35 f Xaos Theory
Dubulah and Ahetas have just advanced the course of Greek civilisation by several millennia. Or something. Anyway, Elisavet Sotiriadou thought their new album was a good gift to bear.
W
hen I received the Xaos record through the post, I could not get past the first track, Pontos Blues. All the songs on the
album are original pieces with a strong hold in the traditions of Greek music, but I kept listening to that track again and again, fascinated for days by that single piece of music before being able to move on beyond it. I was captured by the melody and the Pontic lyra, which have trapped inside them the Pontic element, the melancholic pain. The guitar and key- boards also reveal the mood of the song and the vocals echo the past, so maybe my genes reacted to these, being of that heritage myself. It simply is a master- piece, as truly is each individual song on the album.
All that the musicians contributing to the album were asked to do was play with all the freedom in the world, without any restrictions. “If someone let you alone on a beach and said here’s the sea, run to it and you choose the way to run it and the speed you want to run and the way you want to swim.” That was the guidance which had the musicians confused, perplexed that they really were encouraged to do some- thing that freely, Ahetas tells me.
X
aos takes Greek music in a dif- ferent direction. While it’s very Greek and familiar, it’s also treading uncharted terri- tory. Without ignoring the
past, the album brings together all that is Greek – from the most diverse to the least expected in the relatively small country’s rich folk and traditional her- itage. Xaos – the Greek word for chaos – is an album and band name and a musical journey through Greece by some of Greece’s best musicians today. In one album there are Pontic lyra and vocals from Matthaios and Konstantinos Tsa- hourides, the clarino (Greek clarinet) of Manos Achalinotopoulos, gaida (Greek bagpipes) from Giorgos Makris, Greek flutes from Kalia Baklitzanakis, drums and percussion from Vasilis Sarikis, kanonaki from Adonis Apergis and dou- ble bass – played in a unique way so it resembles Byzantine singing – by Giorgos Kalaitzoglou. All this music is beautifully intertwined with microtonally tuned elec- tronic sounds from Ahetas and detuned bottleneck dobro and monochord guitars from Dubulah.
Nick ‘Dubulah’ Page (above) and Jimi ‘Ahetas’ Papatzanatea (below)
Photo: Cristina Moran
Photo: Darren Filkins
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84