Young trailblazers of an ancient art form, the Xylourides are the youth brigade of Cretan folk music. Descendants of legendary musicians George Xylouris and Psarantonis, and their father George Xylouris—known among other things, for his collaborations with Jim White—they are the new custodians of the Cretan music movement emanating from deep inside Crete’s mountains.
Twins Adonis and Nikos, alongside their sister Apollonia Xylouris, are caretakers and innovators. The trio will be performing at WOMADelaide in early March, and at various venues in Melbourne, before and after.
Neos Kosmos spoke to Nikos Xylouris and the first thing was a question on the impact the Greek Antipodes Festival had on their rapid rise to fame in Australia.
“Yeah, it was great. We were surprised. Every gig has an impact on the next,” Xylouris said.
“At the Antipodes, thousands saw us and, man, it was definitely a huge, huge crowd for us in Australia.”
The siblings were born in Australia, to George Xylouris and Shelagh Hannan, but now live mostly on Crete, where they are making a serious name for themselves across Europe.
The Xylourides have infused traditional Cretan music with the raw energy and brashness of punk. They honour the traditions carried through the many Xylouris generations, while adding a distinctly Australian rock and roll attitude.
Melbourne is an epicentre of some of the most profound punk and rock music to reach global recognition, from Beasts of Bourbon and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to The Meanies and Cosmic Psychos – music that has seeped into the Xylourides, just as deeply as Cretan sounds. In fact, they also front their own parallel neo-punk band, Frenzee.
New groups, like post-punk Cretan band Balothizer or Thrax Punk, fuse Thracian folk with punk and psychedelic textures, while even the masterful African Greek, Negros Tou Moria blends rebetika with rap. Neos Kosmos asked whether this signals a “back-to-the-future” moment, where rock, punk, rap, world music are merging again but in new ways.
“That’s a good question,” Xylouris says.
“What we see in Crete is a desire for traditional and live music. Over the past couple of years, there’s been a huge wave of younger crowds—singing, dancing, enjoying traditional music.
“In Crete, nightclubs are kind of empty now, and wherever there’s live traditional music, young people are going out to have a good night.”
As for the melding of rock, punk, and other forms, Xylouris says there’s a new generation “trying to mould everything together.”
“We listened to lots of rock and Cretan music growing up in Australia. My generation grew up with pop, rap, and rock, but at home we also had traditional music. When different kinds of music are in your head, if you like them, they inevitably lead to experimentation. That’s how these really cool combo groups happen.”
He says he grew up listening to rap, AC/DC, rap, and Nick Cave and others. “There’s no specific reason for that.”
The reason for Frenzee is simple, he adds: “We dabble in both—we play Cretan music and listened to rock bands growing up.”
“We tend to lean more towards rock and punk bands; we just love that sound, that energy. But we also grew up in a house with the purest form of Greek and Cretan music, as pure as recordings allow. We love both, and they have something in common.”
The Xylourides are a conduit between the past and now, and between tradition and innovation – they are a new generation of Greek Australians keeping the ambers of Cretan music alive while making it truly their own.
*WOMADelaide is on from March 6 to 9.
