Savina Yannatou, Primavera en Salonico - Songs of Thessaloniki

Savina Yannatou’s fourth ECM album is a dazzling evocation of her band’s hometown, plunging deep into its rich and complex history. Once known colloquially as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, Thesssaloniki has been home to a host of cultures, religions and ethnic communities. Greeks, Jews, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Slavo-Macedonians and Pontiac Greeks have shared the city’s diverse life. Yannatou gives all of them a voice, even casting an Irish song about Salonika into this multi-lingual programme, in which she shines as a unique interpreter and spokeswoman for the city’s ghosts. As ever, Primavera en Salonico are a delight, one of the most resourceful bands of any idiom, as they negotiate the inspired – and very varied – arrangements of Kostas Vomvolos.