Description

A new album by Efrén López and Christos Barbas is always good news, especially if it is the first one by their acoustic duet, culminating 18 years of shared musicianship and friendship. During this period they have collaborated in numerous projects & albums, groups like L’Ham de Foc, Yeden, Aman Aman, Abracadabra and countless concerts in the circles of Labyrinth Musical Workshop in Crete and elsewhere, Labyrinth being another collective home of theirs. On Atlas the two musicians reconnect with the power of the acoustic duet’s sound and its simplicity, through a series of primarily new compositions (Hoquetus, Sadaf, La Nau, Jasmin) and also melodies coming from medieval and ottoman classical traditions (“Ben volgra, s’esser poges”, “Kürdi Peşrev”), with a lot of space and time spent in textural and minimal improvisations. Through years of mutual interaction and shared knowledge, the duet has developed a kind of common vocabulary, a lexicon based on the musical disciplines that each of them have studied in parallel, that are juxtaposed in multiple points and combined with extensive spaces for improvisation, silence and meditation.

The album came into being after the invitation from their friend Constantino López, musician and sound engineer, based in Murcia, southern Spain, to participate in his novel discographic project “Primavera en el Atlas Colección”. The collection consists in the edition of a limited series of records by different artists, created in such a way as to guarantee, above all, the reconciliation of the listener with the music in its purest and most natural state: it aspires to shed light on the art of musicians from a near and perhaps even personal angle by emphasizing the live interaction between musicians and the real feeling of playing together in the same space. Atlas is here – thus – an album name, the life project of Constantino, and also the title of the last track in the album composed by Efrén.

Press

WORLD MUSIC CHARTS EUROPE #10

“This album is thoroughly enjoyable on many levels. If you are missing your travel to sunny climes this music will take you out of yourself for a while. On a deeper level, this music is complex and will invite investigation and exploration for the curious listener whatever the level of knowledge of the music of the Middle East. If you are a player of string or wind instruments it will leave you spellbound.” Folk Radio, exploring independent music and culture (UK)

“A series of atmospheric, thoughtful musical conversations in modal music between Efrén López, from Valencia in Spain, here variously on oud, lavta, fretless guitar, oğur sazi, Afghan rabab and tanpura, and Greek multi-instrumentalist Christos Barbas on ney and lavta. Both have extensive, illustrious musical histories, and both are very involved with Ross Daly’s Crete-based Labyrinth teaching and creative workshops. Their compositions, four by each of them, plus a couple from the 13th and 17th centuries, are the basis for duet improvisation, and it’s the sense of dialogue that comes over to the listener.” RootWorld (US).