Customer Reviews

Rembetica-Urban Greek Music

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If I had to own one and only one CD of Rembetica music: this one is it!!! Usually there is only one or two instruments accompanying a song/instrumental: either bouzouki alone or with either a kanun, cimbalom, violin, or clarinet, or lyra alone ... then the voice of a famed Rembetica singer starts to sing: to the beat of a "Cafe Aman" melody. The stark contrast of voice and basic instruments creates a very earthy and natural sound.

The liner notes are helpful in listing origin of the song or instrumental, a little history of where it was first played or recorded and something about the life of the artist. Overall, this is the *best* combination of Rembetica music I have yet heard! Erika Borsos (erikab93)

this is by far the best compilation I've heard of old rembetika. All the recordings are original, and they represent the whole variety of rembetika written in the 20's and 30's, from amanedes, to hashish songs, to songs about xenitia and suffering. The song Opios Orphanepse micros is my favorite rebetiko.

this fabulous CD is a marvel of the human spirit caught in time and place .A world we can never go to , but we can visit through this window.There is a eerie nostalgic quality to the music which is palpable and strange given that in their time and place these recordings were contemporary .

This is an excellent resource for real rembetica. it works as an anthology of authentic rembetica styles, a source of entertainment, or personal, sentimental music.

You don't have to be Greek to be able to appreciate and connect with the music. This is a great sounding, emotional and talented, well put together, and special compilation.

A must-have.

This album is a keeper because it is a rarity - displaying the Rebetic style before it became commercialized, before it even "migrated" into the underworld. This is a CD of Rebetika that show its origins, its base: Asia Minor music. It is the prehistory of this genre, except that I heard a cover of "Ime Prezakias" while visiting Greece in 2000. (Seventy years after the song was created!!! Some things simply refuse to fade away.) Much of this music has the instrumentation and modes of the Greek musicians who had to flee the East in 1922-24, and went on to essentially create rebetika. In any case, "Sousta Politiki" is a potent song of exile, Ime Prezakias (I'm an addict) is an evergreen song about the drug addict's anguish and yearning for the powder, and Manes Chiotikos displays that simultaneous vitality and fierce vulgarity that is the signature of Rebetika. This is the music of the people, by the people, for the people. I'm not giving up my copy!