Valia Calda / Psychedelic jazz of the diaspora

Valia Calda play and improvise like a band with jazz origins, but also roots in traditional music, which do not hesitate to share them with a violent electricity.

Valia Calda means warm valley. The two brothers Nikos and Thodoris Ziarkas started in November 2012 with their interest in a music influenced by the Greek tradition as a springboard.

Kouchelio, which gives its name to the opening track of their new album, also appears on the cover photo. It is a small village outside Ioannina, known for its tavern with grilled meats! The village where father Ziarkas was born and raised and where the whole family comes from. The inspiration for the creative music of the two estranged children of the Valia Calda band comes from the air and mountains of Epirus, her stories.

To a Moroccan-born Carpathian mother, a first-generation immigrant in 1963 refugee Brooklyn, and an Australian immigrant father, Valia Calda’s children were born “internal immigrants” in Rhodes. During their summer vacation, the two brothers enjoyed the Carpathian feast that captivated them, sitting next to the instruments, the lyre, the lute, the tsabuna, the instruments that challenged them. Nikos and Thodoris learned and played these from small children.

The source of improvisation

“With every form of improvisation I feel moments of absolute fulfillment, pleasure. Being in a band, not knowing where it’s going and suddenly meeting in the same place is like an alignment of planets, which, when it happens, you reach a supreme point, unique in life” says Nikos. In music, Theodoris finds -according to Lorca- the duende of the flamenco soul, which goes beyond the rules and habits of a conventional life, a music without duende.

Valia Calda play and improvise like a band with jazz origins, but also roots in traditional music, which do not hesitate to share them with a violent electricity. Big atmospheres that touch bare melodies, reaching the point of fusion, but also closer to the “source”.

On the big island

Valia Calda appeared on the London jazz scene in 2013, led by Nikos and Thodoris Ziarkas. Their music is rooted in Epirus folk music and psychedelic jazz, which meets punk inspired guitar riffs and improvisations. The two Greek brothers are accompanied by innovative musicians: James Allsopp on saxophone, Sam Warner on trumpet and drummer Gaspar Sena.

The different musical culture of each makes their coexistence interesting. The reason is their involvement with Greek traditional music from a very young age and their later interest in contemporary music. In their music, feeling and freedom of expression count. The diversity of their rhythmic language, their experimental arrangements integrate psychedelic aesthetics with folk traditions in meditative improvisations, expanding musical boundaries. They played in many venues and festivals -London Jazz Festival, BBC Late Proms, Cambridge Jazz Festival, Royal Albert Hall, Vortex Jazz Club-, while they have been heard on many radio stations in the USA and Europe.

Thodoris Ziarkas, double bass

The double bass player, improviser and composer Thodoris Ziarkas has been playing the lyre and the tsabouna since he was young. He later studied jazz at Middlesex University and trained as a teacher of the Alexander Technique in London and in film composition at Codarts in Rotterdam. Besides Valia Calda, he presents the solo ‘Reconstruction’ for double bass and electronics, and the trio ‘Thodoris Ziarkas’s Collection of Sand’. Thodoris collaborates permanently with Nancy Mounir (Egypt), Tom Sochas (France/England) and Vanessa Courtesi (Netherlands/Greece) and has appeared at international festivals, with collaborations in the fields of jazz, experimental and traditional music.

Nikos Ziarkas, guitar – electronics

Guitarist Nikos Ziarkas, recognized in the field of experimental jazz, apart from Valia Calda, collaborates with artists of the London jazz scene, such as tubist Theon Cross, saxophonist Chelsea Carmichael and saxophonist and rapper tyronisaacstuart, carving his own path.

Raised in Rhodes, Nikos was involved in music from an early age. The journey began with joining teenage rock bands, but his early explorations into jazz and free improvisation grew into a passion. In 2011, in London, he studied at the Jazz Department of Middlesex University. His unique sonic explorations have established him as one of London’s most exciting guitarists. He has collaborated with, among others, Theon Cross, Chelsea Carmichael, Steam Down and Moses Boyd. His discography spans jazz, rock, punk and traditional music, and he has written music for documentaries and radio programs around the world.

Homelessness, migration, nostalgia

The idea of ​​homeland and immigration contributes to the musical search of Valia Calda, who are inspired and converse with the traditional music of Epirus, psychedelic jazz, while mixing with punk aesthetics and free improvisations

Returning from the silence of the pandemic, the band Valia Calda explored a new sonic universe in the album “Homeland”, released in May 2023. Redefining the idea of ​​homeland and immigration is the central musical quest of Valia Calda, inspired by and converse with the folk songs of the Greek diaspora, the traditional music of Epirus along with psychedelic jazz, punk aesthetics and free improvisations.

“Homeland”, “Methexis” – Valia Calda

From the first album of 2014 and from “Methexis” of 2018, the course of Valia Calda showed that they only look forward and up. Their music, hard and at the same time highly internal, experimental and at the same time lyrical, psychedelic, but also mainstream, is a remarkable proposition for the discerning listener. ‘Methexis’ was voted best jazz album by UK Vibe, while their first release established the band, of which London Jazz News wrote: “Great to hear discipline and musical intelligence come together”.

The brothers Nikos and Thodoris Ziarkas have been living in London for twelve years and have been “sucking up” new music. The release of the third album entitled “Homeland”, in May 2023, establishes them as one of the most reliable “exportable papers” for the contemporary musical peculiarities of our country.

Uprooting and wandering

In “Homeland” they reflect on issues of foreignness, immigration, nostalgia and farewell. And they do it by marrying their jazz references with sounds from Epirus, guitar explosions and strange rhythms. An instrumental record with a lot of “voice” and speech, dedicated to uprooting, wandering, new installation, isolation, nostalgia and the hope of return. Through the refugee problem, the continuous humanitarian crisis, the two brothers also see themselves. The motto of the record belongs to the songwriter Yiannis Angelakas from an earlier song of his (“Head full of gold”, Trypes, 1996) and was the inspiration, the trigger for the creation of “Homeland”: “My homeland is where I hated / and they hated me more than anywhere else.” Through these lyrics was expressed the revulsion of a homeland that drowned people in its seas, a homeland that drowned diversity in its streets and, with its opportunistic practices, destroys nature itself.

First impressions

“Following in the footsteps of the previous generation of immigrants in their family, Thodoris and Nikos are looking for their personal path, in another form of foreignness. Their longing for people and places they left behind sparked a sense of nostalgia, which left a deep imprint on the folk songs of the Greek diaspora. It is reflected in “Koutselio” and “Crossing the warm valley”” I read in the press release accompanying the release of the CD by the independent record company Deep Mountain Records.

And from Twisted Soul: “Searching for inner peace and solitude, Valia Calda creates internal processes of the moment, which on the album ‘Homeland’ evoke raw and unfiltered emotions.”

The album cover is by Raimund Wong, an artist who has edited many album covers of the new English jazz scene. He used an old family photo from 1963. It was taken in front of the Ziarka family’s house: grandmother, grandfather, aunts and father in the middle.

For those who were exiled

In “Stalker”, “Homeland” or “Deep cave in the mountains” the idea of ​​homeland and immigration contributes to Valia Calda’s musical search.

The tracks “Nostalgia”, “Isolation”, “But in the end we’ll be together” and “To be like you” reflect the bitterness, the pain of loss, disappointment, rejection from the homeland and the place. They commemorate those who were expelled and exiled by the fascist regimes of the past, but also those who are still fighting and resisting in the streets of today.

We dive into listening to ‘Homeland’, remember ‘Neda’ and ‘Epirus suite’ from the first album, ‘Trip for nothing’ and ‘Typo’ from ‘Methexis’ and brag about one of the most beautiful shapes ever have been made by Greek musicians abroad.