Monolith Cocktail Blog

ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona

Antonis Antoniou ‘Kkismettin’
(Ajabu! Records) 2^nd April 2021

A divided city on a divided island, Cyprus governmental capital of Nicosia forms the scenery for the Greek-Cypriot musician Antonis Antoniou’s earthy rhythmic new album, Kkismettin.

Passing through the invading hands of every Mediterranean empire since at least 2000 B.C., the atavistic city of Nicosia has faced a convoluted history of communal fighting by its shared, but demarcated, population of Greek and Turkish-Cypriots; stirred up by both Greece and Turkey, competing to ideally unify the island state under the authority. The most recent custodian to add Cyprus to its empire was Britain in the 19^th century. Cyprus however, after much hostility and violence, gained independent status in the 1960s: a situation that continues today, despite a failed Turkish invasion in the 70s.

The results of failed coups and invasion however led to a harsh carving up of the island into separate Greek and Turkish communities and areas. Nowhere more so than Nicosia, home to Antoniou: a separated cityscape that literally seeps into and is used as a foundation for the beat, rhythm and motion of this amorphous Cypriot, and beyond, imbued album.  One of the most glaring images of those divided lines is with the lyric’s referenced concrete-filled barrels that Antoniou uses both as a metaphor and percussive beat making instrument on many of the toiled workers’ songs. As if these ‘green line’ demarcations aren’t bad enough and isolating, the recent pandemic lockdowns have created an increased, heightened sense of confinement and division between the uneasy communities   Attempting to let his music and unifying lyricism ride over such barriers, Antoniou channels both sides of the ‘wall’ culturally and musically. An instigator of the Cypriot trios Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, he now draws on a lifetime of traditionally rearranged and more traversing experiments to create a soulfully rustic songbook of mother tongue sung lyrical “kismet”. But it’s “laughter rather than pain” that Antoniou wishes to convey and celebrate, despite the buffer zone travails. And on this magical, often bordering on psychedelic, album he navigates the hardship and earnestness to produce an exotic soundtrack.

With so many influences on tap, songs such as the opening thumbed weary call to bury “distorted” histories by politicians in the vain hope of dancing together under the stars ‘Liváin’ (or “incense”), share an essence of the Hellenic and Turkish (a more buzzed-up electrified BaBa ZuLa springs to mind) but also conjure up evocations of a post-punk Jah Wobble on bass. Later on the album’s only instrumental ‘Angáli’ (“embrace”) made me think of a relaxed Compass Point Allstars bubbling up a languid island life jam. Though as the track moves along there’s an interstellar birdcall and permeating oscillation that sends it towards an acid psych sound finale.    

The most surprising image that popped up into my noggin however was of a Cypriot Funboy Three meets hushed mantra Dead Skeletons, on the increasingly hyperventilated voiced title-track. This is just one of many songs that also takes on a semblance of the esoteric; the spooked. Eerie but playful, haunted spirits quiver, hover and wobble across the album; the ghosts of previous generations making themselves heard, freely floating around the buffer zones. For this is an album of rich collective psychogeography, where ancestors from hidden cities and the neighbourhoods are invited to bring a divided landscape back together once more. Antoniou has created a communal struggle of poetic lyricism that’s both simultaneously steeped in histories, yet thoroughly of the present times: even on occasion otherworldly. Adroit sensibilities and rhythms and pulses, hushed and hymnal vocals and first-rate musicianship meet to articulate the sound of “kismet”: Destiny it seems sounds alive and evocative in this artist’s very capable hands. 

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.