Search - Various Artists :: Rembetika: Greek Music From the Underworld

The origins of the music we now know as Rembetica lie in the obscurity of the mid-nineteenth century, or even earlier. It can be roughly divded into two schools: The first was that created by the Greek population of Ottoman cities such as Constantinople (Istanbul) and Smyrna (Izmir). In the main, this was played in public places of entertainment by highly skilled professional musicians, using, chiefly, Violin, lyra, Sandouri, guitar and mandolin. However, the fact that there also existed a rougher, more underground, form is evidenced by the "brothel" recordings made by Yiangos Psamathianos in Constantinople in around 1912 (see Arhoolie CD 7005). Meanwhile, chiefly in the underworld of homeland Greece, there developed another form of Rembetica, played in enclosed places such as "Tekedhes" (hash-dens) and prisons.This was more a music of non-professional musicians performing on guitar,baglamas and bouzouki. Recording began as early as 1905, in Constantinople and until 1914 engineers from England and Germany made many visits to the Near East to record Greek and other local musicians. After the tumultuous events of the first World War, and the Greek - Turkish war which followed it, recording of Greek music by the large international companies switched mainly to Athens. Between ca.1925 and 1937 a wealth of material was recorded, much of it of a semi-underground nature - a phenomen that appears to be unique in world music. However,in 1936 a Fascist government under Ioannis Metaxas took power and quicky introduced censorship.This censorship took a while to be fully implemented,but from 1937 on hard-core Rembetica was forced underground; although it made a brief post-war re-appearance on record in June, 1946, before censorship was reimposed. REMBETICA The etymology of the words Rembetis (see glossary) and Rembetico (plural Rembetica) remains unclear. Several theories have been put forward,but none has proved convincing. The word Rembetico first appeared on a record label in Constantinople in ca. 1911. It was used to describe a song (" Aponia") of mildly erotic, bohemian content and its subsequent use on record labels until the mid 1920s was, generally, to describe similar material. However, over the years, the word has come to signify pieces of a more strongly underworld nature.