Remembering Athens

The mind moves in mysterious ways. For some reason these last few days I have really been thinking about one of my favourite music groups. The long now defunct Stereo Nova. Greece's first electronic outfit to have an impact beyond the club scene and one of my first personal forays into the exotic and wonderfully alien landscapes of electronic music. I think Stereo Nova as a group of artists and as a body of work would be a great subject for many a blog entry but I'd like to keep this one about just one specific song, and just one special memory.

It was August 2004, the day the Olympic games were starting in the city of Athens. I was in London working at the estate agency and because of work I missed the bulk of the most talked about opening ceremony of recent times and I think, even after Beijing, the one most people still consider the best. So because of work I missed a lot of the spectacular set pieces that blew people's minds away and was back just in time for the Parade of the Athletes. Greece took a great risk with this by employing a DJ to do a live mix. I thought it was a great idea, I was just a little less thrilled with the choice of DJ. Trance superstar Tiesto's two hour set was a great success and made for what by most people was the best (or least boring athletes' parade). Not by me though as euphoric trance is just not my cup of tea.

So here I was sitting through this all the while thinking, why couldn't you just commission a Greek DJ who would do a much better job for a lot less money. More specifically I was thinking why couldn't they get Konstantinos Vita of Stereo Nova to do this? So after many hours of Tiesto's muzac, after every single athlete had his moment in the stadium ... after the lighting of the cauldron (which was very good by the way), when the big firework and light show starts, when it's all about finished ... I hear the first notes of Opalita. One of the best pieces of work by Konstantinos Vita (essentially one half of Stereo Nova) sampling Nena Venetsanou's singing from Manos Hadjidakis' "Ela pare mou tin lypi" (Come take my sorrow away) from 1958 over very intense drum n' bass. The repeated mantra in the song "Eisai ena peristeri pou peta ston ourano, pame na vroume ena asteri s'ena kosmo makryno" (You are a dove flying in the sky, let's go find a star in a faraway world) seemed very appropriate as the music, alongside the lights and the firework explosions was simply out of this world.

I have searched long and hard for a youtube clip of this and finally I found one but it doesn't quite do it justice as the sound is very bad and the take is from outside the stadium which even though breathtaking, is simply not as intense as the shots from inside the stadium I remember from the BBC. I will include it here anyway though. Following that I will put a link so you can at least listen to the song in its full glory. Hope you enjoy:



Konstantinos Vita - Opalita