terracotta project

ALBUM REVIEW
by Peter Füßl / Kulturzeitschrift May 2023 p.98 CD-Tipps / www.kulturzeitschrift.at 

The historic port city of Rethymno on the island of Crete is, if you like, the common denominator of the protagonists of the Terracotta Project since all three of them grew up here. Multi-instrumentalist Andreas Paragioudakis, who in this context focuses on the piano, has for years been one of the most active and moving musicians of the ethno-jazz scene in Vorarlberg and Austria, and together with Yannis Papatzanis he is the initiator of this project. The collaboration with Yannis Polychronakis on double bass completed this initiative. Polychronakis can play the double bass in a very different way than usual, sometimes so colourful, as if each time it were different instruments, like a big lyra, a cello... Paragioudakis and Polychronakis always looked at percussionist and composer Yannis Papatzanis with great admiration. Papatzanis is considered one of the most distinguished rhythmists in Greece and has collaborated with great musicians from Rajasthan, Iran, Bulgaria, Turkey, Armenia, Andalusia and Azerbaijan, while he also composes music for theatre and cinema. In the Terracotta Project, he plays the stamna, a Cretan version of the Nigerian pot-shaped clay percussion instrument, the udu. 
The seven compositions written by Andreas Paragioudakis for his debut album recorded in Crete exude Mediterranean charm in a wonderful way - whether joyful, melancholic, wistful, sensational or contemplative. The moods, the impressions of nature, the memories that all the participants know in one way or another are behind the catchy melodies, the sometimes exotically charged harmonies and the sometimes quite sly rhythms. "The Wheel" is written in 9/8 Turkish Greek dance rhythm Karsilama and has awakened in Andreas Paragioudakis since childhood the image of the spinning wheel of a wooden cart. For the homonymous piece "Daphne", in turn, he was inspired by the smell of a laurel leaf that he broke and smelled at the foot of Vrysinas mountain outside his village Chromonastiri, near Rethymno. The Terracotta Project in no way serves the cheap clichéd ideas that central Europeans might associate with a Greek island. But you can feel the sun, you can smell the sometimes dramatically choppy sea and wandering relentlessly demands its due. Fortunately, thanks to "Daphne" one can get numb for a while along with the music !