psila ki ores sta bathi piainoun Of the great revolving cycle on which they travel, and of the wheel, on which hours run high and low Tabachaniotika The "tabachaniotika" (; sing.: tabachaniotiko – ) songs are a Cretan urban musical repertory of instrumental and vocal music which belongs to a broader family of urban genres. Major features of the tabachaniotika songs are Dromoi (sing:in Greek dromos – δρόμος) (i.e., modes) and musical instruments such as the laouto and boulgarí (μπουλγκαρί, the Cretan orelse). Once again, the Cretan Mantinada often figures prominently in the words to such songs. One explanation of the origin of the word tambahaniotika is that they come from the eponymous district area of Greek city of Patras Ταμπαχανιώτικα. Also, various conjectures are advanced to explain the meaning and origin of the term tabachaniotika. Kostas Papadakis believes that it comes from tabakaniotikes (ταμπακανιώτικες), which may mean places where hashish ( 'tobacco') was smoked while music was performed, as was the case with the tekédes (τεκέδες; pl. of tekés) of other major urban centres. This kind of genre was found in Crete and Smyrna and was played with lyra and laouto. Unlike rebetiko, the tabachaniotika was not considered underground music and was only sung, not danced, according to Nikolaos Sarimanolis, the last living performer of this repertory in Chania. Only a few musicians played the tabachaniotika, the most famous being the boulgarí (a mandolin-like instrument) player Stelios Foustalieris (1911–1992) from Réthymnon. Foustalieris bought his first boulgarí in 1924. In 1979, he said that in Réthymnon, the boulgarí had been widespread during the 1920s. An early twentieth-century variation of rebetiko around the Lakkos brothel district in Irakleio is indicative of a "hybrid music scene associated with cross-cultural interaction between different social and ethnic groups and musical traditions." Notwithstanding the dearth of performers, tabachaniotika songs were widespread and could also be performed at domestic gatherings. Notable artists of this genre who were originally refugees from Asia Minor include the bouzouki player Nikolaos "Nikolis" Sarimanolis (Νικολής Σαριμανώλης; born in Nea Ephesos in 1919) as a member of a folk-group founded by Kostas Papadakis in Chaniá in 1945, Antonis Katinaris (also based in Chaniá), and the Rethymnon-based Mihalis Arabatzoglou and Nikos Gialidis. History Origins Cretan music, like most of the traditional Greek music, began as product of ancient, Byzantine music, with western and eastern inspirations. The first recorded reference to lyra was in