Days of December 2008

What Is Our Homeland?

Days of December 2008. Violent riots in Athens as a reaction to the killing of a young student by a policeman. The beautiful historical city center reduced to ashes, ruined properties, vandalized buildings and monuments. Who protects us from the protectors of all flags and ideologies? A video that does not try to take sides nor explain anything, but simply records (and deplores) one of the most irrational events in Greece's modern history. The patriotic poem What Is Our Homeland? by Ioannis Polemis (1862-1924) takes on a bitterly sarcastic twist, juxtaposed to those images of hate, destruction and despair.

The Melchiades Estrada Band: Pink Radio (single)

Fluorescent, inspired, fascinating

Pink Radio by The Melchiades Estrada Band boasts an intriguing title and the weird beauty of a composite, multifaceted instrumental melody that bridges the colourful epopy of the '80s with the more introverted sophistication of the '90s, and at the same time illustrates the evolution of the composer's own musical universe and personal mythology. Its parts are held together by the thread of rhythm that unfolds in the background, like a rebellious planet with its own cadence of movement, which strangely keeps the rest of the orbits attuned to the universal harmony.

Melnar Tilromen: Valley of the Withered River

Boris Christoff meets Dead Can Dance

Looking for Celtic/Gothic rock on behalf of a friend (and having received a few very nice recommendations in private, for artists on and outside Jamendo) I discovered this beautiful surprise.

MADFEET: Si l'amour etait de ce monde

To go where?

Okay... I found this album while searching for Celtic rock music for a friend, and I must admit that it attracted my curiosity, given the fact that in spite of the impressive introductions on the group's main page, the one and only review it has got so far is negative to the extreme and without any explanations. I must also admit that I usually write about the music I find interesting and which I hope other people might also like to discover; I have infinite respect for everyone's creative endeavours and their (our) agony of artistic expression, so when I don't like something, I just don't write anything. And I have to confess that this time, I find myself in a difficult position.