{"product_id":"sissi-rada-serious-songs-lp","title":"Sissi Rada - Serious Songs (LP)","description":"\u003cp\u003eGreek harpist and composer Sissi Rada interprets the music of Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms with unfathomable levels of detail and charm, resulting in one of the most gorgeously executed records of the year. Trust - it’s fully essential listening FFO Joanna Newsom, Svitlana Nianio, Kate Bush, Delphine Dora, Nikos Mamangakis…​\n\nSissi Makropoulou has been pinging our radar for a while now, but especially hard since 2024's Stroom-released 'Aporia' and that dazzling ‘Demeter In Aexone’ album that properly locked us in to her brand of uncanny avant dream-folk, a highly distinctive signature sound she developed even further on the fantastic 'Nana Butu' earlier this year. She’s a serial collaborator - with Lena Platonos, Brian Eno, Christina Vantzou, Jay Glass Dubs -  even Lee \"Scratch\" Perry -  all the while composing chamber music on the side. And It's that latter practice that comes to the fore on ‘Serious Songs’ singing in German while attacking Wagner's chilly 'Fünf Gedichte für eine Frauenstimme' (Five Poems for a Female Voice) on the A side, and Brahms' pious 'Vier ernste Gesänge' (Four Serious Songs) on the flip. As you'd expect, it isn't just a simple recital; with harp and voice the focal points, packed out with winding, nebulous arrangements and perspicacious references to avant-garde musical history, integrating dissonant orchestral elements, prepared piano, opera, classical guitar, environmental sounds and foreboding oscillations  - with an exquisite ear for detail.\n\nOddly for music this tranquil, it benefits from increased volume - at least a level where you can marvel at the array of tiny, unusual production flourishes. And it's a suite that grows and grows. On 'Wesendonck 1’, she opens with voice and harp recalling Joanna Newsom's folk-inspired song cycle 'Ys'. But as the piece develops, she begins to slowly show her hand, introducing harmonic, hypnotic effects to blur the edges. The result is discombobulating in the best way, sounding as dreamy as Julee Cruise's 'Floating into the Night' while somehow still remaining true to the source material. The drama continues to build on 'Wesendonck 2', her delivery of the words - written by poet Mathilde Wesendonck who Wagner was famously besotted with - fittingly dramatic, assisted by brass and grinding drums broken occasionally by moments of ineffable beauty. On 'Wesendonck 4', Makropoulou augments the production with metallophone chimes, fixing sequences with growling synths and heavily processed cries.\n\nSissi plays a remarkable sleight of hand on the flip. Beginning conservatively, she introduces Brahms' cycle of Lutheran biblical readings with a celestial harp and a gently experimental vocal, pitch shifted to a screwed conclusion. On 'Brahms 2', her performance is kinked by disorienting concrète-style operatic spools that pull us into another musical timeline entirely. She is so confident with her subject matter - whether it's the classical canon, folk, electronic or neue musik - that it all sounds like a natural extension of her practice, converging into something that fully defies categorisation.\n\nAnyway, words don’t really do it for this one. Just give it a spin and you’ll soon melt into it, one of the most quietly startling albums released this year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ciframe style=\"border: 0; width: 350px; height: 439px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3971434771\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=333333\/artwork=none\/transparent=true\/\" seamless\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/idealrecordings.bandcamp.com\/album\/serious-songs\"\u003eSERIOUS SONGS SISSI RADA\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e","brand":"iDEAL Recordings","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49543294517507,"sku":"iDEAL285","price":5371.0,"currency_code":"JPY","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0285\/1694\/1956\/files\/a0614602266_10.jpg?v=1788074748","url":"https:\/\/meditations.jp\/en\/products\/sissi-rada-serious-songs-lp","provider":"Meditations","version":"1.0","type":"link"}