Daemonia Nymphe
Macbeth
Well known for their compositions and improvisations performed with reproductions of ancient Greek instruments manufactured by Nikolaos Brass, the ethereal essence that dominates DAEMONIA NYMPHEs pieces allows them to reach beyond the scope of World Music and forge their own idyllic liaison with Greeces cultural heritage. Given their projects unique artistic concept, an invitation for Spyros Giasafakis and Evi Stergiou to create soundtrack work would inevitably surface. Although they had already been involved in similar projects in the past, the opportunity to compose and record a full score ulti- mately came to fruition with a commission from the National Theatre of Northern Greece to create an original soundtrack for their theatre production of "Macbeth". The play was performed at the Theatre of the Society for Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki, Greece, between January and March 2016. The challenge of producing an aural backdrop to Shakespeares classic finds DAEMONIA NYMPHE introducing discreet traits common to Dark Ambient or Neo-Classical in their music to more adequately portray the idiosyncrasies inherent to the play. While employing their trademark combination of traditional archaic instrumentation and dreamlike female vocals, DAEMONIA NYMPHE also expand their palette to include brass instrumentation, orchestral percussion or Scottish bagpipes, resorting to a myriad of guest musicians for these recordings. The complete work brings together mesmerising lullabies sung in whispers and hushed voices, epic interludes driven by bombastic trumpets, battle passages paced to martial drumming, enticing dances set to exotic rhythms, or even the odd Medieval jig heard during Macbeths coronation. However, even while perfectly mimicking and expanding upon each of "Macbeth"s dramatic moments, the score also successfully stands as one of DAEMONIA NYMPHEs most complex and mysterious albums to date.