Saint Kyriaki’s “Wild Woman Greek Isles” combines spoken-word poetry with jungle electronic music in a unique and impressive way. The single starts with unaccompanied, a cappella spoken vocals which were originally recorded without any musical accompaniment and were then transmitted from Detroit to Athens. The producer Starious then created a wholly new electronic arrangement based on that original vocal performance, using its natural rhythmic cadences as a base. The end product is a piece in which the intimate nature of the spoken narrative is contrasted with the high-energy electronic production.
The spoken portion of the piece has a completely different atmosphere from that of the original version. The track achieves its driving rhythm through deep syncopated pauses and quick jungle rhythms, and ambient global styles are incorporated to add another dimension to the electronic composition. Instead of treating the voice as a usual sung motif, the song puts the spoken-word element at the heart of the production, enabling the poetry to keep its natural character while the electronic accompaniments give it a fresh sense of scale and energy.
The fact that the recording process was unusual is evident in the final single. Saint Kyriaki had first recorded the poetry by herself in Detroit before Starious chose one of the existing vocal performances and then created a new sonic landscape based on it in Greece. The whole transformation was completed in one week, and this backward method is what gives “Wild Woman Greek Isles” its special character, the vocal performance coming first and the electronic production being shaped around it rather than the other way around.
There is also a close link between the spoken storytelling in the song and the circumstances which led to its being created. The idea came about during a quiet afternoon when the writer was watching Greek television with his 96-year-old grandmother, Gia Gia, and as a result came across Starious’s work, which eventually led to the collaboration on the track. The journey from that personal family moment to the international production based in Detroit and Athens is mirrored in the song itself. “Wild Woman Greek Isles” is a concentrated combination of spoken-word poetry, jungle breaks and ambient global electronic textures.
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