Savina Yannatou’s fourth ECM album is a dazzling evocation of her band’s hometown, plunging deep into its rich and complex history. Once known colloquially as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, Thesssaloniki has been home to a host of cultures, religions and ethnic communities. Greeks, Jews, Turks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Armenians, Slavo-Macedonians and Pontiac Greeks have shared the city’s diverse life. Yannatou gives all of them a voice, even casting an Irish song about Salonika into this multi-lingual programme, in which she shines as a unique interpreter and spokeswoman for the city’s ghosts. As ever, Primavera en Salonico are a delight, one of the most resourceful bands of any idiom, as they negotiate the inspired – and very varied - arrangements of Kostas Vomvolos.

- Kostas Vomvolos (qanun, accordion)

- Michalis Siganidis (double bass)

- Kostas Theodorou (percussion)

1. Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou

2. A la scola del Allianza

3. Tin Patrida Mou Ehasa

4. Dimo is Solun hodeshe

5. La cantiga del fuego

6. Una muchacha en Selanica

7. Iptidadan yol sorarsan

8. Qele-qele

9. Calin Davullari

10. To yelekaki

11. Salonika

12. Inchu Bingyole mdar?

13. Jelena Solun Devojko

14. Yedi-koule

15. Poulakin eiha se klouvi

16. Pismo dojde od Soluna grada

17. Apolitikion Agiou Dimitriou