Xylourides sold out the Brunswick Ballroom last night. The siblings — Adonis, Nikos and Apollonia Xylouris — young troubadours of an ancient form. Punters swayed between something resembling religious rapture and a war dance. Hundreds, many of them non-Greek. Gen Z, Gen X, Millennials, Boomers — even elders — participated in what felt like a kind of musical communion.
The soft light of a lapsing day sieved through the ballroom’s skylight, bathing the three siblings in an almost mediaeval glow. Yet this was Brunswick in 2026, not Crete in 1450. The trio with their ancient instruments — Cretan lyra, lute and percussion — in runners and jeans.
These Australian-born descendants of the legendary Xylouris clan were back “home” from Crete. Their father, George Xylouris —a renowned Cretan musician — has been widely lauded for his collaborations with Jim White. Now the next generation has clearly assumed custodianship of the Cretan musical inheritance.
Crete has one of the oldest continuous musical cultures in Greece and in Europe — a tradition that, last night, was resurrected in a new form in urban Melbourne. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottomans, Crete remained under Venetian rule. Artistic expression was not suppressed; rather, musical education continued to develop. Teachers of music fleeing Constantinople established new of Greek-Byzantine chant and influenced local traditions.
The trio add a new energy, a rawness to the ancient war beats, and a fresh pathos to the Byzantine-tinged dirges. The crowd, young and not so young, moved as one, heaving, while in its centre the cyclical dances of the ancients were re-enacted as modern ritual. The Xylourides are a living example of that living link between Crete’s ancient musical forms and the modern Antipodean rock attitude. That distinctive sound — ancient and evolving — defines Crete’s intangible and singular musical voice.
The Xylourides, who also morph into the punk outfit Frenz.y Adonis, Nikos, and Apollonia speak to a new generation while paying homage to elders. They hybrids made of ancient lineages in modern worlds — much like the audience gathered last night in Brunswick.
