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Sublamental Records
ΣΥΝΑΦΩΝΙΑ SYNAPHONIA
τώρα now
οι ώρες ρέουν hours roll
κλάματα κυλούν tears fall
και τροχαλίες τρέχουν & pulleys revel
ενώ while
εγώ here
εδώ I
αφανή αφήνω phantomly
πίσω σιωπή forsake
silence
Γιώργος Χουλιάρας Yiorgos Chouliaras
(trans. Stathis Gourgouris)
This musical synthesis is literally based on Yiorgos Chouliaras’s poem “Synaphonia”. The poem’s recitation is digitized into six virtual instruments, some created from found sounds, tuned to the G minor scale: bowed guitar, cello, rusty strings, feedback, rain on tin roof, and foghorn. Each generates a 16-bar loop that is sequenced in an elliptical orbit, so they all intersect and overlap in unrepeatable order. Some instruments have been selected for random decay, which is fed back into the loop.
The languid, even if at times brooding, pace of the drones conveys the poem’s undoing of symphony through resonance. Ideally, the piece should extend indefinitely until the listener imagines the perfect repetition of all intersections, which would only be a concoction of their mind. Here, it concludes with the poet’s voice, who brings it to its final silence.
[The English translation can only barely approximate the (a)phonic resonance of the Greek.]
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Composition, recording, and production: Count G
Poem and voice: Yiorgos Chouliaras
The first phase of composition took place in Galaxidi in September 2021. The poem was recorded by the Yiorgos Chouliaras in Athens in the same period. Further recording and mastering were finalized at Riverside Studios in New York in December 2021.
Cover art: Stathis Gourgouris
