Whooops! It's been just over a year since we last updated this blog, and this means that anybody fortunate enough not to be hooked on facebook may have missed all of our activities over the past few months. So here is a quick attempt to catch up, as well as a timely call for an upcoming gig which will be taking place on Mayday 2014, in excellent company!
So first things first, this is the flyer for Mayday:
From 12pm to 10pm. Christostomou Smirnis 17, Xemantilotos Voulknizater.
w/ the whole shebang!, virilio, ΔΔ, Yorgia Karidi & Georges Jacotey, Zombie Penguin And The Glory Holes
Facebook event
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Below is a retrospective overview of gigs etc. that happened between April 2013 and April 2014:
On May 26 we performed two solo sets in the 2nd annual extravaganza otherwise known as
"Festival Pollis Mousikis" (Too Much Music Fest), curated by Alexandros Voulgaris at 6 d.o.g.s. Due to a (mmm) miscommunication with the sound engineer Danae's piano set did not go quite as planned, so whe resorted to an approximation of it on
Soundcloud. A small chunk of Yannis'set from that day is also available
here).
On May 30 we got married, and after fourteen years together, we decided this was reason enough to throw a hell of a party two weeks later at
Knot Gallery. This was to be our last party there, and probably the best. On June 29 we bid farewell to Knot Gallery, which was home to the bulk of our sound-related activities since 2009, hosting a killer gig by
Mike Cooper. We accompanied the gig with fruity cocktails and pineapple chunks, and the word of the night was "aloha", which, as the old Pavement song goes "means goodbye, but also hello".
On September 27 we had the chance to do our first ever cave diet live performance.
Cave diet is our shameless alter ego, which was presented alongside memorable performances by Yorgia Karidi and Angelos kyriou. The performance was part of a fundraiser event for a new production of Bernard-Marie Koltès' "Dans la solitude des champs de coton". It was a lovely night, in the warm open air surroundings of the Embros theatre terrace.
Here is a small clip from the soundcheck.
Partly thanks to the great atmosphere that night, Angelos kyriou invited us over to join his own set at Embros a few days later, during the
Efimerevon ("On call") festival on October 5. The early morning set was a collage-like dialogue across an old wooden table, with the aid of live and pre-recorded tracks, and had pretty much what was advertised on the poster. "Coffee and phonecalls". Plus raisin buns.
On December 19 we played one of our most-enjoyed sets at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens, in the context of an exhibit by
Stefania Strouza, co-curated by Apostolis Vassilopoulos, and presented as part of the exhibition "
Afresh", focusing on emerging Greek artists.
Stefania and Apostolis'
"To a certain degree, sacredness is in the eye of the beholder", is an ongoing project, whereby local live acts converse with Stefania's work in different exhibition settings. The work will be presented again during the Athens Festival 2014, where we look forward to playing a new realisation of our set this coming July.
A couple of days later, on December 21, it was time for pure noise. We played on two consecutive days (as a duo and two solo acts), at
Low Resistance festival, in the industrial ground floor heterotopia of Vyrsodepseion. Nikos Kyriazopoulos, Dimitris Kamarotos and Anastasia X really deserve special mention here, as they did an exemplary job putting this event together.
On March 16 we took part in a curious semi-autobiographic project, alongside Angelos kyriou, Natasha Giannaraki, Yorgia Karidi and Dimitris Papadatos, involving the revival of an imaginary persona named
Debbie Thomas, in the context of an audio & text exhibit entitled "The Unlikely Return of the Onerous Deb T". The performance and corresponding exhibit was part of the exhibition
Fones (Voices), exploring notions of the voice in art and anthropology.
On April 12 we returned to Embros theatre for a night of independent Greek bands, where we played a set alongside the Fosforizouses Ousies (a.k.a. Marios from our beloved More Mars label, who was also responsible for organizing the gig), Akis Sinos, Timos Alexandropoulos (a.k.a. No God Ritual), and Mob.
During the past year, we also found time to work a bit more on solo stuff. In June 2013 Yannis contributed a cd-r to the
One Day series on Somehow Ecstatic Records, and in December 2013 his solo cd
"The Shape of Failures Past" came out on Granny Records. He also finally found the time to do a good chunk of solo gigs in Athens and Thessaloniki.
In late January 2014 we permanently vacated the premises at Knot Gallery, and Danae's Bluthner piano found a temporary new home at Michalis Moschoutis'
Y2 studio, where she recorded material for her forthcoming solo LP.
So there! :)
