Svobotnik - Cricket #2 (2026) [Hi-Res]

Cricket #2 is the second collaborative release from Athenian guitarist and sound engineer Panos Giotis Svobotnik and double bassist Lampros Papanikolaou. Like its predecessor Duet (2020), the album is entirely self-released and preserves the duo's defining voice: fully instrumental, stripped-down chamber jazz where lyrical melody intertwines with blues-inflected phrasing and free improvisation.
The space between Svobotnik's electric guitar and Papanikolaou's double bass forms the architecture of this project. No rhythm section, no horns — just two voices in dialogue, deliberately unadorned. In this sense, Cricket #2 deepens the aesthetic established on Duet, where the gravitational pull of Bill Frisell, Wayne Shorter, Marc Ribot, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus served as distant coordinates rather than overt references.
The title Cricket suggests intimacy and nocturnal quietude — the image of a sound that inhabits silence rather than filling it, revealing the space around it. This fits squarely within the tradition of small-group jazz where the pause carries equal weight to the note. The self-released format reflects the consistent creative ethics of both musicians, who operate well outside the commercial structures of the Greek music industry.

Lampros Papanikolaou: bass
Panos Giotis Svobotnik: guitar

Tracklist:
1-1 Svobotnik - The Night [5:37]
1-2 Svobotnik - Camels [6:04]
1-3 Svobotnik - Absinthe Pond [8:35]
1-4 Svobotnik - Silencio [6:14]
1-5 Svobotnik - Throughout [7:04]
1-6 Svobotnik - Reincarnation of a Lovebird [8:15]
1-7 Svobotnik - Umgepok [7:43]
1-8 Svobotnik - Camels (Alternate Version) [4:27]