Anadelta-Vita Brevis LP (2013)

Anadelta is an example of a weird offshoot of the  '90s fixation sweeping the nation(s). Instead of simply ripping off MBV or Godspeed You! Black Emperor wholesale, the group explores the connections (yeah, there are some) between ambient electronica, shoegaze, and the spacier end of post-rock. Yeah, I know, you're probably saying to yourself "geez, how many discordant genres can one person throw together? And why the fuck would I want to listen to a mixture of those three? Fuck you."

Well I sorta had the same impression when the album crossed my desk, but after a month of listening, this LP has grown on me considerable. This is not music you can dance to, nor does it strike a visceral emotion such as anger, excitement, or passion. It's not hippy-dippy jamband dogshit, either. Rather, the LP moves between aggression, brooding, and exuberant bursts of catharsis.

Having alienated almost all of you with those first two paragraphs, I can now exhort those of you still reading to buy this thing. "Where are you/Where am I," begins very, very slowly with sedate synthesizers and minor notes washing in and around themselves. Things get a bit heavier on "Oceans:" the flighty guitar line is mixed with clang-bang electronic beats that finally plateau in a squall before fading out. Anadelta's debt to electronica is more evident on side two: "A Garden with No Colors" sounds like Russian Circles being lulled into submission by Boards of Canada.

If you can put your inner savage in check long enough, this is a great soundtrack to a stoned Sunday at the beach. Hell, I'm amazed something this chilled out came from Greece, the cockpit of the current capitalist crisis. Throw it on, pop a Mythos, and watch Syntagma Square burn.

You can preview the album, then BUY IT, here. The first 200 copies come in a fancy-schmancy photobooklet thing. Lowtronik mixed and mastered it. Dig it. 

Lowtronik: Cuts, Edits, Versions LP (2013)

I was gonna review this album sober, but then I got in an argument with one of my best friends about the evils (joys) of drugs. Out of pure nihilistic spite towards my well-intentioned friend, however, I popped 2 Xanax and drank a bottle of red wine before spinning this. So let's see how far I can get before passing out in a pool of wine and my own drool....

Turns out it was a good decision, since down-tempo electronica* is perfect for sitting still and watching the world go about its business while taking no part in it. This is a compilation of several years' worth of odds and ends from Lowtronik, a fixture of the indie electro scene in Greece.** I'm told that it's trip-hop, whatever that is.  It's pretty much perfect for a lazy summer afternoon when it's too hot to go out and you just wanna chainsmoke and drink gin 'n' tonics. 

The album starts with "Interlude 128," which could be a Deathgrips outtake, minus the annoyingly shrill rapping. Most of these tracks are so chilled out they're almost catatonic, the exception being "Hungry." The taut, massive beat is mixed all the way forward and stomps all over yr eardrums. My favorite cut is "Weekend Mellotron." The vocals are mixed a bit too high, but the beat is expansive and breezy, complemented perfectly by clusters of synthesizer notes. It feels like a complete track Lowtronik would play in the club, instead of a sketch he's still editing and trimming. 

Reality is starting to turn into a blurry gray splotch as I finish up this review, and "in a slow (tempo)," the LP's closer, is just right for a head full of pills and a stomach full of wine. Before I pass out, I'll encourage you to check this thing out, even if you don't dig electronic music, typically (I'm assuming that's most of my regular readership). 

You can listen to the LP and download it for free at here. Physical copies will be available soon from DNA Records. Lowtronik has his own website, too. 

 *I don't know a thing about musical terminology, let alone electronic music, so for my purposes "down tempo" means what you'd listen to at the end of the night, instead of what's playing while you're huffing coke and dancing (is that what people do at clubs?). 

**With due apologies to denizens of Thessaloniki and Patras, I assume that mostly means Athens.

Muuy Biien-Knife Fights EP (2012)

Muuy Biien's "Knife Fights" EP might be the most brutally simple recording I've heard all year, and that's saying a lot. It sounds like the band recorded this into a boombox with pots and pans percussion, on an amp with only one channel.It shreds.

 The first four tracks race by in a blur of frantic, truncated guitar riffing and wham-bam boom-bap drumming. The rapid-fire stop-start musicianship, snarled vocals, and hyper-compressed feel of the record all remind me of The Middle Class' Out of Vogue EP, with the arty pretensions gutted and thrown out. In fact, Muuy Biien's music is so concise, a better comparison might be with Tennessee hardcore heroes Koro."Father" sums up Muuy Biien's sound: a rushed snare drum starts the track, which whizzes along to a total time of 42 seconds. The drums are a panic attack, but with none of the showy musicianship of blastbeats or ineptitude of punk drumming: it's simply fast, minimalistic, and efficient. I can't tell if the guitarist is playing chords or just strumming patterns on the guitar as fast as he can; the guitar sound is a tornado frenzy.

The real headfuck, though, is "Rotter": the recording is such a departure from the first four songs, I initially thought it was another band. The song consists of a series of guitar notes repeated over and over, with a warm wash of watery ambience slathered all over it. Halfway through, handclaps shimmer into existence somewhere in the mix. "Rotter" is the dream the rest of the EP was in such a hurry to get to.

Look for this one on my year-end list. You can listen to the EP on Muuy Biien's bandcamp page; then, go buy the real deal for only $5 over at Wondertrick Records! The Muuy Biien LP smokes too, so this is the band to watch in 2013.

ΔΙΑΤΆΡΑΞΗ ΚΟΙΝΉΣ ΗΣΥΧΊΑΣ CS (1984)

I'm too tired and have too much work to do to get around to any of the new releases clogging my mailbox, and anyway lots of y'all prefer old music over new music, so here ya go.

The title translates as, roughly, "Disturbing the Common Peace." Enigma (no, not the US/UK label) Records dropped this one back in 1984, and showcases what the Athens scene sounded like back then. Most of the bands straddle the line between punk and new wave, especially  the two tracks by Γενιά Του Χάους ("Chaotic Generation"/"Chaos Generation"), which are probably the best: dark, plodding punk that should appeal to all you kiddies jizzing your pant/ies over the dark/deathpunk revival.

Panx Romana and Ex-Humans are the other well-known (relatively speaking, anyways) bands here, but Γκρόβερ and Stress are pretty good too.

Dig it, creeps. I think I found this on Robert's Terminal Escape blog a long time ago; you should follow TE if you don't already, fool.

Metro Decay-Ypervasi LP (1984)

The computer I'm typing this entry on is from 1995, and I'm frankly amazed I was able to upload an image of the cover, so there ain't no verbal or lyrical fireworks in this entry, folks.

Anyways, Metro Decay's 1984 LP Υπέρβαση is a classic of Greek new/cold/whateverwave. Dudes gigged around Athens a lot in the '80s, opened for The Fall, Birthday PArty, etc.
"Εισαγογν στην κίνηση" is probably my favest track on heer: they totally steal the structure from Joy Div, but throw in some Greek instruments to give it a MD-unique feel.

The version I'm posting butchers the Greek-script track titles; they're posted below.

Merry Xmas, folks.

*EDIT, 10.31.12: I reup'd the file. DOWNLOAD HERE. *

"Υπερβασν" was recently re-released; check out an interview with the band from last year here.

1. Μαύρος Κύκνος
2. Ανάμεσα Σε Δύο Κρεσσεντα
3. Το Ταξίδι
4. Εισαγωγή Στην Κίνηση
5. Απειλή
6. Παιχνίδια Στην Επιφάνεια
7. Το Πάγωμα Του Πάθους
8. 'Έβενος
9. Υπέρβαση
10. Λίμπιντο

The Hands of Cain-The Only Sound (2009)

Formed in Athens in the early '80s, the Hands of Cain recorded a handful of tracks before ubmerging into the raki stew of Εξάρχεια.

This collection could pass as a flagship release of Minimal Wave or Wierd Records. All the classic elements of "cold" wave are here: mournful, gusting synth lines, semi-automized drumming, and an inaudible, halfdead vocalist.

But this isn't simply a Greek Bauhaus imitation. The tracks are uneven, spanning as they do three years and various recording sessions. The mood is autumnal, mournful. Yet there are occasional bursts of warmth and sunlight, like when the motorik drums on "Two Steps to the End" cut through the droning synth. The most impressive song is the 7" version of "Pristine Passion." The synth layers aren't so heavy here, and the individual instruments stand out: robotic, clanging drumming, a numb synth line, and guitar that's distinguishable from the synth, instead of being drowned by it.

It's a shame Hands of Cain didn't stick around longer; it sounds like they were headed away from the uniformly grey ambiance of their early work toward something more dynamic.

There's no future! //[kατεβάζω!] //Annalogue Records seems to still have copies of the collection, with "Pristine Passion" included on a separate, white vinyl 7". Props to Urban Aspirines, from which I think I got this originally. The tomb picture has nothing to do with Hands of Cain, it's a sepulchral sculpture from a 13th-century tomb. Deathwave, eat your heart out!