Combining several old Mediterranean styles into neo-traditional compositions, Mastoridis draws new life from ancient tones. A typical piece features a Greek Bouzouki--a mellow, 8-stringed guitar relative--dancing over complex time signatures and running t
Meditera is a whole new concept of music, which explores the traditions of the Greek, Balkan and Mediterranean music culture, transforming them and extracting the most beautiful and universal elements out of it. The nearest definition could be Mediterranean New Age, or Meditera - Music for Meditation and More. Viktor is the 'founder' of the Meditera project (Meditera.Co.Uk). The project incorporates a few London based professional musicians from different ethnic backgrounds: English, Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian & (FYRO) Macedonian. What binds them together is exactly the love for the too-beautiful, live-giving forms of this music: it's scales, rhythms, moods, lyrics, etc. The whole idea is having the traditional melos of those regions as starting point, and developing it to modern forms, incorporating elements of Pop, Jazz and Classical music. The music is divided in 3 main categories: GREEK TRADITIONAL - it seems to be the most successful genre so far - we were amazed to discover how many people love this music and enjoy in it. It's characteristic sound comes out of the (Greek) BOUZOUKI, an 8-string instrument similar to guitar, but with an egg-like body & more mellow, sweet sound. When two bouzoukis play together in thirds, the sound just evokes the sunshine and joy of living, still found in this Ancient land. (Greeks claim that-) The bouzouki sound is a direct continuation of the Byzantium music, which in turn is continuation of the Greek Ancient music. MEDITERRANEAN NEW AGE represents all the gentle notes, all the subtle melodies which are modern, but have their root in the music of the 'Middle of the Earth' (Medi-Tera) inhabitants. Thus, it's rather unusual, esoteric, but a very pleasant listening experience. Besides the bouzouki, the main instruments here are acoustic guitar and tamboura - it's bouzouki's sister - 6 string acoustic instrument, found in Northern Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, etc. BALKAN WORLD FUSION is more 'continental' music. Or more aggressive, if you like. Usually it's a fusion between Rock/Pop and Greek & Balkan Folk music. The dynamics are strong, the tempos rather uplifting. But again, here we are taking of a very innovative music. Technically speaking, it's the uneven (5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 etc) rhythms incorporated in Rock'n'Roll. For more info and CD's, please visit the artist's website (Meditera.Co.Uk).