To Vapori Ap’ Tin Persia - Greek Song

Vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is a Greek song from the Rembetiko repertoire. Rembetiko is a form of music that came to crystallise in the way that we know of in the 1930’s, and its origins are deeply intertwined with the music that Greeks from Greece called Smyrneika, that is, the music of the Greek cafés in Asia Minor. That “early“ chapter that precedes Rembetiko proper was played on local Anatolian instruments such as the oud, qanun, santouri, etc, and the best examples of those are the recordings by Rosa Eskenazi, and I also highly recommend the modern recordings by Αρετή Κετιμέ: Following the population exchanges and the arrival of the 30’s, however, the arrival of the Anatolian Greeks into Greece proper would cause a massive syncretism which would give birth to Rembetiko as we know it today, as Smyrneika came to be syncretised with local Greek mainland elements