The story begins 33 years ago, when Haris Alexiou records a song of exile for a BBC tribute. That tribute gives rise to the idea of a whole album on exactly this theme: “Ta Tragoudia tis Xenitias” (“Songs of Exile”). The songs are chosen and recorded, and this would have been an album that could have been released in 1987.

At that time, however, Haris Alexiou is working on, recording and releasing three albums: “I Agapi Einai Zali” (“Love Is a Dizziness”) at the end of 1986; in spring 1987 her collaboration with Manos Hadjidakis is captured on record and released as “I Haris Alexiou se Aprovlepta Tragoudia” (“Haris Alexiou in Unexpected Songs”); and in the same year Marios Tokas’s “Leoforos tis Agapis” (“Avenue of Love”) comes out, with the legendary “Exartatai” (“It Depends”).

So “Ta Tragoudia tis Xenitias” stay in the drawer. And they stay there for thirty-three whole years. Until today. Until 2020, when, owing to circumstances, we all began rummaging through our drawers, our albums and our memories. That is more or less how it happened with this album too. As she has been sharing her photographs and memories on social media these past months, Haris Alexiou, opening her drawers, came across these recordings.

A whole record (because in reality this is a vinyl record, simply adapted to the new era) was there, waiting. And so the time has come for “Ta Tragoudia tis Xenitias” to make their journey.

Ten songs that carry memory and soil are placed on the digital turntable. Legendary songs by Thodoros Derveniotis and Kostas Virvos, Stelios Kazantzidis and Eftichia Papagiannopoulou, Panagiotis Toundas, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Mikis Theodorakis and Dimitris Christodoulou, Manos Loizos and Fontas Ladis, Yannis Kiriazis and Dimitris Roumeliotis, Gerasimos Klouvatos and Charalambos Vasileiadis, Yannis Vasilopoulos and Pavlos Zemanidis, along with the traditional “Tzivaeri”, go on air for the first time 33 years after the day they were recorded.

10 songs that went into exile because of circumstance return home after three decades, in the voice of Haris Alexiou.

The album “TA TRAGOUDIA TIS XENITIAS” is available on all digital stores and streaming services from MINOS EMI/UNIVERSAL.