Xanthoula Dakovanou – Lamenta (Quart de Lune, 2021)
Lamenta, the 2021 release from Greek vocalist and composer Xanthoula Dakovanou, is anchored in the miroloï tradition of Epirus, ancient mourning songs that have long carried grief through the mountains of northwestern Greece. Notably, this album extends a hand to the past, inviting its ghosts to dance through a music shaped by jazz, post-rock, and ritual.
The album, originally composed for a dance performance choreographed by Koen Augustijnen and Rosalba Torres Guerrero, is rooted in movement, not just of bodies, but of time, history, and feeling. This sense of transition is everywhere: from the raw, unaccompanied wail of traditional miroloï, to sweeping crescendos carried by clarinet and electric guitar.
Indeed, Dakovanou, who serves as the project’s artistic director and principal voice, guides us through this journey with both reverence and risk. Her voice is not ornamental, it is elemental. Like the polyphonic singing traditions of neighboring Balkan cultures, her tone is sometimes harsh, sometimes tender, but always direct.
What’s remarkable here is the balance. Lamenta never dilutes the mournful gravity of its source material, even as it builds on it with global influences. The post-rock textures are atmospheric rather than intrusive. Jazz appears not as genre, but as gesture: an openness to improvisation, to dialogue.
Epirus, with its stark landscapes and history of exile, is a region where lamenting is not performance but practice. In that cultural context, these songs aren’t sad, they’re necessary. They articulate what words cannot. That Lamenta was premiered at the Avignon Festival and later at La Villette in Paris speaks to how these regional forms, when treated with integrity, resonate far beyond their origin. Here, grief becomes communal, even cross-cultural.
Musicians: Xanthoula Dakovanou on vocals; Kostas Filippidis on lute, Lefkothea Filippidi on vocals, Avgerini Gatsi on vocals, Dimitris Brendas on clarinet, Ourania Lampropoulou on santuri, Alexandros Rizopoulos on vocals and percussion, Dimitris Katsoulis on violin, Stefanos Filos on violin, Thanassis Tzinas on vocals; Kleon Andoniou on electric guitar, vocals; Antonis Maratos on bass; Panagiotis Katsikiotis ‘Tsiko’ on drums; Stefanos Filos on violin; and Solis Barkis on percussion.
Buy Lamenta.
Author: Madison Quinn
