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