007 Trance Mediterranea: Ecstatic Greece

by MBE series

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Limited Edition Cassette with A6 photo-zine - Series of 100
Cassette
This issue presents documentation by Alyssa Moxley, Ramona Stout, and Stéphane Charpentier from events celebrating the Greek bagpipe (Tsabouna) and orthodox saints (panagiria and anastenaria).

Series of 100 oversized resealable bags containing a box of 2 C60 blu cassettes with clear case + A6 photo-zine served in a bubble bag. Everything individually stamped and numbered.

preview link: soundcloud.com/mbeseries/sets/007-trance-mediterranea-ecstatic-greece

TAPE 1:

SIDE A1 Panigiria Field Recordings

Field recording compilation of panigiria in Santorini and the celebration of the pan-cycladic tsabouna festival in Ikaria. The panigiria are yearly celebrations of local saints, especially in the Cyclades and the Dodecanese islands, where communities gather to eat, drink, play music, and dance collectively in large circle formations. An instrument of cultural reaffirmation and of the sense of community.

SIDE B1 Audio-Documentary of the Pan-Cycladic Tsabouna Festival in Santorini (2011)

Audio-documentary about the development of the tsabouna (bagpipe family), its role in evoking a state of ecstatic trance through sound, and its recent cultural renaissance in Greece.

TAPE 2:

SIDE A2 / B2 Anastenaria Field Recording

Field recording of an urban Anastenaria in Akademia Platonos, Athens, Greece. Recognized as one of the oldest rites in continental Europe with origins in ancient Thrace (modern day Bulgaria), Anastenaria is practiced by communities in northern Greece and descendants of refugees from the Balkan War. Traditionally festivities run over three days, including processions, icon blessings, animal sacrifices and ecstatic dancing to ritual music. Culminating in the fire walk at the end of each night, attendees dance, walk and trample hot coals managing to pass over unscathed.

The booklet presents photographic documentation of the panigiri in Finikia, Santorini and the Anastenaria ritual in Akademia Platonos, Athens.

Curated by Giovanni Napolano
Design: Davide Salvati
Audio: Alyssa Moxley, Ramona Stout, Stéphane Charpentier
Images: Stéphane Charpentier

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about

Trance Mediterranea is an ongoing research that presents thriving, ancestral, popular practices from the Mediterranean region, with an ear to the ethnological and anthropological.

Popular dances and rituals are observed not as anachronistic vestiges, but as celebratory and current folk customs that continue to hold an influential role in the bonds of contemporary society.

Trance Mediterranea aims to reflect on the idea of Mediterranean cultures in Greece, Spain, Italy, the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa as distinct yet united through shared aspects of communal trance music making and rites celebrations.

credits

released April 20, 2022

about

MBE series Naples, Italy

Standing for "Mixed By Erry", the label takes its title from a mythical and somewhat anonymous pirate figure within Naples called Erry with no clear ties to music who issued a series of low-key cassette mixes in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Each of these cassettes came emblazoned with the phrase: “The ideal dimension for a clean listening”.

curated by Giovanni Napolano ... more