Amour, T'es La?

Romance in the Sound Cinema: Banda Magda's Sunny, Dreamy, Globally Inflected Debut Poses the Eternal Question, Amour, t'es l? Throwing caution to the wind, she jotted down a flurry of words in French. A simple, playful gesture, it eventually yielded song after cheeky, beautifully crafted song, sunny vignettes that harkened back to the golden age of Brazilian bossa, the best of cinematic arranging, and the lush chic of vintage French pop. Sparkling with mirror-ball iridescence, Banda Magda's debut Amour, t'es l? (release: July 12th, 2013) gleams in the brightest possible palette. It's songs wink and smile with Technicolor forests and dapper love interests in tiger masks, with an entire sun-drenched world, all artfully arranged with real finesse. Led by a New York-based, Greek-born singer and composer Magda Giannikou, the band may move from samba to jazz manouche, from Greek dance rhythms to forro, playing everything from marimba to pots and pans to get just the right shade of sound. Banda Magda bursts with humor and quirky sensibility, and unites an Esquivel-loving vibes player from Japan (Mika Mimura); an Argentinean jazz guitarist (Ignacio Hernandez), a Nagasaki-born percussionist with contemporary classical cred (Keita Ogawa); a hand drummer with every South American rhythm at his fingertips (Marcelo Woloski); a rock-solid Greek multi-instrumentalist/bassist (Petros Klampanis); and a shifting cast of as many as fifteen additional characters all led by the sweet-voiced Giannikou. Together, these close musical friends turn Giannikou's songs into engaging romps that have won them a spot with Carnegie Hall's Musical Explorers Series, as well as regular gigs at discerning NYC venues like Joe's Pub and Celebrate Brooklyn. ull story below Don't let Giannikou's impish, sugar-sweet voice fool you: She's a powerhouse of a composer. Long obsessed with film music (as a child, she'd plunk out scores note by note on the piano) and passionately encouraged by parents who listened to everything from exotica and pop to classical. Even as a little kid, my father and I would listen to all sorts of music together, Giannikou recalls. Then we would talk about it, about that piano lick and how it creates counterpoint, and how that part grooves because the cymbals are doing this and that. My mother is a musician, architect, and art historian, and she writes children's music and draws children's books. We are very much alike and have vivid, dreamy, colorful imaginations. Giannikou went from working as a successful music educator, arranger, and TV and theater composer in Athens, to Berklee, where she dove into film scoring. An in-demand film composer, Giannikou has won several awards for her film work and composed commissioned works for the likes of the Kronos Quartet. She also contributed a forro and a bossa nova to the Louis CK 's show, singing a duet with the comedian. Giannikou often longed for some other means of expression, beyond her chosen path's relative solitude, Everyone else had gigs, says Giannikou. I wanted a gig, wanted to share that magic on stage. But I wasn't a performer. That changed when she discovered her grandmother's accordion in the attic on a trip back home. She took her find back to Boston and soon had all the gigs she could handle: I was the only accordionist around. Freed by the new instrument, Giannikou soon made another unexpected discovery. She could write lyrics-most effusively and poetically in French. (Giannikou and Banda Magda perform songs in seven languages.) It felt like a playground, Giannikou recalls fondly. It was pure fun, a new shining toy. I just wanted to keep doing it. There was distinctive vibe, a flow of colors and pure fun in that process unlike anything I had done before. This joyful burst of color comes to Giannikou whenever she's on the right track as a songwriter. A synesthete, she sees the song as she writes. When what I want to say is clear to me, notes and words start effortlessly falling from the sky like snowflakes, she says. A paintbrush begins to draw colors and sh