The harp is one of the oldest instruments in the world. Depending on whom you ask, it is said to be over 5,000 years old. Obviously, with such longevity, it must have more to offer than just the soundtrack to grape picking. One artist and musician who has dedicated her career to the harp is Berlin-based Greek Sissi Makropoulou. Under the name Sissi Rada, she is releasing her third solo album »Aporia« for the first time on the Belgian label STROOM 〰. It is a hub for unusual European music and has become the ideal home for her idea of timeless, minimalist outsider pop. Carried by her harps and a vintage Prophet-5 synthesizer, Sissi Rada manoeuvres through ten songs that are sometimes barely recognisable as such. She beeps, plucks and drips, everything stays in motion. The pieces are held together by her voice, which sometimes resembles a robotic chant (e.g. on »Sappho«, the only song not sung in Greek), and which at other times, such as on »Sunnefo«, spreads out in a heavenly way and covers the whole fragile sonic construct like a warm blanket. The applause for »Little Party« is justified.
Aporia
