Vamvakaris, Markos
Death Is Bitter
Twelve of the heaviest early tracks by the master of rebetika music. Markos Vamvakaris sings from the hash dens of the Greek ports of the 1930's - mournful, poetic, bitter music of love and long nights. On these twelve tracks, recorded in Athens between 1932 and 1936, Markos was already a master of the bouzouki. His forceful, clean playing compliments his hoarse voice and his stunning rhythmic sensibility, the result of his years as a champion zebekiko dancer. Tracks build and spiral outward, his open-note drones and melodic lines drawing calls of ecstasy and encouragement from his fellow musicians. Translations of songs like 'Hash-Smoking Mortissa' and 'In The Dark Last Night' provide a glimpse into the life and language of the manges - Ottoman cafe music, the calls of displaced Greeks of Smyrna, the chaos and suffering of port life, it all comes through Markos' songs. These recordings, incredibly rare and expertly remastered, mark the height of rebetika, the brief period between the music's emergence on the recording scene in the early 1930s and government censorship of all lyrics starting in 1936. During the Axis occupation there was no rebetika recording, and though Markos had some hits in the years after the war, he never again attained this level. These are the dizzying, entrancing, and heaviest works of one of the great artists of the 20th century. Expertly remastered from rare 78s by Stereophonic Sound, pressed on heavy 160gm vinyl at Smashed Plastic, includes full size 8-page booklet with detailed historical notes, rare photos, and lyric translations.