Culture Now (Greece)

REWA is the third album Athens-based pianist/composer Tania Giannouli has release on the New Zealand label Rattle Records since 2012.

Here she works with Rob Thorne, a musician who plays traditional Maori instruments (taonga puoro), and Steve Garden (treatments and construction). The album consists of nine improvised compositions of various lengths, some that are lyrical and Haiku-like, some atmospheric, others dark and intense, but all are inspired and certainly magical. This is music that defies a specific sense of time or place. Rewa creates its own universe, but it isn’t a closed or exclusive space. It’s open and welcoming, and it invites you in.

Giannouli’s two previous albums, Transcendence (2015) and Forest Stories (2012, in collaboration with Portuguese wind player Paulo Chagas) received excellent reviews in various countries, with Transcendence singled out as one of the best albums of the year in Greece, Canada, Portugal, and Korea. Rewa is sure to be equally well received.