Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Spondi (2022)

Stelios Petrakis is top of the tree among Cretan musicians and instrument makers. He’s particularly known as a leading player and maker of Cretan lyras, including the lyra with sympathetic strings that he and Ross Daly developed, but he’s also master, and luthier, of laouto and saz, and here he brings in a new development of his, a bass lyra he calls ‘Cretan cello.’ This is a beautiful, richly textured, dazzlingly played album, of mostly his own compositions which, like his instruments, embrace and expand on the finest and subtlest parts of Cretan tradition, in instrumentals and songs with lyrics traditional or by his brother Yannis Petrakis. His quartet consists of himself on the aforementioned instruments, with Dimitris Sideris (laouto and vocals), Michalis Kontaxakis (mandolin) and dancer Nikos Lembesis. For this album they’re joined on some tracks by singer Vasilis Stavrakákis, great Iranian percussionist Bijan Chemirani on zarb, daff and bendir, Charalambos Paraskakis on askomandoura (Cretan bagpipe), and Valencian musician and recording engineer Efrén López on pandero.

1.01 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Spondi (4:19)
1.02 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Pentozalis (3:05)
1.03 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Tempranillo (4:56)
1.04 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Syrtos Ts' Apomonis (4:30)
1.05 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Avlemonas 1941 (1:24)
1.06 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Hicaz Taksim (2:36)
1.07 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Kalos Andamothikame (3:06)
1.08 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Syrta (6:48)
1.09 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Sto Barbaseso Tis Avles (4:56)
1.10 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Epese to Spiti (1:11)
1.11 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Stin Gremismeni Dos Folia (1:50)
1.12 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Rodo Ts' Avgis (4:20)
1.13 - Stelios Petrakis Quartet - Maleviziotis (10:01)