Surf Instrumental Review: The Spartans-Yiannis Chronopoulos Heavenly Dreams

The Spartans bring you traditional Greek music on their Heavenly Dreams release. Yiannis Chronopoulos plays the bouzouki, and he truly makes it sound heavenly. Tonu Sepp handles keyboards and programming, while Kostas Chloros plays acoustic guitar, providing Yiannis with a nice rhythmic layer to place his tasteful bouzouki notes.

What's so interesting about this music is that the group takes a few instrumental surf songs, then shapes, molds, and develops them into an original Spartan tune. The most notable song is "Misirlou," the Dick Dale classic. Yiannis has been playing his chosen instrument for twenty-five years now. The sounds that he extracts from the strings would be the envy of any guitar-oriented musician. As Kostas says in the liner notes, "It's a sound that stirs the blood and enters the soul."

These will be some of the most incredibly different and lively adaptations of traditional Greek music today. Now I understand why this genre inspires artists who play surf-instrumental music.

With the native blood flowing through their hearts, the group expresses and portrays their culture sincerely through music. This CD is a trip to another world.

Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck 

April 19, 2000

Tracks:
01. Let's Go Greek (Kalamatiano) 

02. Heavenly Dreams  

03. Santa Cruzin (Syrto)  

04. Ocean Breeze  

05. Ston Angelon ta Bouzoukia (Zebekiko)  

06. On The Town  

07. Effie's Tsifteteli  

08. Kosta, Kostas (Syrto)  

09. Misirlou   

10. Escape The Fog