Lifted From The Earth

Al Wootton, known for his experimental musical projects, presents a new album Lifted From The Earth in the cassette series by Berceuse Heroique. After successful releases on labels ZamZam, Livity, and Trule, as well as collaborations with Susumu Mukai and Valentina Magaletti during the project Holy Tongue, Wootton continues to experiment with form and push the boundaries of styles. The new album is a combination of tribal, dub, and "fourth world ambient."

The woman in the photograph is Tetekula (Θετεκούλα του Μωραΐτη), the wife of the performer on the Greek lyre Michalis Dargakis (Μιχάλη Νταργάκη). Constantine Manos (Κωνσταντίνος Μάνος) captured her in the village of Olympos (Όλυμπος) on the island of Karpathos (Καρπάθου) in 1964. The photograph was published in Manos' collections Suite Grecque (1972) and A Greek Portfolio (1999). Along with other works from the Suite Grecque collection, Tetekula's photograph was donated by Manos to the "Association of Greek Musical Folklore Domna Samiou" and included in the insert of the record Τραγούδια της ξενιτιάς, dedicated to the theme of Greek migration.

It is also noteworthy that on the left side of the album cover, are depicted - small invertebrate coelenterates with a cylindrical body and tentacles around the mouth, inhabiting freshwater bodies. Tetekula seems to be looking at the hydra with a slight distrust. Apparently, the cover designer subconsciously concluded that all Greeks must be somehow connected to ancient Greek mythology, albeit not in the most trivial way. Translation powered by chatGPT