek origin, are Turkic speaking and their sound is closer to the Krym Tatars. It’s uncertain to which extend these albums depict an ancient tradition; along with the ancient elements, one can find in them strong marks of the last tumultuous years, of the burden of living in a foreing land and of the practice of cultural loans. Recapitalizing all the above, here comes the song In my own hut by Giorgos Mitsakis, which closes the album of Sartanski Samotsnity, putting the question what ends the old and where starts the new, where ends imitation and where does originality starts – exactly there, where nobody expects it.

Difono (www.difono.gr)