press quotes
"The sophistication and eloquence one can hear, as it is clear to me, that Spiros Exaras's way of executing guitar is compelling and beautiful".
- Al Di Meola
"With Phrygianics, Exaras and his Ensemble accomplish the Olympian task of forging a Jazz/World Music combination worthy of the Gods themselves".
- Jazz Review
"The first Greek who hit the studio of the legendary Blue Note".
- Moody (Greece)
"...Spiros Exaras is the kind of musician who you never tire of".
- Producer Mike Millius
"Music by Spiros Exaras combines Old World favorites with original pieces, adding a dose of authentic Greek spice throughout."
- Variety
"Similar virtues make for terrific performances in other Choro, especially in Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Choro #1 (Choro Tipico) as well, indeed, in an original Choro from the wonderfully gifted guitarist Spiros Exaras – Chorinho do Sol.
"These and others on the disc are touchingly chaste, leavened by subtlest rubato and dynamic variation enabling one to enjoy also the levity of this music."
- World Music Report
"Exaras's stormy jazz scales bathed the audience in ancient Greek melodies fulfilling the heart of a Greek traveller."
- National Herald (New York)
"Exaras demonstrates his well-developed skills as both a composer and improviser on guitar on this CD. His ten originals offer up compelling structures of rhythm, melody and harmony".
- JazzImprov
'Shakespeare famously claimed that there’s nothing new under the sun. But if he heard this combination of Greek and Cuban music, he would be forced to reconsider. This is the mash-up of the year, yet the integration of these two distinct musical cultures is handled with effortless fluency, almost as if Athens and Havana were sister cities."
- The Daily Beast
"Spiros Exaras is one of the finest musicians of our time. His versatility as a guitarist, composer and arranger never stops to amaze me."
- Achilles Liarmakopoulos (Canadian Brass)
"To the credits of Villafranca and Exaras, neither of these virtuosos is shy to embrace a melody when it deserves it. Their sophisticated playing demonstrates for the umpteenth time that jazz is very much a universal music."
- Downbeat
"With only a guitar, Spiros Exaras can bring magic to his listeners and he can travel his audience with his music."
- 168 Hours
"Spiros Exaras does not simply respect his dreams. He turns them into reality."
- Ethnos (Greece)
"Oh no, he is an improviser who listens and plays in a style a little like George Benson and a lot like himself."
- Amazon reviewer
"[Exaras] involves radically and indirectly in jazz Greek rhythms sounds and melodies. And he does it in a magnificent way! The result is spectacular, as exactly in the world compositions of Al DiMeola and Pat Metheny. In his CD Phrygianics his compositions and improvisations are astonishing….I guarantee that Spiros Exaras impresses with his musical ideas. What he does is not like anything we have heard."
- Piotr Iwicki, Gazeta Wyborcza, (Poland)