Greece - Macedonia & Western Thrace

 

Chalkidiki, when I visited in 2013

Accordionist Thanos Stavridis was born just outside of Thessaloniki in the town of Langadas in 1978. According to his own words he didn't choose the accordion, but it chose him as he spotted one in a shop window aged 4, and he has been playing ever since.  Apart from representing dance music from his native Macedonia he widens his music to the wider Balkan region and Gipsy influences.  The name of his band is Drom, which translates as road in the Romani language.  Here is a fun track from his 2025 album fygame (let's go in Greek) called Raikos: 

  Going down to the 3-fingered hand shaped Chalkidiki peninsula, we visit the middle finger, where singer/songwriter and guitarist Sokratis Malamas was born in 1957 in the village of Sykia.  He spent large parts of his youth and adult life in Germany, but learned Greek tunes from his father.  He bought his first guitar aged 13 and later studied music at the Macedonian Conservatory in Thessaloniki.  He has since published many albums and has written music for movies too.  Here he is in collaboration with singer and actor Melina Kana from Thessaloniki playing a song called Hilia Prosopa, which features on the 2010 compilation album The Rough Guide to Greek Café:

On the next leg of our virtual journey we are going to have to leave the women behind, as we are entering the monastic settlement of Athos on the easternmost of the 3 finger-peninsulas, where women and female animals are not allowed (except cats to catch rodents (female ones I presume)).  So if you are a woman (or another female animal) and reading this, please skip to the next paragraph.  On the peninsula are some 20 monasteries housing about 2,000 monks, whom time seems to have forgotten about.  They have been here for at least 1,000 years, although probably not the same ones.  Anyway, apart from praying lots, the monks have also been known to do lots of chanting.  Somebody made some field recordings of them in the 1960's.  In 2024 French multi-disciplinary publishing house FLEE brought out a book about the musical traditions of the monks of Athos complete with an accompanying double CD, on which contemporary electronic musicians cover some of that music and incorporate some of those field recordings into their compositions.  The project was called Athos: Echoes from the Holy Mountain, and here is a track from the album by an act called Holy Tongue called Athos Dub:

Next we are heading to the far east of Greece to Xanthi  in the region of Western Thrace.  Here we meet sister duo Eleni & Souzana Vougioukli.  They sing traditional folk from Greece and other Mediterranean regions such as Italy, Spain and Portugal. Here's a song from their self-titled 2009 album called Kalinyfta, which, if my very basic Greek is correct, means good night:

As we are heading west again our next stop is in Drama, where singer Petros Gaitanos was born in 1967.  He mostly known for his interpretations of Byzantine music, the religious hymns and chants of the Medieval Byzantine empire.  Here is a more recent and contemporary song of his from 2024 called Molivia:

And finally we move little further west to the village of Agia Pnevma, where Glykeria,  one of Greece's most popular singers was born in 1953.  She started her career in the mid'70's and has been producing prolifically ever since, with several platinum albums of Greek folk and pop.  Here is a song which features on her 2009 album Tragoudi Asithimatiko called Piga Se Magissis:

That's it from the northeast of Greece, next we're finishing off in the northwest. In the meantime, as usual, you follow my virtual travels on my Tripline Map.