Behind The Tracks: LIKNO - Birth (Single) (2024)

“Birth” is the fourth track in our debut album “Likno”. It is undoubtedly the song to which we devoted the most amount of time during the making of the whole album. Besides its length (7:32) the hard part consists inthe fact that it has many rythmic and musical changes, so putting all those different elements harmonically together , was a really hard but also achallenging thing at the same time.Initially the lyrics, in thestart of the song, put their puzzle piece in the story of “Likno” givingbeautiful and rich imagery. In the first shift of music, the lyrics take the listener through northern and majestic landscape, fierce nature, and brutal fauna. What we wanted through this track, was to create adark and cold atmosphere but also to give a feeling of power and strength that emanates from the contact and the coexistence with nature and all its majestic elements: something that is also depicted intensely in the lyrics. In the middle of the song, a big surprise comes for the listener, as the song changes its style and brings an air of optimism and euphoria.The hub point is the addition of kaval, playing a characteristic and catchy folk melody until the end of the song. Kaval is a chromatic end-blown oblique flute traditionally played throughout the Balkans (in Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Southern Serbia,Northern Greece, and elsewhere) and Anatolia (including Turkey, Kurdistan and Armenia).The kaval is primarily associated with mountain shepherds. Initially, we tried to play this melody on clarinet but then we thought that a more special and exotic instrument would give a unique tone to the wholesong. In addition, the sound of traditional wind instruments like kaval, nei, duduk, etc. always fascinated us. Our close friend T.-Pan-Rep. Is a very goodkaval player and immediately we thought about him. He completely improvised hispart by playing the melody with the first audition. The result left us stunned so the track ended in an ideal way.As a band, we consider that the reference and the pinpointing of aspects of our culture and ancestry are really important, since through our music, weaim to pay an homage to our musical and cultural roots that defined us and inspired us through the years.