Min Pes

Marinella's voice is one of the defining instruments of Greek laïká — a soprano that can be crystalline and devastating in the same phrase, capable of ornamentation that draws on the modal traditions of the eastern Mediterranean while remaining entirely personal. "Min Pes" — don't say, don't tell — is built on a kind of superstitious silence, the desire to keep something unnamed in order to keep it real, or safe, or possible. The production surrounds her with the classic laïká ensemble, bouzoukis doing their particular work of creating both melody and a kind of harmonic sustain, the rhythm section understated. Marinella carries the tradition of the great female laïká singers — Sotiria Bellou, Ioanna Georgakopoulou — while having a sound completely her own: brighter in timbre, more prone to flights of melodic embellishment that feel improvised even when they aren't. There is something protective in the lyric, a guarding of feeling against the world's indifference, which is one of laïká's central concerns — how to hold love or grief inside you when everything outside is noise.