Synopsis
PICTURE THIS DREAM ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
This song is typical of lines used a lot in my lyrical writing style. Lines like, “You’re smile gives me joy”. The “smile” phrase was used in the To Oneiro album, “To hamogelo sou mou thini poli hara”. The “dream” theme is a common topic that represents my vivid imagination. “Want to fly and soar like an eagle”, meaning like the most majestic of the birds, the eagle, I want to fly in the sky, and indicates the uplifting of my “Spiritual” essence and elevation. For if I had wings, I would soar above the workaday world just like an eagle, the king of the sky. “To walk through the forests” basically to traverse the land amongst the trees, and mystically through the forest like a sage warrior. And then the classic line used in a lot of my lyrics, “A Love that is – Bathing me” Once again , the light and radiance “baptizing” my entire being. The outright, and complete “holistic” Christening. This song is representative of the “ultimate preaching method”, identifying the joy and existence of Love and Life. “To honour and embrace, this Life that is Real, Although a child of milkiness”, reminisces back into my historical experiences with birth. I remember holding “Nicholas” close to my heart as an infant, and talking to him, “Son, You’re Love I need to feel”, these words closely related to my joy and connection with birth, and my special relationship with my children. I remember his “smile” as a baby, not only lifted my spirit, but comprehensively connected me with the Cosmos. Listen to these words closely my friend, it’s the total appreciation and celebration of Life, this supposed “Dream”. The song brings a tear to my heart consistently, and the words are more than just meaningful, they are full of “emotional expression”. As far as the music and lyrics are concerned, I wrote the song back in May 1984, when Nicholas was born, which was one of the significantly revelation and growth periods of my Life. I had designed aesthetically the full concert then clearly in my mind, although I only had my guitar and percussive arrangement in my possession at the time. It was a live concert vivid in my head at the time, which finally manifested into a proper recording 29 years later in my home studio. The instrumentation of this song is unique. My current musical and artistic knowledge gives birth to a multi-track recording of originality today with clever scales and time signatures.
Voice harmonies are pleasant to the ear. Both in the right and left speakers, represent a fully functional harmony. The string section with the Symphony and Chamber violins adds emotion, and uplifts the intent of the message. The chord chart chops and changes in its progression, and in an ascension grid pattern, reaches a crescendo by the time the “Love that is – Bathing me” part of the song is felt. Bells and triangles at certain parts of the track, give it a devotional pristine percussive reality. The pandeiro, which sounds similar to a deep bongo and conga, suddenly comes in during the instrumental part, and creates a crisp, dry and deep “sustained” one, which takes to the percussion to a different dimension. After all the years of observing my father and the majesty of his dexterous hands drumming on kitchen tables, with his palms, thumbs and fingers, in an ethnic samba beat style, finally I was able to emulate him, today, with this recording technique. I use the Brazilian style pandeiro that I have in my home now in a similar manner to my father’s percussive patterns I recall from many years ago with the only difference being that I would deliberately tune the pandeiro low, so it would sound like a floor tom with jingles. In addition to this, the percussion in this song becomes even more sophisticated, when I use the ‘African Udo’ drums, that fittingly produces a special and unique bass sound. The objective behind using these at various intervals of the song was to create a sound that appeared “explosive”. A detonation inside like feeling where you would appear to hear “wind” and “air” resonating within a cavity. The drumming in this song is meticulous and strategically worked out down to the minutest beat. Overall, the guitars and the string quartet blend in to give it a “full concert” effect. That’s how I imagined it 29 years ago, and, finally, this is how it takes its birth today. My music represents a Mathemagical concept, my intention is to invent a “musical theorem” that resonates “majestic magic” in its performance level. It is mathematical and complicated within its entirety, but rich and vibrant in its application. The bass guitar tab progression, is thumping, popping, and wonderfully sustained in rotary. It walks up and down the fret board and keeps the song together, directing movement from the verses to the instrumental and chorus atonement. Bass melodic “timbres” have been produced throughout the track, and the bass harmonics take on a more “mellow tone”. The bass talks to the listener and gives the feeling of an intense interpolation of innovation at the bottom end. Overall, the musical production of “Picture this Dream”, with the interconnecting array of musical arrangement, can be transferred into a “musical notation score” and conveyed in an orchestrated, concert type of performance with a multitude of instruments. The recording with its composition typifies the type of musical composer I am, an expansive repertoire type with technical skill, which is commercially viable with a musically advanced level of audio quality.
PICTURE THIS DREAM Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
If songs had a color, this song would be gold, the gold Renaissance painters used to signify anything sanctified and holy. The song’s understated, emotionally complex landscape and its rich, gentle, and textured expression are inspired by the breadth and amplitude of feeling in the “universal comprehensive love” expressed for the singer songwriter’s infant son, which is also a feeling so expansive and generous, and so expansively and generously communicated in the music and singing, that that feeling opens out to unite the listener to the same expansive “universal comprehensive love” the singer songwriter feels, and the listener is similarly “bathed” by the gorgeous sentiment of profound feeling, by the totality of unmitigated selfless love one feels only for children, a love that connects one to the wider universal family of humankind and to the cosmos at large, a love that at the same time obliterates the self in that selflessness of love we lose ourselves in only with children. When the pandeiro comes in during the instrumental part, we are surprised by the extraordinary bravura of introducing such a potentially dissonant percussive element in such a delicate song, but our surprise very soon gives over to the irrefutable sense of the guiding, inspirational hand of God in his “universal comprehensive love” for all our endeavours as the pandeiro’s percussive magic resonates assuredly somewhere deep inside that part of us that only the Divine can touch.
The song connects the listener to the wellspring of a purer more selfless love. As such, it is a precious rarity in that most love songs tend to be about selfish love: about love lost, found, or deferred. This song is about love’s selfless expansion in all directions, inwardly and outwardly, connecting child and father and connecting the privileged listener to that sustaining “universal comprehensive love”, next to which the amatory love of conventional love songs pales in comparison. It is a love song, with a purity of feeling, with selflessness, and with generosity of spirit, features that characterize much of this singer songwriter’s music and, in fact, much of all of his artistic production, and, yes, even his modus vivendi. Bravo my friend! The song is full; it strikes a chord deep in one’s heart, in one’s heart of hearts, and it uplifts the spirit. It is pure.
INNER FEELING ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
“Inner Feeling” explores the essence of the “creative process” inherent in me. It is the attribution of a mystical quality, a fixation with an inanimate object that is not conventionally comprehended in secular nature. It is deep, profound, individually universal, and overwhelmingly veracious in its constitution. It is a feeling that is appropriately expressed in musical connotation. Its movement is slow like a snail and tortoise; it is in constant torture and almost in prison, and the only way to grasp it is to essentially expose its deep origin. As an anthropological concept, it possesses supernatural power. It is the reference of my “That thou Art” stripped bare to its “raw” reality. It makes me want to touch the zenith of the stratospheric realm with its majesty and remain established with my “Consecrated Host”, indefinitely. I describe it as a “Fetish Feel” in conjunction with the emergent articulation of religious ideology; it is truly radical, problematic, and has no social value to anyone apart from stimulating me specifically and exclusively. It is personal, yet its deepest wish is to expose itself to all, like the lyrics describe, “It is a slow ensemble of music longing in me”. Listen closely to the literal significance my friend, I am clearly describing the “creative nature” of my Spirit; it almost doesn’t belong to me; it is like a separate identity; it is that “Inner Feeling” apparent in all of us, a deep and profound description of our “true inner self”.
I deliberately sing the song flat, and slowly in a mono tone way, to give it an intriguingly depressive emotional state. The bass guitar plays a fantastic array of warm notes, giving out a sound that has depth, and the continuous “thumping” represents the “Organic beating of the Heart”. This in turn gives Life to the song and continuity. The infectious “Hissing” prevalent in the percussion gives the sensation of “constant breathing”, an inhaling, exhaling and puffing sound, which is very tastefully blended with great tom toms rolling and the clashing of various cymbals. The “string quartet” of the violins is necessary to lift the emotion and to provide clean, high treble levels. The guitar adjoin synergistically and are extremely intricate within their roles. There are four distinct guitar patterns, each performing its own prescribed duty. The lead guitar is “Spanish” in its scale, and the other rhythmic guitar patterns and movements blend in to harmonize and compliment the lead guitar. The song ends beautifully with a syncopated assortment of guitar patterns melodically blending cleverly with the drums and violins. Conclusively, a great piece of music, that attempts to touch that “Inner Core” of existence that I can only and best describe as my “Art”, my “Spirit”, “A Universal Power”, “Discreet Dark Matter’, and so on.
INNER FEELING Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
The esoteric nature of the artist’s “creative process” is explained fully and most eloquently above, and, of course, that fullness and eloquence finds consummate expression in its musical correlative, in the song “Inner Feeling”. The little I will add is to say I have yet to read anyone explain verbally so limpidly what you do musically, and I have yet to hear anyone achieve musically so limpidly what you explain so limpidly verbally. The sustained congruence and unity of artistic endeavour between the verbal and the musical is extraordinary. Finally, it is no accident that a song about the nature of your “creative process” has as strong psychedelic component to it. The introspective, monotonic delivery, the mesmeric repetition of the words “inner feeling” echoed by the guitar’s bluesy, fluid, psychedelic elaborations are glimpses into the creative wellspring of the inimitable Andy I style that is “this fetish feel and suffering” consecrated in the confluence of Surrealism and 1960s Psychedelia, the latter the belated musical expression of Surrealism.
AWAKENING ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
A truly Spiritual message orientated song. The original inspiration for this song arose from Jimmy Morrison’s song called ‘Awake’ from his ‘An American Prayer’ album. Consistency is also the musical message in this song. The drums and bass come in very early, and maintain constant right through. The lyrics are fairly self-explanatory, a “wake up” call for all humanity to the Truth of the Maker. The Ping Pong delay and reverb in the vocals, has wonderful repetition and echo coming from the left speaker and then slowly merging to the right speaker. Bass guitar walks up and down scales, giving plenty of room for the guitars. The lead guitar goes off into its own world, and takes you to a typical sequence of Andy guitar licks, in his own ethnic style and format. Inspired by the clean lead guitar of influences like Carlos Santana, Robby Krieger, Chet Atkins, and Mark Knopfler. A really “steady” dance number that is flowing, that keeps your toes tapping and body shaking. In addition, there are very effective “snare claps” in the percussion, which emulates a “locomotive” type of beat.
AWAKENING Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
Rather than a comment, I will offer more of a suggestion: perhaps to do justice to the fullness of the song’s original inspiration, there could be another version of this song which incorporates a classic Ray Manzarek flowing, floating electric organ component to it. It would give a complete and fuller “steady” sustained flowing quality to the incantatory nature of the song.
MIDDLE OF JUNE ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
The song you can say is a representation of Mythological deific consciousness. The “counter balance” is found in the “centre”, in the “middle” and specifically in the month of June. The middle of the Year, is at zero point, where all realization becomes apparent. It’s at a point in time, where a “force” or “influence” equally counteracts the other. As form this “centre point” access to all realms of existence either positive or negative in nature is possible. I have always considered the month of June as an auspicious moment in time. I was born in June, and therefore identify with its period of influence. The lyrics are colourful, and don’t rhyme anywhere, yet they appear as if they do. Perhaps only in the repetition of the chorus you may find rhyming. The drum beat at the beginning of the song, starts the expedition, and the entrance of the “cool tonewheel organ” immediately creates a mood. It begins like a catchy nursery melody, then enter the lay back vocals. The drum beat is a feature in this song, and being very dry and busy, gives the song character. The “organ” is the life blood of the song, and makes it feel smooth and mellow right through. The bass drum has a fantastic “static effect” in certain parts of the song, which make the bass jump out to you. I consider myself to be a highly original bass guitarist, and the feel I provide with this track, gives direction and fluidic movement. The guitar, although not a huge feature, has a similar impact that elevates all my other material.
MIDDLE OF JUNE Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
I am particularly impressed with the way the singing here adds an original component to the song. While the singing voice is identifiably yours, it is still differentially not you to the extent that it gives the song an original dimension it might not have had had you sung in your usual style. I particularly like the way you wind up the phrase “In the middle of June” and the way you string out “Joooouooone”, proving that you are also a subtle master of yet one more instrument, the voice.
ALIVE JIVE ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
Inspired by the feel of the band called “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”, the songs “Relax”, and “When two tribes go to war”. The song is full of repeated chorus lines, only with a few verses here and there that don’t necessarily rhyme. It’s all about a “crazy” feeling, and the words and opinions of a loved one. Just a bit of the “Jive”, and banter that is brought to life, with obsessive repetition. A song sung by an obsessed man. All about a tasteful dance track that keeps the activity in motion. Plenty of reverb/chorus and echo on the vocals, that flow with the feel. Nice driving percussion, a few bongos here and there to add more to the movement. Tight bass riffs, with complimentary rhythm and lead guitar. Eloquent and consistent right through.
ALIVE JIVE Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
This song in its simplicity is proof that true art is not necessarily what you put in but as much as what you leave out. Anyone who is a musician should be utterly envious that you can do so much with inspired, pared-down lyrics (“The crazy words of the crazy words you often say”, an absolutely mellifluous and felicitous construction, for example) so much with an original singing style boosted in effectiveness exponentially with some simple and clever reverberation, and so much with a repeated chorus among stripped down, bare verses, and deft, meaningful, minimalist, and understated guitar playing. “Less is more” is a function of true Art. Here you show you are more than capable of executing the “less is more” rendition when necessary. Original and jiving is not an easy combination to pull off. “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” should be thoroughly flattered that you made of their style something fresh, alive, sustainable, and, not to mention, thoroughly enjoyable. Well done my friend!
This song is typical of lines used a lot in my lyrical writing style. Lines like, “You’re smile gives me joy”. The “smile” phrase was used in the To Oneiro album, “To hamogelo sou mou thini poli hara”. The “dream” theme is a common topic that represents my vivid imagination. “Want to fly and soar like an eagle”, meaning like the most majestic of the birds, the eagle, I want to fly in the sky, and indicates the uplifting of my “Spiritual” essence and elevation. For if I had wings, I would soar above the workaday world just like an eagle, the king of the sky. “To walk through the forests” basically to traverse the land amongst the trees, and mystically through the forest like a sage warrior. And then the classic line used in a lot of my lyrics, “A Love that is – Bathing me” Once again , the light and radiance “baptizing” my entire being. The outright, and complete “holistic” Christening. This song is representative of the “ultimate preaching method”, identifying the joy and existence of Love and Life. “To honour and embrace, this Life that is Real, Although a child of milkiness”, reminisces back into my historical experiences with birth. I remember holding “Nicholas” close to my heart as an infant, and talking to him, “Son, You’re Love I need to feel”, these words closely related to my joy and connection with birth, and my special relationship with my children. I remember his “smile” as a baby, not only lifted my spirit, but comprehensively connected me with the Cosmos. Listen to these words closely my friend, it’s the total appreciation and celebration of Life, this supposed “Dream”. The song brings a tear to my heart consistently, and the words are more than just meaningful, they are full of “emotional expression”. As far as the music and lyrics are concerned, I wrote the song back in May 1984, when Nicholas was born, which was one of the significantly revelation and growth periods of my Life. I had designed aesthetically the full concert then clearly in my mind, although I only had my guitar and percussive arrangement in my possession at the time. It was a live concert vivid in my head at the time, which finally manifested into a proper recording 29 years later in my home studio. The instrumentation of this song is unique. My current musical and artistic knowledge gives birth to a multi-track recording of originality today with clever scales and time signatures.
Voice harmonies are pleasant to the ear. Both in the right and left speakers, represent a fully functional harmony. The string section with the Symphony and Chamber violins adds emotion, and uplifts the intent of the message. The chord chart chops and changes in its progression, and in an ascension grid pattern, reaches a crescendo by the time the “Love that is – Bathing me” part of the song is felt. Bells and triangles at certain parts of the track, give it a devotional pristine percussive reality. The pandeiro, which sounds similar to a deep bongo and conga, suddenly comes in during the instrumental part, and creates a crisp, dry and deep “sustained” one, which takes to the percussion to a different dimension. After all the years of observing my father and the majesty of his dexterous hands drumming on kitchen tables, with his palms, thumbs and fingers, in an ethnic samba beat style, finally I was able to emulate him, today, with this recording technique. I use the Brazilian style pandeiro that I have in my home now in a similar manner to my father’s percussive patterns I recall from many years ago with the only difference being that I would deliberately tune the pandeiro low, so it would sound like a floor tom with jingles. In addition to this, the percussion in this song becomes even more sophisticated, when I use the ‘African Udo’ drums, that fittingly produces a special and unique bass sound. The objective behind using these at various intervals of the song was to create a sound that appeared “explosive”. A detonation inside like feeling where you would appear to hear “wind” and “air” resonating within a cavity. The drumming in this song is meticulous and strategically worked out down to the minutest beat. Overall, the guitars and the string quartet blend in to give it a “full concert” effect. That’s how I imagined it 29 years ago, and, finally, this is how it takes its birth today. My music represents a Mathemagical concept, my intention is to invent a “musical theorem” that resonates “majestic magic” in its performance level. It is mathematical and complicated within its entirety, but rich and vibrant in its application. The bass guitar tab progression, is thumping, popping, and wonderfully sustained in rotary. It walks up and down the fret board and keeps the song together, directing movement from the verses to the instrumental and chorus atonement. Bass melodic “timbres” have been produced throughout the track, and the bass harmonics take on a more “mellow tone”. The bass talks to the listener and gives the feeling of an intense interpolation of innovation at the bottom end. Overall, the musical production of “Picture this Dream”, with the interconnecting array of musical arrangement, can be transferred into a “musical notation score” and conveyed in an orchestrated, concert type of performance with a multitude of instruments. The recording with its composition typifies the type of musical composer I am, an expansive repertoire type with technical skill, which is commercially viable with a musically advanced level of audio quality.
PICTURE THIS DREAM Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
If songs had a color, this song would be gold, the gold Renaissance painters used to signify anything sanctified and holy. The song’s understated, emotionally complex landscape and its rich, gentle, and textured expression are inspired by the breadth and amplitude of feeling in the “universal comprehensive love” expressed for the singer songwriter’s infant son, which is also a feeling so expansive and generous, and so expansively and generously communicated in the music and singing, that that feeling opens out to unite the listener to the same expansive “universal comprehensive love” the singer songwriter feels, and the listener is similarly “bathed” by the gorgeous sentiment of profound feeling, by the totality of unmitigated selfless love one feels only for children, a love that connects one to the wider universal family of humankind and to the cosmos at large, a love that at the same time obliterates the self in that selflessness of love we lose ourselves in only with children. When the pandeiro comes in during the instrumental part, we are surprised by the extraordinary bravura of introducing such a potentially dissonant percussive element in such a delicate song, but our surprise very soon gives over to the irrefutable sense of the guiding, inspirational hand of God in his “universal comprehensive love” for all our endeavours as the pandeiro’s percussive magic resonates assuredly somewhere deep inside that part of us that only the Divine can touch.
The song connects the listener to the wellspring of a purer more selfless love. As such, it is a precious rarity in that most love songs tend to be about selfish love: about love lost, found, or deferred. This song is about love’s selfless expansion in all directions, inwardly and outwardly, connecting child and father and connecting the privileged listener to that sustaining “universal comprehensive love”, next to which the amatory love of conventional love songs pales in comparison. It is a love song, with a purity of feeling, with selflessness, and with generosity of spirit, features that characterize much of this singer songwriter’s music and, in fact, much of all of his artistic production, and, yes, even his modus vivendi. Bravo my friend! The song is full; it strikes a chord deep in one’s heart, in one’s heart of hearts, and it uplifts the spirit. It is pure.
INNER FEELING ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
“Inner Feeling” explores the essence of the “creative process” inherent in me. It is the attribution of a mystical quality, a fixation with an inanimate object that is not conventionally comprehended in secular nature. It is deep, profound, individually universal, and overwhelmingly veracious in its constitution. It is a feeling that is appropriately expressed in musical connotation. Its movement is slow like a snail and tortoise; it is in constant torture and almost in prison, and the only way to grasp it is to essentially expose its deep origin. As an anthropological concept, it possesses supernatural power. It is the reference of my “That thou Art” stripped bare to its “raw” reality. It makes me want to touch the zenith of the stratospheric realm with its majesty and remain established with my “Consecrated Host”, indefinitely. I describe it as a “Fetish Feel” in conjunction with the emergent articulation of religious ideology; it is truly radical, problematic, and has no social value to anyone apart from stimulating me specifically and exclusively. It is personal, yet its deepest wish is to expose itself to all, like the lyrics describe, “It is a slow ensemble of music longing in me”. Listen closely to the literal significance my friend, I am clearly describing the “creative nature” of my Spirit; it almost doesn’t belong to me; it is like a separate identity; it is that “Inner Feeling” apparent in all of us, a deep and profound description of our “true inner self”.
I deliberately sing the song flat, and slowly in a mono tone way, to give it an intriguingly depressive emotional state. The bass guitar plays a fantastic array of warm notes, giving out a sound that has depth, and the continuous “thumping” represents the “Organic beating of the Heart”. This in turn gives Life to the song and continuity. The infectious “Hissing” prevalent in the percussion gives the sensation of “constant breathing”, an inhaling, exhaling and puffing sound, which is very tastefully blended with great tom toms rolling and the clashing of various cymbals. The “string quartet” of the violins is necessary to lift the emotion and to provide clean, high treble levels. The guitar adjoin synergistically and are extremely intricate within their roles. There are four distinct guitar patterns, each performing its own prescribed duty. The lead guitar is “Spanish” in its scale, and the other rhythmic guitar patterns and movements blend in to harmonize and compliment the lead guitar. The song ends beautifully with a syncopated assortment of guitar patterns melodically blending cleverly with the drums and violins. Conclusively, a great piece of music, that attempts to touch that “Inner Core” of existence that I can only and best describe as my “Art”, my “Spirit”, “A Universal Power”, “Discreet Dark Matter’, and so on.
INNER FEELING Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
The esoteric nature of the artist’s “creative process” is explained fully and most eloquently above, and, of course, that fullness and eloquence finds consummate expression in its musical correlative, in the song “Inner Feeling”. The little I will add is to say I have yet to read anyone explain verbally so limpidly what you do musically, and I have yet to hear anyone achieve musically so limpidly what you explain so limpidly verbally. The sustained congruence and unity of artistic endeavour between the verbal and the musical is extraordinary. Finally, it is no accident that a song about the nature of your “creative process” has as strong psychedelic component to it. The introspective, monotonic delivery, the mesmeric repetition of the words “inner feeling” echoed by the guitar’s bluesy, fluid, psychedelic elaborations are glimpses into the creative wellspring of the inimitable Andy I style that is “this fetish feel and suffering” consecrated in the confluence of Surrealism and 1960s Psychedelia, the latter the belated musical expression of Surrealism.
AWAKENING ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
A truly Spiritual message orientated song. The original inspiration for this song arose from Jimmy Morrison’s song called ‘Awake’ from his ‘An American Prayer’ album. Consistency is also the musical message in this song. The drums and bass come in very early, and maintain constant right through. The lyrics are fairly self-explanatory, a “wake up” call for all humanity to the Truth of the Maker. The Ping Pong delay and reverb in the vocals, has wonderful repetition and echo coming from the left speaker and then slowly merging to the right speaker. Bass guitar walks up and down scales, giving plenty of room for the guitars. The lead guitar goes off into its own world, and takes you to a typical sequence of Andy guitar licks, in his own ethnic style and format. Inspired by the clean lead guitar of influences like Carlos Santana, Robby Krieger, Chet Atkins, and Mark Knopfler. A really “steady” dance number that is flowing, that keeps your toes tapping and body shaking. In addition, there are very effective “snare claps” in the percussion, which emulates a “locomotive” type of beat.
AWAKENING Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
Rather than a comment, I will offer more of a suggestion: perhaps to do justice to the fullness of the song’s original inspiration, there could be another version of this song which incorporates a classic Ray Manzarek flowing, floating electric organ component to it. It would give a complete and fuller “steady” sustained flowing quality to the incantatory nature of the song.
MIDDLE OF JUNE ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
The song you can say is a representation of Mythological deific consciousness. The “counter balance” is found in the “centre”, in the “middle” and specifically in the month of June. The middle of the Year, is at zero point, where all realization becomes apparent. It’s at a point in time, where a “force” or “influence” equally counteracts the other. As form this “centre point” access to all realms of existence either positive or negative in nature is possible. I have always considered the month of June as an auspicious moment in time. I was born in June, and therefore identify with its period of influence. The lyrics are colourful, and don’t rhyme anywhere, yet they appear as if they do. Perhaps only in the repetition of the chorus you may find rhyming. The drum beat at the beginning of the song, starts the expedition, and the entrance of the “cool tonewheel organ” immediately creates a mood. It begins like a catchy nursery melody, then enter the lay back vocals. The drum beat is a feature in this song, and being very dry and busy, gives the song character. The “organ” is the life blood of the song, and makes it feel smooth and mellow right through. The bass drum has a fantastic “static effect” in certain parts of the song, which make the bass jump out to you. I consider myself to be a highly original bass guitarist, and the feel I provide with this track, gives direction and fluidic movement. The guitar, although not a huge feature, has a similar impact that elevates all my other material.
MIDDLE OF JUNE Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
I am particularly impressed with the way the singing here adds an original component to the song. While the singing voice is identifiably yours, it is still differentially not you to the extent that it gives the song an original dimension it might not have had had you sung in your usual style. I particularly like the way you wind up the phrase “In the middle of June” and the way you string out “Joooouooone”, proving that you are also a subtle master of yet one more instrument, the voice.
ALIVE JIVE ANALYSIS by Andrew Ioannidis
Inspired by the feel of the band called “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”, the songs “Relax”, and “When two tribes go to war”. The song is full of repeated chorus lines, only with a few verses here and there that don’t necessarily rhyme. It’s all about a “crazy” feeling, and the words and opinions of a loved one. Just a bit of the “Jive”, and banter that is brought to life, with obsessive repetition. A song sung by an obsessed man. All about a tasteful dance track that keeps the activity in motion. Plenty of reverb/chorus and echo on the vocals, that flow with the feel. Nice driving percussion, a few bongos here and there to add more to the movement. Tight bass riffs, with complimentary rhythm and lead guitar. Eloquent and consistent right through.
ALIVE JIVE Analysis by Ioannis Vassiliou
This song in its simplicity is proof that true art is not necessarily what you put in but as much as what you leave out. Anyone who is a musician should be utterly envious that you can do so much with inspired, pared-down lyrics (“The crazy words of the crazy words you often say”, an absolutely mellifluous and felicitous construction, for example) so much with an original singing style boosted in effectiveness exponentially with some simple and clever reverberation, and so much with a repeated chorus among stripped down, bare verses, and deft, meaningful, minimalist, and understated guitar playing. “Less is more” is a function of true Art. Here you show you are more than capable of executing the “less is more” rendition when necessary. Original and jiving is not an easy combination to pull off. “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” should be thoroughly flattered that you made of their style something fresh, alive, sustainable, and, not to mention, thoroughly enjoyable. Well done my friend!
ANALYSIS OF THE 'TO ONEIRO' ALBUM
OMORFI NISIOTISA (BEAUTIFUL ISLANDER)
I didn’t realize the differences in the voices coming through in the left speaker and the right speaker. That duality adds another layer of complexity and texture to the song. Mesmeric fluid guitar “watery” as you said perfectly creates that oneiric quality, but I also feel that the guitar in the presence it creates, in its insistency to speak, is part of a very persistent masculine principle that is the strength of the song. It is a survivor's song, blackness is as necessary in life as the night is for the day to dawn. I feel the song speaks to me in the same way with regard to a woman I was once involved with. Blackness is not a negativity; it is the hard sharp edge of reality we’ve sharpened our awareness of the dangers of love, of its inevitability, and of its fullness even in the midst of pain. That's what the song says to me. You're right; in a stealthy way, it triumphs against blackness.
TO ONEIRO (THE DREAM)
Yes, indeed, it does have a rembetiko feel but typically interpreted through the labyrinthine creativity of Andy I. Amazing how the character of the rembetiko is kept but how you make it your own. Only a true Greek could reinterpret a strong tradition with such consummate ease and skill.
The sharp reverberations of the dulcimer piano type keyboard do, indeed, add the oneiric quality to it, but so does the reflective, paced rembetiko type statement of the “parapono” you sing of. Both keyboard, guitar, and rembetiko style declamation work in tandem to keep the mood tight, oneiric. The instrumental wonders like the zembekiko dancer all over the dance floor, but like the dancer, it knows exactly what it is doing even while it is seemingly fooling us, like the dancer, that it is all extemporized.
What I realized as I was listening to this song and reflecting on the actual oneiro you had is that this song, this project you dedicated to me is central to the idea which you express of your intention to open up your creative world to me. As you put it “I feel it appropriate to open up my creative world to you, so we can understand each other instinctively better . . . .” and you mention a little later on that the whole time you were working on the album that I was watching over you from a bird’s eye perspective “approvingly.” You say, “You were constantly at the top of my mind a bird’s eye view, observing all my movements, it felt as if you were approving what I was churning out. What’s interesting is I have only realized recently what you have known all along that I was an inspiration to you, perhaps without going too far I have been something of a muse, though muses are women, but that doesn’t matter, there is a strong feminine side to both of us that’s a large part of our friendship. I suspected I was a good interlocutor and a good, careful observer of your work, but the truth is we haven’t really shared much of it together given the vicissitudes of our lives, which separated us for such long periods of time. I believe that the time we spent together this last winter of 2011 enabled us to reconnect in a way which made it abundantly clear what we knew all along, namely, that we were always in each other’s dream. It’s never been easy to tell if you were in my dream or I was in yours, but this last summer we realized that it doesn’t matter; the dream persists; it has continuity, and we are inextricably linked through it in our respective destinies. That’s the meaning of the actual dream you had. It shows quite clearly how important we are to each other’s sense of survival, inspiration, and the future. It shows that despite the passage of 50 years, that time was but a dream, and a larger dream, another world awaits us and as it always has, and, most importantly, it awaits us together. I think you’ve known, perhaps better than me, that it was our destiny to explore our lives, our souls, our dreams together. We had been doing it piecemeal every time we met, but this last winter of 2011, when we actually got to spend quality time together doing so convinced, I think, both of us of the inevitability of entering the dream consciously and fully aware that it is our destiny to work together on many levels. I think that time we spent together freed you up and influenced you deeply to express it in the form of a musical tribute to me that interestingly simply returns in many ways to the same themes of the painting, where I again, both in the dream and in the painting of 22 years ago am both the analytic, all looking eye, who sees things others don’t; hence, the constant reassurance and assurance by me in the dream you had recently that all will be well, that is well. It speaks to the close relationship we have where each other’s essence validates the essence of the other. I am astounded and fascinated by the notion of “return,” that after 22 years you return to the painting in the form of a musical album that similarly deals with the perennial themes of love, friendship, the spirit, benevolence, desire and the frustration of desire, and there it all is both in the painting and in the music, and there I am in both, both an active observer and an active participant. We have come the full circle my friend. The first fifty years as a prelude to the next fifty, and what we have realized all along, though we might not have thought it when we were separated by vast oceans and vast expanses of sky, is that we were, in fact, always together despite all that time apart. Even in our primary love of one woman, we both can identify and understand the fullness with which that woman entered our lives and remains there. What we are seeing in our lives my friend is that they have both touched the eternal verities of life, and that we’ve been living in the same dreams connected as much now as when we were first living together as small children at Evelina Road. Time, place, space, were, we have realized, irrelevant when the loving heart straddles all dimensions, all realities, all differences of time and place. What we have my friend is a friendship worthy of the profound understanding our Greek philosopher forbearers had of the multi-dimensional depth and amplitude of friendship. It was inevitable that you would express that multi-dimensional depth and amplitude in Greek. The dream is Greek, the album is Greek, the painting is Greek in it use of classical iconic elements and in its ambiance, and our friendship, in the profoundest way is Greek, and it is Greek in all its dimension and in all its potentialities. Like love in the world, there exist very few friendship likes ours. We have returned to were we started, a place of pure love and connection that we must have had as children, and we have realized that it is what will sustain us as we fully face the coming years and rage against the coming oblivion the only way we know and the only way one should--with fullness on all levels. That’s what the dream signifies. The waves that drown everyone are emblematic of how easily everyone gives up the ghost as they age; they are all going the wrong way. Only you and I in the dream and in life know the way to go, and that’s not into a slow, mindless crawl to oblivion, but in a lively, fully aware and direct line for the shore and for the hinterland of fullness that awaits us.
The lyrics to this song are very pure, pristine, and come from the heart. They are very touching and deeply felt, totally honest without any guile or ego. They come from a pure love, a pure friendship that returns always to its beginnings. I can’t ever talk to about you to anyone without first mentioning that we were born in the same house and that we’ve know each other in one form or another for almost half a century. Even when we were babbling babies, we knew each other and it’s comforting to me to think that the first words we ever spoke to each other were Greek. The album is a return to the roots of our friendship, which started with the Greek language. Through the Greek language, the Greek culture, our Greek heritage, our intertwined family histories, we always return to friendship, to the bond we’ve always had. It’s the rock, the sacred mountain of our relationship to which we’ll always return for sustenance, strength, solidarity. I think that those three words characterize much of what we give each other. It’s interesting you should frame the song through the reinterpretation of the zembekiko form, which is a form in which friends dance with each other, letting one or the other take the center stage to do their own thing in turns without any ego, guile, or jealousy much like a jazz ensemble. It’s the perfect form to express that aspect of our relationship. We’ve always allowed the other to dance to his own tune. We’ve always respected our respective strengths and our respective essence which make us unique, but which clearly complement each other; we’ve always been clapping the other along with an “opa”; always supporting each other with χαρά και φιλία.
The sharp reverberations of the dulcimer piano type keyboard do, indeed, add the oneiric quality to it, but so does the reflective, paced rembetiko type statement of the “parapono” you sing of. Both keyboard, guitar, and rembetiko style declamation work in tandem to keep the mood tight, oneiric. The instrumental wonders like the zembekiko dancer all over the dance floor, but like the dancer, it knows exactly what it is doing even while it is seemingly fooling us, like the dancer, that it is all extemporized.
What I realized as I was listening to this song and reflecting on the actual oneiro you had is that this song, this project you dedicated to me is central to the idea which you express of your intention to open up your creative world to me. As you put it “I feel it appropriate to open up my creative world to you, so we can understand each other instinctively better . . . .” and you mention a little later on that the whole time you were working on the album that I was watching over you from a bird’s eye perspective “approvingly.” You say, “You were constantly at the top of my mind a bird’s eye view, observing all my movements, it felt as if you were approving what I was churning out. What’s interesting is I have only realized recently what you have known all along that I was an inspiration to you, perhaps without going too far I have been something of a muse, though muses are women, but that doesn’t matter, there is a strong feminine side to both of us that’s a large part of our friendship. I suspected I was a good interlocutor and a good, careful observer of your work, but the truth is we haven’t really shared much of it together given the vicissitudes of our lives, which separated us for such long periods of time. I believe that the time we spent together this last winter of 2011 enabled us to reconnect in a way which made it abundantly clear what we knew all along, namely, that we were always in each other’s dream. It’s never been easy to tell if you were in my dream or I was in yours, but this last summer we realized that it doesn’t matter; the dream persists; it has continuity, and we are inextricably linked through it in our respective destinies. That’s the meaning of the actual dream you had. It shows quite clearly how important we are to each other’s sense of survival, inspiration, and the future. It shows that despite the passage of 50 years, that time was but a dream, and a larger dream, another world awaits us and as it always has, and, most importantly, it awaits us together. I think you’ve known, perhaps better than me, that it was our destiny to explore our lives, our souls, our dreams together. We had been doing it piecemeal every time we met, but this last winter of 2011, when we actually got to spend quality time together doing so convinced, I think, both of us of the inevitability of entering the dream consciously and fully aware that it is our destiny to work together on many levels. I think that time we spent together freed you up and influenced you deeply to express it in the form of a musical tribute to me that interestingly simply returns in many ways to the same themes of the painting, where I again, both in the dream and in the painting of 22 years ago am both the analytic, all looking eye, who sees things others don’t; hence, the constant reassurance and assurance by me in the dream you had recently that all will be well, that is well. It speaks to the close relationship we have where each other’s essence validates the essence of the other. I am astounded and fascinated by the notion of “return,” that after 22 years you return to the painting in the form of a musical album that similarly deals with the perennial themes of love, friendship, the spirit, benevolence, desire and the frustration of desire, and there it all is both in the painting and in the music, and there I am in both, both an active observer and an active participant. We have come the full circle my friend. The first fifty years as a prelude to the next fifty, and what we have realized all along, though we might not have thought it when we were separated by vast oceans and vast expanses of sky, is that we were, in fact, always together despite all that time apart. Even in our primary love of one woman, we both can identify and understand the fullness with which that woman entered our lives and remains there. What we are seeing in our lives my friend is that they have both touched the eternal verities of life, and that we’ve been living in the same dreams connected as much now as when we were first living together as small children at Evelina Road. Time, place, space, were, we have realized, irrelevant when the loving heart straddles all dimensions, all realities, all differences of time and place. What we have my friend is a friendship worthy of the profound understanding our Greek philosopher forbearers had of the multi-dimensional depth and amplitude of friendship. It was inevitable that you would express that multi-dimensional depth and amplitude in Greek. The dream is Greek, the album is Greek, the painting is Greek in it use of classical iconic elements and in its ambiance, and our friendship, in the profoundest way is Greek, and it is Greek in all its dimension and in all its potentialities. Like love in the world, there exist very few friendship likes ours. We have returned to were we started, a place of pure love and connection that we must have had as children, and we have realized that it is what will sustain us as we fully face the coming years and rage against the coming oblivion the only way we know and the only way one should--with fullness on all levels. That’s what the dream signifies. The waves that drown everyone are emblematic of how easily everyone gives up the ghost as they age; they are all going the wrong way. Only you and I in the dream and in life know the way to go, and that’s not into a slow, mindless crawl to oblivion, but in a lively, fully aware and direct line for the shore and for the hinterland of fullness that awaits us.
The lyrics to this song are very pure, pristine, and come from the heart. They are very touching and deeply felt, totally honest without any guile or ego. They come from a pure love, a pure friendship that returns always to its beginnings. I can’t ever talk to about you to anyone without first mentioning that we were born in the same house and that we’ve know each other in one form or another for almost half a century. Even when we were babbling babies, we knew each other and it’s comforting to me to think that the first words we ever spoke to each other were Greek. The album is a return to the roots of our friendship, which started with the Greek language. Through the Greek language, the Greek culture, our Greek heritage, our intertwined family histories, we always return to friendship, to the bond we’ve always had. It’s the rock, the sacred mountain of our relationship to which we’ll always return for sustenance, strength, solidarity. I think that those three words characterize much of what we give each other. It’s interesting you should frame the song through the reinterpretation of the zembekiko form, which is a form in which friends dance with each other, letting one or the other take the center stage to do their own thing in turns without any ego, guile, or jealousy much like a jazz ensemble. It’s the perfect form to express that aspect of our relationship. We’ve always allowed the other to dance to his own tune. We’ve always respected our respective strengths and our respective essence which make us unique, but which clearly complement each other; we’ve always been clapping the other along with an “opa”; always supporting each other with χαρά και φιλία.
HOREPSE MIKRI NERAITHA
As you noted while the song is ostensibly about a past love of mine, you noticed when it was done that it also became a song about your previous relationships. That’s because the song is actually about both of them because it’s about the archetypal woman, the black-haired temptress who haunts us in our waking life. It’s about the archetypal dark-haired woman who haunts all the corners of our dreams and still inhabits the forgotten large spaces of our respective hearts where our love for them once flourished in such profusion. These woman have the weight of darkness behind them, its universal expansion in the same was the night overtakes every thing and makes every thing largely black. They represent, the unthinkable, the unknowable, the unconquerable, the unattainable. They are “the dark backward abyss of time” as Shakespeare said with their dark hair, their dark, furtive looks, with the whirpool darkness in their depths of their eyes, with the dark fragrant recessed delta of their thighs, that dark forest of joy and oblivion, with the darkness of their black clothes they wore and which always set of their beautiful dark hair and their magical electric bodies so beautifully. You capture that electric beauty and energy they both had with the pathos in the way you sing “xorepse, xorespe mikri neraitha” and of course “we’ll follow your beautiful body and your beautiful eyes and your dress” because those things have haunted us and continue to haunts us returning everytime like a revenant who cannot be denied, who must be acknowledged. The darkness has it component parts: black dress, electric body beneath the black dress, black hair, dark looks, all key elements of the song and what the blackness offers is the abandonment, oblivion in/of the female body, which you and I crave so much. It’s the return my friend, the desire to return to that oneness we crave. The bitches have, indeed, made a lasting impression on us my friend.
TI SOU FTEGO EGO
I really do love the 60s feel of this song brilliantly created by the 60s style electric organ cords that you note play constantly throughout the song. Interestingly, I hear a very Dalaras like voicing in the vocals, which you sing beautifully in this song. The three part harmonies are a real achievement, and I think they add to the 60s feel. Very boppy as you note and the energy of that boppiness is carried throughtout by the bouzouki like guitar playing, which again is an interesting Andy I reinterpretation of this classical musical instrument, and which is successfully carried out because I think you really get the essence of the bouzouki, its clear clarion quality which carries everything before it, like you said, like a locomotive. The song is relentless like those Greek songs one would dance to and wonder when they ever going to end. I really like this song very much in the sense that it captures for me a part of the musical heritage you and I grew up with and that you have now made contemporary and at the same time managed to keep the essential Greekness of the song intact. It’s a return to a feeling, to a way of being that clearly conjure up for me those dances we used to go to, which always had a live band playing. It’s a very nostalgic song in that sense returning me as it does to those formative years.
I love the Greek phrase “Τι σου φτέγω εγώ,” which is a perfect way of framing how little effort these two woman whom we showered with all of our love and care and all our heart really put into the relationship once things got a little rocky. I feel we’re blameless because we grew from the adversity, while they stagnated. Typically, it’s also a deep song on another level, and again I am reminded how much our histories with these two women, while circumstantially dissimilar, psychically wounded us the same way. It’s a companion song to Horepse Mikri Neraitha and of course naturally follows it.
I love the Greek phrase “Τι σου φτέγω εγώ,” which is a perfect way of framing how little effort these two woman whom we showered with all of our love and care and all our heart really put into the relationship once things got a little rocky. I feel we’re blameless because we grew from the adversity, while they stagnated. Typically, it’s also a deep song on another level, and again I am reminded how much our histories with these two women, while circumstantially dissimilar, psychically wounded us the same way. It’s a companion song to Horepse Mikri Neraitha and of course naturally follows it.
EHIS TIN THINAMI
Very complex amalgam of musical influences handled perfectly and effortless actually has the effect of giving the lyrics a prominence they might have otherwise lost in a less assured composition.The song is about distraction, about returning to basics, to the task at hand to write one’s own narrative. Distractions are everywhere, the passage of time slowly but surely expends itself, but, of course, if one keeps one’s eye on the prize, one has the authority to write one’s own narrative to take charge of the book of one’s life, which when one closes the final chapter one will have lived one’s life exactly they way one wanted to because it was written the way one wanted to live it: the book will have been written deliberately and with deliberation, with the strength, τιν δύναμη, of conviction and purposiveness. It’s a song about being aware, being self-conscious rather than distracted like most people. You’re the artist pointing the way forward, but one wonders what people hear when they hear this song, because and you and I know not many have heeded the call to get of their arse and do something productive for the rest of the lives. It’s an inspirational song, indeed, because finally έχεις τιν δύναμη is not a refrain directed at those not listening, but a restatement of purpose, a refrain for life as you and I each write our own books and write books together. It a return back to a common purpose, to taking charge of our life.
KOPELA TOU THROMO (GIRL OF THE STREET)
As you noted in your email and when we spoke, it’s a pretty straightforward song. It’s unapologetically about a woman of the road, but actually it very significant in that it’s a long interlude (the longest song of the album) before the songs on the album turn towards sacred themes as if to underscore the sacredness of all things of the world that are both base and lofty and their interconnectedness. This is a typical and deeply held Greek convinction, and once again confirms that everything Greek is speaking through you, through the oneiro, and through the music. In the final section of his magesterial poem, Το Άξιον Έστι, Οδυσσέας Ελύτnς, is calling up a long litany of the everyday things as he glorifies them and suggests everything is an extension of much larger reality. He has this amazing line after praising numerous the things you would expect a poet to praise. He can sense and feel that nothing is profane if it is of this world, that we are flesh and blood and bone before we are spirit and there is no necessary contradiction or imiscibilty between the two. Only a Greek poet could write a line like that and only a truly Greek singer songwriter could have an entirely unself-conscious ten minute song to a yineka tou thromou as a prelude to songs that go on to touch on sacred themes.
As for the song itself I love it. It’s a place to rest and stop in the album, just like a brothel is a place to rest and stop, a place away from the cares of complicated relationships with women. It’s very sensual, and the direct addressing of the woman is very intimately and surely handled and the Carlos Santana feel creates the music equivalence of the initimate voiced address. I also detect some Doors influenced in there with the floating electric organ in the background, and particularly the way the song simply floats in its own space not in a hurry to go anywhere; that’s a very Doors trait for me. The chorus is, indeed, superb, and quintessentially Greek in the parapono tradition of Greek songs. And, finally, at the center of all things is the γυναίκα. She’s the center of our reality, of course, she’s going to feature in one guise or another in the album. If we are delving into the oneiro of Greeks, one of the things you will most definitely find there is women, and plenty of them. They are to us a life force. The define a large part of us and what connects us to the body and of course through the body to everything else. H γυναίκα του δρόμου is just one facet of the archetypal women who haunts our dreams and waking thoughts. The song, it’s placement, everything about it makes perfect sense to me.
As for the song itself I love it. It’s a place to rest and stop in the album, just like a brothel is a place to rest and stop, a place away from the cares of complicated relationships with women. It’s very sensual, and the direct addressing of the woman is very intimately and surely handled and the Carlos Santana feel creates the music equivalence of the initimate voiced address. I also detect some Doors influenced in there with the floating electric organ in the background, and particularly the way the song simply floats in its own space not in a hurry to go anywhere; that’s a very Doors trait for me. The chorus is, indeed, superb, and quintessentially Greek in the parapono tradition of Greek songs. And, finally, at the center of all things is the γυναίκα. She’s the center of our reality, of course, she’s going to feature in one guise or another in the album. If we are delving into the oneiro of Greeks, one of the things you will most definitely find there is women, and plenty of them. They are to us a life force. The define a large part of us and what connects us to the body and of course through the body to everything else. H γυναίκα του δρόμου is just one facet of the archetypal women who haunts our dreams and waking thoughts. The song, it’s placement, everything about it makes perfect sense to me.
O KIRIE (OH LORD)
I am particular impressed with how the tempo of this song contrasts sharply with the previous song. We are no longer dwelling in a single place, we are now actively celebrating, moving, giving thanks for creation, and, of course, the use of traditional sirto and hasaposerviko rhythms gives the song a buoyancy and a lightness of spirit which prevade the entire song and makes it entirely celebratory rather than dogmatic, is sheer genius. One could come in at any time in the song with an «όπα» and it wouldn’t be out of place. In the background, I can hear slightly more abstract use of the keyboards in the synthesizer/electronic mode, which gives the song, to quote the title of a Wordsworth poem, “intimations of immortality.” At the center of the song is the deeply powerful incantory and talismanic nature of the words Κύριε ελέησων, which have the entire weight of the Orthodox liturgical traditions behind them, but words are seamlessly woven into a song whose lyrics are so light and buoyant as is the guitar playing that the Byzantine heaviness and seriousness of the Orthodox liturgical tradition is transformed into celebratory life affirming gift of love to all, love from God and love directed towards God and towards those whom we love in the here and now. The song flows like life affirming crystal clear water, unadulterated blue sky every where, not the brazen gold and dried blood heaviness of the the Byzantine iconic tradition, which in comparison, is bleak and stoic in its appreciation of God and our relation to him. The accompanying guitar playing is exquisitely beautiful; it’s tender and of such a light of touch, pure, with a great integrity and with a true outward-reaching love behind it. A very moving song actually, and I particularly like the way you end the song with you chanting «Κύριε ελέησων» in the tradition of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, but, of course, you have transformed it in your song to a cry of joy, love, and deep appreciation. It’s a really beautiful song, with an amazing integration of mind, soul, and spirit in the most Greek of ways. It not even a return to Greek roots, it’s a discovery that the Greek roots have taken deep hold and have been grounding us all these years even if sometimes we didn’t notice it or understand it clearly enough that we have been grounded not just in the earth only but in all creation.
TO ONEIRO SINIHIZI
I think what’s happening here, with this song, is very much along the same lines of what is happening in “Ehis Tin Thinami,” the notion of taking charge of the path you make in the world, only in this case, you’re taking care of the artistic process. What the song enacts and validates is the infinite, protean organic state of art that’s very much like a dream. Dreams take the materials of waking life and the submerged materials of dreaming life and make multiple versions of such materials, with ease. That material is the same organic state of art, and in this song, what you are doing is simply remaking out of the same basic materials another dream or in this case another song, either way, through this different musical version, to oneiro sinihizi, to tragoudi sinihizi. Both are intricately related; they are the different faces of the same coin. It’s an enactment of the myriad possibilities of dreaming, which are simply transposed on another level, the myriad possibilities of art. I think the slightly slower tempo with the volume turned down definitely creates a different songscape and a different musical landscape. It’s a more intimate address in this particular song, but it’s really just another way of saying the same things in a different guise. That’s the prerogative of art. This song is about form rather than content, since the content, the lyrics, is essentially the same, but, of course, modulating the formal presentation of the content creates another song, another oneiro. To oneiro sinihizi because art is limitless.
FOS KAI AGAPI
This is an elevating, exulting song, and as you note, it’s a “devotion song to the “Maker””, but it’s also your way of expressing the deep altruism that resides in you and in your art. It’s an appropriate way to end the album, which is, as you note, on one level, written “to open up my creative world” to me, your friend and life long interlocutor. What this song shows is that the well spring of your creativity is linked on a larger level to the cosmos, the cosmos filled with fos kai agapi, which no matter how dark your art ever is, this light and love is always there. It’s the bedrock of your connection to other real tangible world that sustains your artistic endeavors within a larger spiritual dimension. It’s the idealistic spiritual side of you that is embedded in every endeavor you undertake. The fos kai agapi is the fos kai agapi of the external world, but in this song it’s given solidity, accessibility through the artistic, complex expression of the song, which, for me, resonates very much along the same lines as O Kirie. Behind this song, as with O Kirie, is a transformed liturgical sense of giving praise, and, of course, the refrain in the song “Me yellia kai xara” has an incantatory quality to it, which, again, like the «Κύριε ελέησων» counterpart in O Kirie, transforms the tradition of the Greek Orthodox liturgy, into a song that’s a cry for joy, love, and deep appreciation of the interconnectedness of all things. Again, that joy here, like in O Kirie, is “a true outward-reaching love.” Like everything you design and build, it has encoded in it the fos kai agapi you sense everywhere in the world, because the Greek part of you is inextricable connected to this tangible world that we see and feel, the world that projects up out of the ground in the form of buildings you design and execute or the world that projects outwardly from musical instruments as sound and into the ears and hearts of the listeners, or even the tangible visual world that projects from of your paintings, which are undeniably solid, planned, architectural projections on two planes instead of three, but the Greek part of you also sees running through all these physical projections of your art the fos kai agapi that is behind this physical outward reaching manifestation you give to the world. It sees the deep hidden undercurrents of fos kai agapi in the unseen world that weave their way into the very structure of all that’s solid. It’s a concept that the earthly forms are simply a reflection of the deeper ideal structures of the unseen world. This is dynamic fundamental to Greek art, and, naturally so in your art, as we have both discovered through this album. This understanding of forms, and the Greek view of the world connected material and spiritually is dynamic, and is fundamental to your art, since returning to the Greek experience you have returned to your roots, which were Greek, and which have always been sustaining you. To quote T. S. Eliot:
'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'
I think what you and I have both discovered in this oneiro project, is that that place we have returned to is fundamentally what is Greek in us, and we are returning to it with a vibrancy, freshness, and sense of joy as if we were seeing that sacred place of our roots for the first time με φώς και αγάπη. The ultimate spiritual realization. The return is complete. The album is complete.
'We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'
I think what you and I have both discovered in this oneiro project, is that that place we have returned to is fundamentally what is Greek in us, and we are returning to it with a vibrancy, freshness, and sense of joy as if we were seeing that sacred place of our roots for the first time με φώς και αγάπη. The ultimate spiritual realization. The return is complete. The album is complete.