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Thursday 24 May
Venue: Mythopolis, London
Doors 7:30pm
Spyweirdos
Blue Soup
Ta Mèr
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Spyweirdos
Spyweirdos (aka Spyros Polychronopoulos) is an exceptional Athens-based musician/composer in experimental, electroacoustic, glitch, ambient, and drone music. He has been involved in various projects for sound design, mastering and engineering, exploring new ways of artistic expression and new technologies of music composition and digital sound. He participated in the Greek delegation at the Venice Biennale in 2008. He has given live performances both all over Greece and abroad and has collaborated with an impressive list of artists that includes Alva Noto, Funckarma and Murcof. Having released 6 personal albums, his work has reached new heights bringing a refreshing newness to the sounds and creating sequences you never heard before.
For his latest album, ‘Feeling of Movement’, all the instruments heard (piano, guitar, drums, double bass, cello, clarinet, bass clarinet and electric bass) were recorded in different rooms or studios. The main idea was to achieve a strange ‘feeling of movement’ in space and time by listening to this outright transition from one room to another.
‘Spyweirdos alternates minimalistic sketches with grand, orthodox compositions. The end result is a lush, rich tapestry of excellent tracks’ – Pennyblackmusic
‘No question humanity meets electronic computer devices and strings meet transistors’ – Cuemix Magazine
www.spyweirdos.com
www.myspace.com/spyweirdos
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Ta Mère
The Ta Mère experience – a boot stompin', hard-driving descent into the dark depths of sophistication and visceral class; a heavy swung gleeful celebration exploding onstage in raiment of yore and fore. This malevolent circus draws from a plethora of musical strains – jazz, blues, rock, funk, 'grass – but the presence of a powerful 2 guitar line-up, a dangerously handsome drummer, devilish 6-string bassist supporting the mad bagpiper, fiddler, harp and raw, rasp vocalist renders it unique unto itself.
Christos Chatzispyrou – guitars
Nixon Rosembert – six-string bass
Sean MacGloin – vocals, violin, harmonica, bagpipes
John McCarthy – drums, vocals
Paul Sirett – guitars
www.tamere.co.uk
www.myspace.com/tamerelondon
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Blue Soup
One of London's finest and most unique quartets, nominated for Grammy 2012 for their second album 'Attention', Blue Soup have a fresh and friendly new sound – upbeat odd-time swinging grooves, soulful jazzy songwriting, cheerfully downbeat lyrics, Latin, Balkan and Eastern influences.
Blue Soup started life when songwriters Graham and Mike recruited Greek Jazz drummer Kostas with a view to creating a band with a uniquely new jazzy sound. The band has established an excellent live reputation with their musicianship and their energetic and entertaining performances.
Toby Nowell – trumpet, bass sax, clarinet
Kostas Bechlos – drums
Graham Silcock – guitar, vocals
Mike Seal – double bass, compositions
‘Blue Soup combines elements of jazz, Latin, Balkan, pop and rock, creating a fresh and friendly new sound’
‘Kostas Bechlos, a Greek jazz drummer with a truly sensitive feel and a deftness and intricacy of touch’
www.bluesoup.net
www.myspace.com/bluesoupband
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Friday 25 May
Venue: Mythopolis, London
Doors 7:30pm
Berlin Brides
Vassilikos
Maria Yerosimou
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Berlin Brides
Berlin Brides are no strangers to London. This amazingly hot Athens-based duo, comprising singer/lyricist Natasha Giannaraki and synth player/composer Marilena Orfanou, play an explosive mix of electro, punk and power pop. Conceived in Berlin and formed in Greece, the band are reinventing the music scene with their caustic lyrics and electrifying live performances. They performed in the UK for the first time in 2009 in Buffalo Bar, London, as winners of the Velvet Magazine Prize 2009. It was awarded to them by Artrocker Magazine, which labelled their EP 'Failure to Wank' one of the two best releases of 2008.
The band have toured extensively not only in Greece but also in Germany, North America and Canada, playing alongside CocoRosie, Kap Bambino, Subways, Klaxons and at some of the best-known festivals, winning both fans and critical acclaim.
If you haven’t checked them out, you really should!
‘One part Yeah Yeah Yeahs, two parts Long Blondes and a truckfull of mid-90s europop, their glossy veneer is shattered by songs about failed celibacy and unsuccessful wanking’ – Audioscribbler, UK
‘Upbeat electronic punk-funk that has everyone dancing along in no time. Tremendous, smutty fun’ – Call of the Wyld, UK
www.berlinbrides.com
www.myspace.com/berlinbrides
www.youtube.com/user/berlinbrides
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Vassilikos
Vassilikos is one of the most talented Greek artists of his generation, with influences from the European music scene. Having released 6 albums with his band Raining Pleasure, of which he was the composer, singer, bassist/guitarist and lyricist, Vassilikos is credited with some of the biggest hits over the last 20 years in Greece. With his band they have toured not only Greece but also Germany, Turkey and Romania with great success. They have also played several European Festivals such as Rock n’ Coke and Hurricane and have shared the stage with bands and artists such as Pixies, The Cure, Pearl Jam, Arcade Fire and many more. Apart from his successful course with Raining Pleasure, Vassilikos has collaborated with several important musicians to include Lena Platonos, Eleftheria Arvanitaki and Dimitra Galani.
Apart from his unique voice, Vassilikos adds his own distinctive and fresh look to pieces that have become classics over time, and makes them sound as if they were written today.
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Maria Yerosimou
Cypriot harpist Maria Yerosimou is an active performer, music educator and music researcher currently living and working in London, with a special interest in contemporary and experimental music. Her musical projects are experimentations in notions of interdisciplinarity in harp performance, which combine her passion for music, theatre, poetry and dance. She has performed with the Royal Orchestral Society, the Ealing Symphony Orchestra and the Goldsmith’s Sinfonia. She is also Art Director of the Studio Avant Garde, where she is in charge of artistic projects related to music, theatre and education.
At present, she is preparing premieres at which she will present the works of new composers and personal interdisciplinary projects. At the same time she records for Greek and International productions (Thessaloniki’s International Festival, Studio Avant Garde, Benoit Cassar/Buddha bar and others).
www.mariayerosimou.com
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Saturday 26 May
Venue: Mythopolis, London
Doors 7:30pm
YIANNEIS
Asaf Sirkis Trio
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YIANNEIS
YIANNEIS were born into the music world in 2009 in riotous Athens, GR. Since then they keep making a fuss, a habit they grew from the very first concert and will never give up. They are not only six professionally trained musicians; they are also performers who move incessantly on stage upon rhythms and styles that capture the audience’s attention and challenge them to become a part of their performance. YIANNEIS come with their own unique sound. Their music ranges from indie rock and art pop to freak folk and trip hop.
Their avant-garde live show is part concert, part theatrical performance. They combine the precision of a classical orchestra with the creative chaos of any original punk band. What happens on stage appears to be utterly spontaneous, yet it has been built after long hours of rehearsals, conducted in theatrical terms. The audience also plays an important role as the band constantly questions the limits between the stage and the people. Whenever they play, YIANNEIS make a party that is enthusiastically discussed afterwards.
Labros Filippou – vocals, conception
Nikos Zades – vocals, piano, accordion, kaossilator pro
Nikitas Kissonas – guitars, ukulele
Dimitris Petrakis – flute, backing vocals, tarabuka, AKAI wind controller
Ilya Algaer – double bass, vocals
Aris Kallergis – drums, backing vocals
Kostas Daskalakis – sound engineer
‘Extreme, subversive and intensely theatrical, YIANNEIS have a unique way of fusing rock, alternative, ethnic, electronic and Greek sounds in a show full of energy and surprises’ – elculture
www.yianneis.com
www.myspace.com/yianneis
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Asaf Sirkis Trio
In his long and playful partnership with saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, a recent and more delicate one with piano virtuoso John Law, and in many other settings from improv to fusion, Israeli expatriate Asaf Sirkis keeps confirming that he's one of the British jazz scene's most creative drummers. Law says that the way Sirkis just touches a cymbal is an inspiration, long before he's played a beat.
North African as well as Middle Eastern music played a big part in his early listening, and he was a bass guitarist as well as a drummer in his teens, so rock and fusion music from the Police to Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra went deep with him. This trio generates a compelling intensity, and the leader's percussion responses to their ideas are dazzling eruptions of drum mastery.
Asaf Sirkis – drums, compositions
Tassos Spiliotopoulos – guitar
Bass – tba
‘Sirkis is not only an inventive drummer but also a composer of rigour, wit and surprising delicacy’ – Chris Ingham, Mojo Magazine
‘Israeli-born drummer and London resident Asaf Sirkis unleashes with thunderous abandon on this hard-hitting fusion offering that harkens back to a time before the genre became codified, diluted and reduced to a critical joke” – Jazz Times (USA)
www.asafsirkis.co.uk
www.myspace.com/asafsirkis
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