ΕΞ ΟΨΕΩΣ by x.ypno

x.ypno delivers his new collection of neo-canticles that revolve around vernacular politics.

Blurring the boundaries of ethno-national belonging and its sonic manifestations through a blind-faith act of code-switching (definition: when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties [e.g., the Greek-Cypriot Dialect], in the context of a single conversation or situation). In the torn polity of southern Cyprus, Hip-Hop culture and, more broadly, electro-vocal music tends to exhibit several colloquial alterations whereby lyricists employ distinct languages of communication to address their audience.

The two main linguistic modes that are observed in the southern part of the island are the Greek-Cypriot Dialect (GCD) and Standard Modern Greek (SMG), also referred to as koiné. A colonial and nationalist remnant, the koiné linguistic variety symbolizes the ''motherland'' influence of Greece on the Greek-Cypriot population, which is educated in schools that do not teach the ''native'' dialect and instead promote a pedagogy that relies on the exclusive use of SMG. At the same time, Greek-Cypriot media broadcasts avoid uttering words in colloquial speech in favor of a sanitized Athenian accent that attempts to emulate a SMG speaker. In the eyes of most Greek-Cypriots their dialect is considered to be ''dirty'' or the speech of ''peasants'', a class in which an overwhelming majority of the Cypriot population, both Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot, used to belong up to the formative years of the British Colonial Administration of Cyprus (19th and early to mid-20th century).

This album captures the anxiety and ''dichotomous'' state of a musician in Cyprus that finds herself/himself unable to decide between which language or dialect to express herself/himself. Dichotomous in the sense that one is disconnected from the vernacular dialect to such an extent that she/he feels like this mode of communication is inappropriate or, perhaps, that it oozes a smell of vulgarity that only SMG speech can extinguish.

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