Christopher King's first experience of hearing an Epiriot lament, by violinist Alexis Zoumbas, on a 78rpm recorded in 1926, sent him into a cathartic trance. Searching for a connection, Grammy-winning producer and curator King spent years researching and archiving music recorded between 1907 and 1960 from the rural hinterlands of mainland...
Read moreEveryone knows bouzouki music: it’s the sound of cliched touristic Greek entertainment, heard on debauched, ouzo-soaked nights in tavernas across the world. Few, however, know about this music’s ancestor. Its name is rebetiko: a hairy, uncouth, underground sound that arose from the hash dens, cabarets, brothels and prisons of fin-de-siècl...
Read moreThe tempo that builds in the bouzouki gives a real sense of the underlying raw emotion, of ‘rebetiko’s’ illegal past and its gentrification by the greats of modern Greek music, Vassilis Tsitsanis, Manos Hadzidakis and Mikis Theodorakis.The bouzouki is Greece’s siren call. To hear but a few bars is to instantly conjure raki-fueled nights a...
Read moreIn October 2020, 160 Greek musicians and groups joined forces to produce Unity Vol. 1, a unique album to demonstrate their solidarity and support for the refugees displaced by the fire in the Moria camp on Lesbos. The totality of the funds were donated to the NGO Attika Human Support. Joan Bienaimé writes about this touching artistic in...
Read moreOnly in “anything goes” Athens might you expect to bump into a Greek God, lingering outside one of the city’s best-known bar districts on a Friday evening. That’s exactly what happened when the 2,400 year-old head of Hermes rolled into view in Agia Irinis Square. Only in Athens could you expect to bump into Gods and saints, lurking...
Read moreFrom stocking up on toilet rolls to bad coiffure weeks, preening before Zoom calls to Youtube workout videos, virtual cocktail soirées and binge-watching in pjs, our Lockdown Lifestyle has been a great barometer of our human failings. As part of his assignment at Rhode Island’s School of Design on Art in Isolation, Jonathan Muroya drew di...
Read moreThe Persians ravaged it before Pericles restored it to its splendour. Socrates walked through its alleys. Sylla restored the authority of Rome there by the sword. It was subjected to Ottoman rule, Venetian bombardments, and Nazi occupation. Athens, however, remains, despite its torments, the capital of an eternal Greece. In order to bette...
Read moreWant a guaranteed distraction from the headlines? New York Times best-selling author Silvia Moreno-Garcia offers up “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” in her latest page-turner, Mexican Gothic. Recently optioned for TV by Hulu, it’s poised to be 2021’s next big binge-watch hit. We’re calling it! Her most recent nove...
Read moreTsarouhia are part of the national costume and can be traced back to the time when Greece was under Turkish rule. The tsarouhi, a shoe made of pigskin, was be particularly resistant and suit the dusty and rocky dirt roads of the time. In 1821, Greek warriors went to battle against the Ottoman Turks wearing them. Today, Evzones, the Presid...
Read moreOctober 28 – Oxi Day - is a day to recall Hellenic heroes and the daring deeds of our ancestors who fought so that Greece could be the passionate and free democratic country it still is today. On October 28, otherwise known as Oxi Day, we celebrate the 74th anniversary of when the Greek Prime Minister and Military General Ioan...
Read moreWith their famous pompoms and synchronised stoicism, the elite soldiers of the Presidential Guard are just as much a symbol of Athens as the Acropolis (and every bit as Instagrammed!). We take a peek underneath those 400-pleat fustanellas to hail the unsung heroes behind these proud national emblems. Often the most-photograp...
Read moreIt was ravaged by the Persians before Pericles revived its former splendor. Socrates walked through its ancient alleys. Later, Salamina would fall to Ottoman domination, a Venetian bombing, and Nazi occupation. And yet, this stoic island right on Athens’ doorstep remains the capital of an eternal Greece. Yet despite its longst...
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