FATHER DIONYSIOS TABAKIS - Paradise Metal

A 53-year-old Orthodox priest, serving in Nafplio, Greece. A fretless guitar, capable of producing microtones that Western music sealed out centuries ago. A title that promises metal and instead delivers drones, prayers, Byzantine chants, Christmas techno and the sound of chirping birds over a carpet of tanbur. "Paradise Metal" is all of this, and perhaps even more. Between the sacred and the profane, between the ancient and the modern, between meditative serenity and existential unease.

Dionysios Tabakis is a priest who makes music, and his faith is the operating system underlying everything he does. His instrument of choice is the fretless guitar (the Turkish perdesiz), which lets him play the notes between the notes with the same precision as the human voice. "Relaxation Music With Tanbur" sounds like one of those new-age recordings from the Seventies designed to improve sleep or focus.
But it's a trap. The second track sounds like it was lifted from the soundtrack of Dead Man” by Neil Young, somewhere between western and psychedelia, as if pulled from a feverish dream.
The record moves between these extremes, and exactly halfway through the playlist Tabakis changes the game entirely. "Techno ἐν Μοναστηρίῳ" is exactly what it promises: a beat straight out of a Nineties club, lush synths, and a chant rising above it all, giving Orthodox competition to Enigma. "Ἄναρχος Θεός – Βυζαντινὰ Κάλαντα τῶν Χριστουγέννων ἐν ἤχῳ α΄ (Techno Christmas)" is even more unhinged: a Byzantine Christmas carol over a heavy house beat, turning liturgy into a dancefloor anthem. Grotesquely wonderful.

"Ντουμπάϊ πάει" is the track that comes closest to dubstep, with wobbling basslines and distorted vocals, while “Φλεξάρεις Κάργα – Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Rap” is exactly what it sounds like: an ecclesiastical rap. This is a highly experimental, Dadaist record that pushes past any fear of ridicule, closing with the last two tracks “Χαῖρε, Παρθένε Σουμελά” – a hymn to the Virgin sung in the delicate voice of Evgenia Symela Armenie – and “Ῥόδον Ψυχῆς” – a funeral chant that dissolves into a drone of Greek bagpipes – which pull us back into a deeply spiritual dimension.
The fragmentary nature of "Paradise Metal" is plain to see, yet it's a record of exceptional singularity, a work that seems to come from another time and place, but speaks directly to our own.

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06/07/2026