George Haslam & Nikolas Skordas - Lethe

SLAM Productions label owner and saxophonist George Haslam with an improvised duo alongside Greek multi-instrumentalist Nikolas Skordas.

I went to visit Nikolas in Thessaloniki, December 2018. We played a few gigs there and in Athens, I took my taragato and zither, also various sax mouthpieces - I borrowed his alto for the gigs; he played tenor and soprano saxes and various ethnic flutes, bagpipes etc.. It was my first outing with zither, which I had bought in auction a couple of years earlier. I have not learnt the technique of playing it but I have experimented with sounds, I like the natural acoustic feeling.

Anyway, in addition to the gigs and a workshop in Greece we recorded a session in Shellac Recording Studios Thessaloniki, vocalist Sophia Koroxenou, who had made the tour possible, joined us in the studio.

Personnel: Nikolas Skordas (soprano & tenor saxophones, tarogato, traditional flutes), George Haslam (tarogato, alto sax, zither), Sophia Koroxenou (voice tracks 8 & 10)