Melpomeni is an artist who jumps feet first into her music; an artist who follows her heart, her gut instinct. Through this, she channels the inner pain, anguish, as well as sweetness and joy felt from inside to present an honest portrayal of life, in all its guises. The Greek Australian artist’s first album, aptly titled 8 Tragedies, 2 Love Songs And A Breakdown, uncovers this in a raw and emotion-filled way, and now, as she is working on her second album, she’s taken the time out to chat with us about her art, and her upcoming collaboration with controversial poet and writer Koraly Dimitriadis.

The singer-songwriter is back in Australia after living in London for more than 15 years. On a constant quest for musical perfection – she claims to have inherited the “curse of perfection” from her mother – Melpomeni has challenged herself by living in Athens for a year, and the UK, saying that the hardships have made her stronger but added another depth to her songwriting.

After finishing her music studies at La Trobe in Melbourne, Melpomeni wanted to pursue the art of electronic music but felt that style was difficult to explore in Australia. She felt in order to find her musical voice, she’d have to find her roots, to understand who she was, stripped bare. She spent one year in Athens, understanding her culture, her family and coming to terms with the migrant experience.

“I was still developing and not fitting in to the things that were happening – I had this isolation mentality which I believe is cultural as well,” she explains. There she noticed things, sounds and music, that were part of her life, but never before acknowledged.
“Sometimes we think things don’t influence us,” she starts, about to explain her journey with a Greek singer whose darkness she finally understood with maturity. Greek singer Stelios Kazantzidis’ voice would fill the corners of her family home, but Melpomeni thought the songs were just washing over her.

“I didn’t listen to him when I lived here and was growing up,” she starts.

“There was so much ‘wog’ shame and I was trying to fit in so much, I didn’t attempt to integrate it into my life. My Greekness and my Australianess were separate entities. After I eventually gave up on fitting in and left, I heard the God with his massive voice like a volcano erupting with pain. I finally got it and am now so thankful to my parents for the introduction.”

By being able to recognise the dark, deep expression of Karantzidis, Melpomeni recognised something else, and that was that Greeks are unashamed in expressing themselves, in showing true emotion. And this was what the artist went on to explore further and ensured filled her art.

Creativity, she says, blossomed in London. The hardships, the restrictions of her lifestyle created a different style of art, allowed her to introduce new sounds and emotion never before encountered. And allowed her to venture into electronica music, something that had always sparked her curiosity and creative streak.

Her style was “a little European”, so the musical development happened much more easily overseas than it ever did in Australia.
But another interesting thing happened for the artist. What happened to her as a Greek Australian living in London was reminiscent to a certain degree of her parents migrating to Australia. Trying to fit in for her was difficult and instead of allowing that feeling of displacement get her down, she harnessed that empathy felt for her parents’ generation and added it to her art.

“There was a lot of anger from my generation towards our parents for not fitting in, but of course that’s a superficial layer of the issue,” she explains of the epiphany she had living in London.

“I think the deeper issue is that there was a lot of pain there and frustration. I don’t know whether I would have had experiences or become aware of that pain unless I had experienced that myself.

“It’s something I’m becoming aware of now, and it’s something that’s in my work.”

When her mother visited in London, she bought Melpomeni a sewing machine. As a dress maker, she wanted her daughter to learn the craft, and be – as she was in Australia – self sufficient. For Melpomeni, however, the sewing machine encompassed more than just an instrument to make clothes, it became a musical instrument for her. On her first album, she sampled the noise of a sewing machine as a way to represent the frustration and emotion of women of her mother’s generation.

“I used it as an instrument in some of the songs because of its cultural and historical meaning for me,” she says of the sewing machine. “It was a good way of representing Greek women at the time here in Australia.”

Even though that feeling of displacement was more pronounced when she was first in London, she says it never really goes away. But she’s starting to feel at home in the UK. As a member of UK classical chart act, Mediaeval Baebes, she has toured extensively in the UK as well as Europe, the USA, Africa and the Middle East.

“I feel quite free – it’s a very inventive place,” she says.

However, she is quick to point out how Australia for her has changed and developed since she’s been gone.

“I feel accepted here now, like I can say what I want and make the music I like without feeling like too much of a freak.

With her first album, Melpomeni says there was an emotional rawness that was indicative of her situation, the isolation and the hardships felt. That rawness she recognises in fellow Greek Australian artist Koraly Dimitriadis, author of Love and F**k Poems.

They first met when Melpomeni saw Koraly perform at the Antipodes Writer’s Festival last year. Koraly’s emotion-filled work resonated with Melpomeni and the two female artists have joined forces for this one show as part of the Antipodes Festival. The collaborative evening will see Koraly’s brave spoken word woven into Melpomeni’s chilling music taking the audience on a journey of love, loss and freedom.

As she works on her second release, the artist is going back to basics. “I am very drawn to simplicity and simple songs,” she starts.
“I don’t know where that’s leading, but I will find out when it’s done. I learn a lot about myself from my work and I learn a lot about life by being an eternal seeker, even though the only thing I have learned from my travels is that there is so much still to learn.”

Melpomeni will perform with Koraly Dimitriadis at The Toff in Town, Swanston Street, Melbourne, on Monday 22 April at 7.00 pm. For tickets and more information visit www.thetoffintown.com/ To listen to Melpomeni’s music, download from iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/8-tragedies-2-love-songs-breakdown/id37…