Taverns of Elounda - Epic Byzantine Music feat. Cretan Lyra Lab

Music from the folkloric tradition of Crete, lyre playing by Ilias Vlamakis of the channel Cretan Lyra Lab, arrangement and other instrumentation by Farya Faraji. Please keep in mind that this is not reconstructed Byzantine music, it's modern Greek music with a Byzantine theme (the theme here being Crete, this pun works on two levels, I am a comedic genius please laugh). This is a collaboration with the YouTube channel Cretan Lyra Lab who wonderfully played this traditional Cretan Greek air called "Mikri mou lemonia mou," which as far as I know hails from Eastern Crete, on the Cretan Lyre, please go check out their channel here:    / @cretanlyralab  

I wanted to bring some attention to Cretan Greek music with my next Byzantine-themed track, but most of my knowledge of Greek music lies in mainland Greek and Thracian music, so I reached out to Vlamakis with permission to use their lyra recording. The Cretan Lyra is the heart and soul of Cretan music--a descendant of the Byzantine Lyra, it is a sibling of the Pontic Kemenche and the mainland Greek "Politiki Lyra;" and airs similar to this one played on the Byzantine Lyre would have been played in the Middle-Ages in Crete. I accompanied the track with a Saz, which has a precedence in Crete as the Bulgari, a Saz instrument very similar to the Turkish Bağlama, and was possibly the dominant lute like instrument of the island before the rise of the Cretan Lauto, now the dominant lute of the island, and Crete is possible the only region of Greece to use the Lauto more than the nationally used Bouzouki. I also used a Greek santouri, which I've heard used in Cretan music. It's a hammered dulcimer almost identical to the Iranian santour that I play, however the Greek santouri has a distinctly different sound to the trained ear despite the overall similar build.

Elounda is a settlement in Eastern Crete which dates back to the Ancient Greek city of Olous in Antiquity. Parts of Olous can still be seen underwater when diving in Elounda. In the Middle-Ages, Elounda fell under Venetian rule, and the Island of Spinalonga, named so by the Venetians who modified the term "stin Elounda" (to Elounda) to fit Venetian-language phonetics, was used as a leper colony for some of its history.