Paradise Metal (Limited Colored LP)

Released April 29, 2026 via Heat Crimes, Paradise Metal is a record made alone, at home, by an Orthodox priest who has served for thirty years at the Church of Panagitsa in Nafplio. Fr. Dionysios Tabakis is a musician of the Eastern Mediterranean in the fullest sense, trained in Byzantine theory and fluent across qanun, oud, cümbüş, ney, zurna, Politiki and Pontic lyra, kabak kemane, and yali tanbur. He first put the music on YouTube, where Nikolas Rafael found it and issued a small cassette run on his Elhellhel label.

The Byzantine system operates here as the underlying logic: the scales, the intervals, the way one note leans toward another. What comes out is slow, heavy and meditative, drone carrying the weight of stone walls and sustained prayer, and it remains Byzantine music throughout. Pitchfork gave it 7.6 and called it a "joyous, solemn, playful, and painful record."

Two pieces are built on fretless electric guitar, the perdesiz, one of the few instruments capable of landing moria, the intervals smaller than a semitone that the human voice finds naturally.

Limited edition pressed on orange vinyl, with a bonus track exclusive to this format.