Zen Garden

Zen Garden were born in 2007 by core- creators Stefanos Tortopoglou (Music: Synths, Guitars, Samplers, Programming) and Roxani Garefalaki (Vocals, Lyrics, Performance: stilts, silks) both of whom are on an ongoing journey through the corridors of music. It is a circle of people in an interactive creation, which integrates:
Yiannis Smeros and Yianna Medvedeva in Aerial Acrobatics- silks, Physical Theatre- stilts, Spyros K. (bell), member of Visual Vibe Project in live Visual environment, Michalis Mazis in Bass and guitar, Live Percussionists: Manolis Kambouris, Tolis Metso , Giorgos Koukoulis, and the technical crew: Kostis Margas in lighting design, Stefanos Konstantinidis - sound design, Crystalia Basta - Stage manager, Konstantina Krigkou- costumes.
They have participated in live acts around Greece (Ghost House ,Club Mansion, Soul Club, Void dance bar, Olympia Mall -Trikala 25.10.08 etc), dressed with music the production “Deva” of the DanceTheatre Synergion of Arts and of the DanceTheatre Fygein Adynaton “Facts and Faculties”, while on the other hand they have taken part in the music orchestration of artmentary Chania/Eco.
In 2008 they create the ‘Feeling in Process’ project with which they were the opening act in Juno Reactor Live in Athens (19.4.08), and the opening act of international Aurora Festival (Kavala 25.8.08).
They participated in free concerts for the familiarization of public spaces (Propilaia 19/12/08), the festival of University of Ioanina and festivals like Eco Festival and the Void Network’s Space Technologies- Kratiras Theatre, Electro Free festival, Indie Free festival ‘09.
With their project ‘Semantic’ they opened the Future Sound of London in Athens-23/5/09 at Olympic Softball stadium- Elliniko. Moreover they perform also with their projects: AudioVisual live set and electroacoustic live quartet. In all their projects they explore and look into the creation of an experience which travels through musical landscapes, marrying electronic with natural sound, as well as the magic of live visual art and movement. 

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Emotone

In July 2010, Tomas Weiss and Tania Giannouli founded Emotone. Emotone is a project for eclectic new music in the exciting crossover field of Electronica, Electroacoustic, Ambient, New Classical, Leftfield and other (im)possible combinations. Emotone is founded by Tomas Weiss & Tania Giannouli.

Tomas Weiss: Born near Frankfurt/Main (Germany) in 1975, Tomas Weiss built early on a deep relationship to many kinds of musical styles. From 1997 to 2004 he worked as electronic DJ in different national clubs and with radio stations. From 1997-2005 he owned the vinyl store "el culto" - a shop selling high quality electronic music.

He created the music network "el culto" - a global and idealistic portal for contemporary music. Supported artists are: Klaus Wiese, Mathias Grassow, Con_Sense, Thamnos, Submental, Solveil, Circulum musicum, Emotone, Nautic Depths, Rüdiger Gleisberg, Bruno Sanfilippo, Nostalgia, Amtana and others. He co- founded Emotone project with his partner Tania Giannouli - Tomas Weiss is also responsible for the labels "Musical Philosophy", "Thar", "Sound Claim" and "ClassXX".

Within his different projects and collaborations his aim is to create and release exclusively high quality music and also to expand and break artistic boundaries - his work expands into many styles including Ambient, Electronica, Classical, Experimental and possible combinations.

Tania Giannouli: Coming from classical music training, she studied piano (solist diploma) and composition at Athenaeum Conservatory. She has attended workshops on composition, improvisation and computer music technology. She also studied Agriculture in Agricultural Univercity of Athens.

Her film & theatre music has been performed at many festivals throughout the world (Greece, Iran, Romania, Bosnia, Ukraine, Switzerland, Bulgaria, UK, Turkey, Indonesia, Spain, Lithuania, Morocco, China, Brazil, Kenya, Poland ). As a pianist she is into concerts with a theatrical touch ("The album of Madame Bovary and other stories", "Les Eluard"). She performed in Chris Soumka`s “16 Days” (Archangel music) in collaboration with the Sofia Symphonic Orchestra.

She has participated in ElectroMediaWorks Festival ’08 & '10 and she has performed together with electronica musician Spyweirdos at Synch Festival (2010). Collaboration with Dissonart ensemble and Athens Youth Orchestra .

She is also into improvisation and she co-founded the free improvisation band 4+1. Their first cd "4+1 live at Sfendoni" is released by Triple Bath.

In April 2011 Emotone performed in 6 dogs, Athens presenting their upcoming cd “Slow motion” (Databloem). On stage were: Tomas Weiss (laptop, synthesizers, live electronics), Tania Giannouli (piano), Solis Barki (percussion, rare instruments), Vassilis Tzavaras (guitars, fx, loops).

Visuals projection by Vasilis Kountouris.

www.emotone.net

www.el-culto.com

www.youtube.com/in2elculto

www.myspace.com/taniagiannouli

www.soundcloud.com/tania-giannouli

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Absent without leave

Absent without leave is the solo project of George Mastrokostas, based in Athens, Greece.
Recording everything himself in his home-studio, he produces a sound that has at times been described as a mix of shoegaze, post-rock, ambient and electronica.
He has just released his third album, called faded photographs, featuring guest appearances from some really great artists, including port-royal, stafraenn hakon, epic45, millimetrik (below the sea, le chat blanc orchestra, glider, parallel lines) and members of hood, the declining winter, plumerai, eksi ekso, tupolev, slon and others too.
To date, he has released his music on labels such as distant noise records (uk), unlabel (uk), chat blanc records (canada), awkward silence recordings (uk), thisquietarmy records (canada), symbolic interaction (japan), october man recordings (uk), friend of mine records (japan), duotone records (japan), bsbta (denmark), fuzzy panda recording co. (usa) and also on his own label sound in silence (greece) and has collaborated for split releases and remixes with artists like port-royal, yellow6, televise (ex-slowdive), landshipping (ex-metrotone) featuring isan, millimetrik and kimonophonic amongst others.
He has played several gigs in Greece at various venues, including synch festival 2007 (alongside mum, !!!, front 242, fischerspooner and alexander hacke, amongst others) and has shared the stage, most of the times after being personally invited by the artists themselves, with god is an astronaut, 65daysofstatic, port-royal, piano magic, i like trains, jeniferever, manyfingers (ex-movietone, collaborator of matt elliott / third eye foundation and hood), millimetrik, section 25 (from legendary factory records), sigmatropic and many others.
He has composed the soundtrack of the short film the crossroads (directed by Petros Sofikitis) and his music has been played on some of the best radio stations worldwide like BBC 6 Music, Resonance FM and others too.

http://www.myspace.com/geezertek

 

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Parallel Worlds

Parallel Worlds' music is a combination of dreamy/atmospheric textures with pure analogue electronic rhythms and sequences, combining the feel of modern electronica and ambient with 70's electronic music. For Parallel Worlds, melody is essential, but most important is emotional context. Parallel Worlds' tracks try to reach to the listener's heart and mind.
Parallel Worlds use mostly Hardware machines. Mainly huge Analogue Modular systems and Analogue Step Sequencers of the past and present combined with digital FM and virtual analogue synths and sampling.
Parallel Worlds are the main project of Bakis Sirros with John Sirros. They were originally born in 1994, but only after 1998 they started to be a part of the active Greek electronic music scene.
In parallel, Bakis Sirros is the moderator of the Doepfer A100 modular users group helping, in an important way, the progress of the tools for experimental electronic music in the 21st century. He has also done some extensive sound design work, as well as a Sample CD, for the well-known UK analogue modular synthesizer company Analogue Systems.
During these last 7 years, Parallel Worlds have played live also, participating in the E-PHOS electronic music festival in summer of 2001, Mad club, Club22, Music day festival 2006, Small Music Theatre, Synch Festival 2008, Reworks 2009 and some other Greek venues.

http://www.myspace.com/parallelworldsmusic

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Side Liner

Side Liner began as a project in 2004 by Nick Miamis in Athens, Greece to explore the emotional side of music and give shape to the events of the day. His music is best noted for the continuous flow of thought it creates, often visually stimulating and evocative of a particular mood — without the jarring interruptions of so much of today’s electronic and chillout music.

The sounds created by Nick in his studio by the sea are heartfelt expressions of his concerns for the future — whatever it may bring.

Side liner has released 6 full albums: “Emotional Diving” (2006), “Once Upon A Time” (2007), “My Guardian Angel” (2008) ,”Crying Cities” (2009), ”Missing Pieces Of A Puzzle” (2009) , “Human Recycle” (2010) all through Cosmicleaf Records.

Miamis often releases “beta” versions of a track through Last.fm and other music channels on the web to get feedback from the public before finalizing an album. He personally reads and often responds to the feedback he receives through “shouts”. His broken English is testament to his desire to get everything he does “just right”, and the final production is usually flawless.

The critics have taken note of the body of work from Miamis and have begun to help spread the word— or the music.

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