Buzz' Ayaz by Buzz' Ayaz
Hailing from Cyprus’s divided capital Nicosia, and led by Antonis Antoniou, the founder of Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke, Buzz’ Ayaz creates a transfixing Eastern Mediterranean psychedelia. Their self-titled debut album is a fuzzed-out urban soundscape of dubby electronics, 70s-psych organ, growling bass clarinet, amplified folk instruments, ritual beats and Greek and Anatolian melodicism.
The band members come from both sides of the capital’s divide, and the music found on Buzz’ Ayaz is a deliberate attempt to give a voice to the city as a whole. A mercurial sound that echoes above the concrete walls and checkpoints.
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Cyprus is a holiday destination for people from all over Europe, a sunny, blue-sea island in the Eastern Mediterranean with a proud, ancient history. But it’s also a divided island, with longstanding political tensions between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations. Yet, inevitably in a small place, the two cultures intertwine. Walk the streets of Nicosia, the divided capital, and you’ll hear Greek rembetiko alongside Turkish pop, Anatolian psychedelia next to Western rock.
That urban mix of sounds he heard each day put a spark in Antonis Antoniou’s head. With his new band, Buzz’ Ayaz, that spark has caught fire, making Cypriot music that strides between decades and continents, electric and organic. The results on their eponymous debut album holds a barely contained wildness…and a bass clarinet.
“That’s the distinctive colour in our palette,” explains Antoniou, also the founder of the lauded Monsieur Doumani and Trio Tekke. “That was the sound in my ear for years. I was – and still am - a big fan of the American band Morphine, although they use baritone sax. The dynamic of the electrified bass clarinet drives the whole thing. Will Scott, who plays it, is British, he moved here a few years ago. We all had to learn to integrate the instrument into our style by giving it the necessary space and respect.”
Buzz’ Ayaz carries a big sound, a punchy heaviness that draws from ʼ60s and ʼ70s rock, but stirring it up with all the differing sounds of Cyprus that Antoniou has known all his life.
“This is a very small country, so it was hard to form a band with the right musicians. We had to be able to communicate and have the right chemistry. Everyone had to believe, to have a similar aesthetic and political views. The guys didn’t know each other from before and we started an online communication exchanging ideas even before we all met in person.”
Once in the same room, they still had to become familiar with each other’s styles.
“We experimented and jammed a lot, and began to find our direction,” he remembers. “I had some compositions and we started to connect the dots. Most importantly was balancing the instruments and producing a solid and interactive sonic world. It had to groove and be fresh and wild. Getting Will’s bass clarinet along with my electric tzouras (a kind of bouzouki), and then with Manos Stratis’s bass synth and organ; we had to work on all that, discovering our roles. Our drummer, Ulaş Öğüç, has a unique way of playing. We made the drums sound more like percussion, not so pop or straightforward. Everyone had input into the arrangements.”
For two months the four members rehearsed together, more than eight hours of playing every single day. While it was hard work, Antoniou says, “it was very enjoyable. We could really spend time together, like those old bands who used to go off to a country house to find themselves. When we played, it felt like the live version of the music I’d been working on by myself. This was the next level.”
But the real test was taking this brand-new sound out on the road and playing for an audience. Buzz’ Ayaz made their live debut taking their Nicosia grit to some festivals and venues across the whole island. The band passed with flying colours.
“Yes, the music is very urban. Folk is there too but just as a bedrock layer. We represent both sides of the population. I write the lyrics, and I sometimes mix the Greek Cypriot dialect with Turkish words. All four of us are activists, and this music is a way of giving something back to the island. It doesn’t have any checkpoints or barriers. It’s simply Cypriot music.”
Tightened and seasoned into a unit, with the material road-tested, Buzz’ Ayaz went into the studio. Antoniou had booked it for five days. It didn’t take that long. The band completed the album in three days, using the fourth for a few small overdubs.
“The key element to the way the record sounds, is that it was done live. We did it the way people used to, all of us in the same room, so it has that energy.”
There’s no doubt about that. From the first notes of “Buzzi Ayazi,” with Antoniou’s wah-wah tzouras leaping from the speakers, it’s electric and electrifying. Stratis’s organ builds the tension as the musicians invoke rock ghosts to stand alongside Eastern flourishes in a manifesto for their sound.
That’s just the first jolt of surprise. Every track offers something new: the Middle Eastern microtonal groove that threads through “Fysa,” or the pent-up Greek fire that builds and explodes in “Arkos.”
“The energy we found opens up in so many different directions,” Antoniou says. “There’s so much for us to explore in the combination of these instruments, and what we all bring from our own backgrounds adds to the texture of the sounds. It’s a colourful adventure.”
The recording captures the energy of Buzz’ Ayaz, with all the rawness and sweat of performance, coated with urban grit. But there’s far more to this than power; Buzz’ Ayaz prickles with intelligence, invention and imagination. “Ate Pale” keeps a heavy, thrilling roar, but revolves around quicksilver changes, while the airiness of “Meres” takes the listener on a woozy, Anatolian psychedelic journey.
“We’re all excited to explore this new world of possibilities,” Antoniou notes. “This band is a way to develop a new language to channel our artistic expression. Everything changes around us, and we also change all the time, so as artists we need to listen to these changes and adjust, in order to remain true and meaningful in what we create.”
Buzz’ Ayaz is the electric sound of modern Cyprus, the musical bridge that spans worlds. It’s music that keeps Antoniou’s blood racing, the sound in his head coming to life. “We are already working on the next album.”
The roots of Buzz’Ayaz are in Cyprus, Greece, Turkey and throughout the Levant, but they meld together on the streets of Nicosia.
“I hope,” Antoniou says, “that the reach is infinite.”
