Partly as a response to her newfound success, and partly as a response to the world she found herself inhabiting, Stella "Σtella"Chronopoulou has slowed things down to a magical pace on new album Adagio. Described by label Sub Pop as "a pop record that feels like a very warm blanket", this fifth Σtella record is the perfect balm for a hurried, harried mind. - Flying Out
Almost as soon asStella Chronopouloubegan writingAdagio, her fifth album asΣtella, she knew the time had finally come to sing in Greek, her native tongue. It would be a first. She started the record almost by accident in 2019, during an 11-hour boat ride to the island of Anafi.Σtellahad recently gone through a patch of personal turmoil and needed a break from home. On the ferry, she pulled out her cell phone as the boat clipped through the Mediterranean and began with a simple melody, steadily piecing together a rough instrumental. As psychedelic keyboards twinkled and swayed above staccato drums, the track suggested some deep exhalation, as ifΣtellawere letting go of long-unnecessary baggage. For a spell, she set the instrumental aside. She wasn’t ready yet, or in a rush.
Σtella, after all, grew up in a slow place. During her youth in a relatively rural suburb of Athens, Greece, she and her friends played unfettered in empty streets, not worried about cars or permission, and living felt easy. But in the last decade life has steadily become busier forΣtella, now based in the heart of Athens. She has become one of modern Greece’s most popular musical exports, with three sophisticated, playful pop albums rendered with international élan. After her Sub Pop debut,Up and Away, in 2022, she catapulted beyond three million monthly Spotify listeners. That success was a blessing, butΣtellasometimes found herself pining for the slower pace of her youth.
That longing is the thread that loosely binds together her fifth album, the entrancingAdagio. Borrowing its name from the term for music that’s meant to be played slowly,Adagiois a pop record that feels like a very warm blanket, its nylon-string guitars and featherlight percussion swaddling its listeners for three minutes at a time. Written and recorded over the span of five years, with a consortium of international collaborators including!!!’s Rafael Cohenand British songwriterGabriel Stebbing,Adagiois a 27-minute meditation on love and desire, rest and time. Though the bulk of it is sung in English,Σtelladelivers her first two songs in Greek here—Omorfo Mou, the one that began on the boat, and a cover of a 1969 cult classic of the Greek New Wave, Litsa Sakelariou’s Ta Vimata. It is a sign of the self-assurance that radiates throughout these tender and smitten little tunes.
Start to finish,Σtellasounds more at ease and comfortable than she’s ever been onAdagio. These fetching songs will not slow her career or grant her that title track’s wish. But, for half an hour,Adagioadds a measure of warmth to the world, with time loosening its grip even if it doesn’t slow down.
Tracklist:
1. Adagio 2. Ta Vimata 3. Omorfo Mou 4. Baby Brazil feat. Las Palabras 5. Can I Say 6. 80 Days 7. Too Poor 8. Corfu 9. Caravan
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