Although this label indicates the lead instrument is the Cretan lyra (a pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed fiddle), my Cretan-music-playing friend Al Davidson insists it’s actually a violin. While Haniotikos simply means “from the city of Hania”, the Crete’s second largest city located along the northwest coast, the fast and wild sounds of this recording suggests it may actually be from the nearby city of Kissamos.