Dalot, Sound Awakener

*100 copies limited edition* Ianos takes as its starting point the concept of duality as it is expressed through life and death, endings and beginnings. It marks another milestone collaboration between the artists Nhung Nguyen (aka Sound Awakener) and Maria Papadomanolaki (aka Dalot) who spent most of 2023 exchanging ideas, sculpting, forming and finalising the seven compositions in the album.

As with previous releases, the two artists draw from their own personal experiences/memories and how they interweave with bigger contexts and events such as the outbreak of wars and social instability, the human condition, its finitude, its past and possible future as it coexists with nature and the more-than-human.

'Tone in A Minor' and 'Birth from Fire' present two distinct moments in the album, inspired by Papadomanolaki’s own experience of the loss of her mother as it coincided with the birth of her second daughter and the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. The core of compositions such as 'Heart Continuum' or 'When We Die Our Souls Become Nature' lies in the ambition to convey a positive message towards the world, the environment and a passageway to forward movement and the transition to healthier, perhaps more peaceful futures.

In pieces like 'Easter Church Bells' and 'Never Beat a Dead Horse', the merging of field recordings with more mellow and sustained sounds adds a deeply reflective timbre echoing the passing of time, the loss of hope and the changes in perspective.

The album closes with the rather unsettling and eerie 'Body of Shells', an homage to motherhood as a trope for the hope of humanity and for an overarching solace as it is found through rebirth; a boat that harbors change, compassion and the cohabitation of the artificial, the spiritual and the natural au lieu of death, tragedy and trauma. The end opens up a portal towards a possible beginning.