Views from the Seven Ionian Islands
"It seems to me that Views from the Seven Ionian Islands is embedded in my life, passing by me — or rather, through me — over the years. It began (or perhaps continued) nearly a decade ago, on the island of Kythira, which lies opposite the southeastern tip of the Peloponnese, during a family visit. A few months later, it resurfaced during a trip to Japan. These were among the first of several "views" that initiated the project — moving back and forth between present moments that have since fractured into the past. Over the years, the work has taken on different forms of expression: recordings of sorts, in words and sounds. The most recent sonic iteration took place in the summer of 2023, in a studio in Jaffa — a nine-piece ensemble that opens the album before you. A moment from the near past that now feels like another lifetime, leaving me suspended in midair, speechless."--Tom Soloveitzik
Views from the Seven Ionian Islands is an exercise in patience, contemplation, and the shifting perspectives that accrue with time and distance. Slowly unfolding across 10 years and thousands of miles—shifting between Greece, Japan, Israel, and Paris—it takes multiple forms, each element in conversation with other voices, places, and moments.
Assembled in this release are two distinct but interlocking suites of music. The second of these—centered around a series of field recordings made a decade ago on the Greek island of Kythira, interwoven with instrumental interludes—was the first to be recorded. Here, it is preceded by a collection of lushly beautiful recordings made by Soloveitzik with a large ensemble in Jaffa in 2023, completed after revisiting and revising his impressions of Kythira in light of the intervening years.
The accompanying book includes two texts from Tom Soloveitzik, Impressions from the Islands and Views from the Seven Ionian Islands - Revised Version (2016-2023); an incisive essay on the work by the writer and composer Derek Baron; and a transcript of correspondence between Tom Soloveitzik and the painter Masha Zusman, who has made the island of Kythira her home for a number of years. Together, they reflect on questions of creativity, landscape, home, and what it means to record—in images, words, sound, and memory. A dozen full-color images of Zusman’s paintings illustrate their conversation.
As views proliferate and overlap, disparate perceptions and perspectives are superimposed. Views from the Seven Ionian Islands reveals a careful attention to the nuances that distinguish past from present, near from far, and memory from perception—and perhaps most importantly, the person one once was from the person one has become—but it retains a deep faith in the continuity between them. In a world increasingly characterized by a profound sense of dislocation—geographic, temporal, moral, aesthetic, and political—Soloveitzik’s work confirms his commitment to the enduring sense of connection to be found even in the midst of this shared displacement.
credits
released August 1, 2025
v f t s i i (summer 2023 version)
Shaul Kohn: guitar
Nitai Levi: bass clarinet
Hannes Lingens: vibraphone, snare drum
Aya Lion: soprano saxophone
Yoni Niv: crotales, gongs
Elad Schneiderman: electronics
Noga Segev: harmonium
Ayala Shamir: cello
Tom Soloveitzik: soprano saxophone
Tracks 1-6 were recorded by Shaul Kohn and Ido Mandil in
Jaffa, August 2023
Tracks 8-21 were recorded by Tom Soloveitzik in Kythira,
October 2015
Additional recordings were made by Ronald Boersen (tracks 10,
14, 18) in Jaffa, 2015
Track 18: Haggai Fershtman: snare drum, Yoni Niv: tibetan bowl
Mixed & mastered by A.F. Jones
Special thanks to Joseph Clayton Mills for his continuous
support of this project and his patience, to Shaul Kohn and
Al Jones for their help and advice, and to Yoni Niv for his
friendship.
