Andy Moor, Yannis Kyriakides

A Life Is a Billion Heartbeats continues Yannis Kyriakides and Andy Moor's exploration and mining of the rich and mysterious terrain of Greek rebetika music from the early 20th century. Their first release of this project (simply titled Rebetika (2010)) was for the most part taken from a live recording at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, in 2006. In the years that they have been performing the set since, the songs and improvisations featured on this LP have grown and expanded in repertoire and range of expression, giving more space for rhythmic and hypnotic elements to come to the fore. The music ranges from more composed and arranged renditions of the old tunes to completely improvised pieces that try to capture a sense of the gesture and tonalities of the source music, albeit with a contemporary edge. The material derives again from the golden period of rebetika music, the late '20s and early '30s, including voices such as Rita Abatzi, Markos Vamvakaris, Giorgos Batis, and the great guitarist and singer Kostas Bezos. Mastered by Kyriakides. Limited to 500 copies.