“I play an instrument associated with a specific tradition and live in a place where the tradition is really strong,” says lyra player Sokratis Sinopoulos. “There are many advantages to a strong tradition. It's like having a time machine, almost, which can take you back to the medieval era or on journeys through the history of Greece, the Balkans, many countries.” And certainly the ages-soaked emotional yearning of the small, bowed lyra is audible in Sinopoulos's expressive playing. But the Athens-born virtuoso has drawn on other traditions too in his work with the likes of Charles Lloyd, which brings us to his leader debut with ECM. “But recently something else has been developing, bringing together all of my background with something, let's say, ‘universal’.” That universal quality is to the fore on the delicate pastel portraits of Eight Winds, which step lightly between folk, jazz and classical sources as Sinopoulos's quartet create a series of vividly coloured musical sketches around the lyra's subtly insistent cry.