The Cypriot group Trio Tekke (who play traditional rebetika with a modern twist as well as their own compositions) is amongst the 4 best ‘Newcomers’ in the world music stage as announced by the well-established music magazine “Songlines”, following the group’s participation in the magazine’s music competition. The trio has been nominated for its latest album ‘Samas’ that received an outstanding review in the magazine’s 80th issue, which led to its nomination in the category of best ‘Newcomer’. The magazine’s readers and the wider music-loving public played a large role in this development, since they had the opportunity to vote online for their favourite musicians in each category. It is worth mentioning here that Trio Tekke’s album ‘Samas’ is the only self-released production amongst the nominees, produced solely by the group members in Nicosia.

The Cypriot group has been placed beside ‘giants’ in ethnic music such as Bombino (Niger) and Fatoumata Diawara (Mali). In the ‘Best Artist’, ‘Best Group’ and ‘Best Collaboration’ categories artists such as Anoushka Shankar, Ry Cooder, Tinariwen, Kronos Quartet and Dub Colossus have been nominated.

The four nominees of each category, among them Trio Tekke, will feature on the music compilation “Songlines Music Awards 2012”, officially released on 19 March. This extremely important success of Trio Tekke follows a series of international achievements which occurred this year such as their award at the Battle of the Bands (World  Music Network), their album ‘Samas’ being announced as ‘Album of the month’ by the Greek magazine “Ichos kai Eikona” etc.

The Songlines Music Awards replaced the BBC Radio 3 Music Awards in 2009 and receive world-wide media coverage since they are considered to be the most important and renowned ‘world’ music awards. The final winner will be announced this coming June.

You can find out more about Trio Tekke on their official website:
www.triotekke.com

More about Songlines:
www.songlines.co.uk