Mode Plagal is an originally

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

group who perform traditional

Greek music The music of Greece is as diverse and celebrated as its History of Greece, history. Greek music separates into two parts: Greek folk music, Greek traditional music and Byzantine music. These compositions have existed for millennia: they originat ...

blended with

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

and other international styles. They have been described as "the preeminent ambassadors of the much-maligned vernacular Greek music in the 21st century" The

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

-based band was formed in 1990 by Thodoris Rellos (

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

, vocals), Kleon Antoniou (

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, vocals) and Takis Kanellos (

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

). They were joined in 1995 by Antonis Maratos (originally percussion, later bass); in 1997 by Angelos Polychronou (percussion); and in 2000 by Florian Mikuta (keyboards).Mode Plagal official website
/ref> After two albums of instrumental music, ''Mode Plagal'' and ''Mode Plagal II'', they added vocals for their third album, ''Mode Plagal III''. In 2002, they collaborated with Turkish group Bosphorus, led by composer Nikiforos Metaxas, to record the album ''Του Βόσπορου Το Πέρα'' (''"Beyond the Bosphorus"''). Critic Fiachra Gibbons wrote of Mode Plagal: "On first hearing, they are a driving, straightahead jazz-funk outfit. Listen longer and the restless Greek spirit, audible in the transcendent sax of Thodoris Rellos, becomes evident, drawing from

rembetika Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...

- the Greek blues - and the dance music of the Balkans, Thrace, Asia Minor and all points east." In 2008, they released the album ''Η Κάθοδος Των Σαλτιμπάγκων'', recorded with Cretan band Hainides, and in 2010 they released ''Στην Κοιλιά Του Κήτους''. In 2014, they released ''Πέρα Από Τα Σύνορα'', a collaboration with Hainides and the musician

Psarantonis Antonis Xylouris ( el, Αντώνης Ξυλούρης; born September 6, 1937), nicknamed Psarantonis ( el, Ψαραντώνης), is a Greek composer, singer and performer of lyra, the bowed string instrument of Crete and most popular survivin ...

(Antonis Xylouris). Mode Plagal, ''Discogs.com''
Retrieved 29 June 2020

Discography

*''Mode Plagal'' (1995, Ano Kato Records,

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

) *''Mode Plagal II'' (1998, Lyra Records) *''Mode Plagal III'' (2001, Lyra Records) *''Beyond the Bosphorus'' - collaboration with Bosphorus (2003, Hitch Hyke Records) *''In The Belly Of The Beast'' (2010, Lyra Records)

References

External links

Mode Plagal website Review of ''Beyond the Bosphorus'' at RootsWorld
Musical groups established in 1990 Greek musical groups Musical groups from Athens 1990 establishments in Greece {{Greece-band-stub