Chanteuse Parissa Bouas has just released her debut CD ‘The Full Force of the Wind’. Recorded, mixed and mastered from Australia to Germany then finally Holland, the influences from the two sides of the world speak out. Add to that her Greek Australian background and you have a different take on her vintage jazz, alt pop stylings.
“I have a European ear anyway because of my (Greek) dad and my upbringing,” the songbird tells Neos Kosmos.
By having so many different addresses her music took on during the recording and mixing process, it has had an indirect influence that the artist says “just seeps through”.
The CD – released this month – is Bouas’ first collaboration with Dutch multi-instrumentalist and producer Michiel Hollanders. Together they utilised modern ways to create the soundscape of her debut offering. From Australia, Bouas would receive files via dropbox and communicate her feedback to Holland where Hollanders was working on her first release, letting all the sounds from across the ocean permeate into her release. Through a Pozible campaign last year, Bouas raised enough funds to complete the mastering of her CD, which has been years in the making. Recorded at Muse Agency and Pughouse Studios in Australia and Smoked Studios in Holland and mastered at LOUD! in Amsterdam, the exotic timbres of velofoon, saw, fietsband bass, claude viol and bandoneon mesh perfectly with Parissa’s moody melody.
“You produce this art and it comes from somewhere – it’s an amalgamation of a lot of influences in your life,” she says.
Bouas was awarded with Best World and Best Jazz song at the 2013 Dolphin Music Awards, for the songs The Full Force of the Wind and Honey and Candlelight. She was also a finalist for Song of the Year and Best Female Singer at the same awards.
Along with her debut CD, the song I Belong is now available for purchase on iTunes. The song was written for Sydney film composer Nicolette Boaz’ WorldBeats CD ‘Hypnopeadia’, that was featured on hit Australian radio station Triple J.
Bouas was asked to write the song in 2010 about her experiences as a Greek Australian and her view on issues relating to belonging. The song was written a few years after she had just come back from a trip to Greece, so being a Greek Australian and those feelings and emotions were at the forefront of her mind when writing this song.
“I have two very strong influences,” she explains, with her Greek heritage and her birthplace of Australia.
“Sometimes I don’t feel like I am really Aussie Aussie, and sometimes I don’t feel really Greek Greek. In Greece I didn’t feel fully Greek, because I don’t speak a lot of the language but I can get by as my Greek is limited so when I was delving into the subject it was really interesting, the process.
“I had a deep connection with my father’s land in Greece but I felt a stronger connection in Australia with people from other countries and other Greek Australians.”
For more information on upcoming gigs and to purchase the CD ‘The Full Force of the Wind’, visit www.parissabouas.com or www.facebook.com/ParissaBouasmusic