Spyros Polychronopoulos – “Duende” + “Electronic Music”

Spyros Polychronopoulos (aka Spyweirdos), presents new versions of two of his releases (“Electronic Music”, Experimedia, 2014 and “Duende”, Room40, 2021) in a quadraphonic system for a blindfolded audience. A unique acoustic experience, after last year’s corresponding sold out concert at KET. Sounds coming from four directions create a multi-dimensional experience that focus on the sense of hearing, as the eyes of the audience will be closed (masks distributed at the entrance).

“Electronic Music” (Experimedia, ΗΠΑ, 2014)

“Electronic Music is a meticulously crafted work of avant-garde electronics with attention towards unique timbres and acoustics. Spyros’ previous releases can be found on labels Room40 and Senufo Editions among others.

On this album (electronic music) I am exploring the effect of the reverb in a different way than in my previous release (Spyweirdos “feeling of movement”). The reverb effect is perceived as a factor of the timbre of a sound as the time floats. The composition of this album is based on electronic sounds that have a unique timbre. The effect of timbre’s uniqueness is that the listener does not have a clear reference of the sound and therefore no expectations for the reflections of the sound inside a room. Thus, the listener is not able to distinguish the clean sound (heard under anechoic conditions – with no reverb) from a different sound with a reverb. Hence, it is possible that the listener has the impression that the musician is in the same room and plays the music in real-time. It is also possible that after a while the listener has a different perception of the sound: a sound with a reverb different from the reverb of his room. At that moment the ‘here and now’ of the work of art vanishes. At this point I would like to refer to Walter Benjamin, who argues that the actor’s aura is destructed when he is shot on camera for a movie. Similarly, music’s aura is destructed by listening to pre-recorded music. Yet, due to the peculiar perception of electronic sounds, the Benjaminian aura of the tracks on this album alternates from presence to absence.” – S.P.

www.spyrospolychronopoulos.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-music

“Duende” (Room40, Αυστραλία, 2021)

“It has been five years since my last solo album release.

In every release so far, I have maintained a different focus and sense of aesthetics, yet I’ve strived for the unknown as a common ground between the works. In this album every sound, except the field recordings, is produced by musical instruments I have specifically built for the needs of this project. The field recordings were mainly sounds I captured at the time of coronavirus quarantine in Athens. I made them during the day, in shops where people interacted minimally, and during the night, in the streets where people were eager to socialize.

Up to this release I used analog and digital tools to control the sound. This is the first time I built physical objects to record an album and felt that I had to dispense the need to control every small detail and in some cases let the random vibrations of the instrument lead the way. The instruments built dictated new compositional paths and these paths dictated the construction of new instruments. It was a dynamic interplay between these two mutually dependent elements: apparatus and sound.

The title Duende derives from a lecture given by Federico García Lorca in Buenos Aires in 1934. In this talk Lorca uses the word “duende” to refer to the essence of all of the works of art, the hidden element we want to touch, but that remains always unreachable. It is one of these words not only challenging to translate, but also hard to define in another language. Hence, this work Duende has its own unique existence and does not lend itself to interpretation. It can be best regarded in a constellation including my previous works.” – S.P.

www.room40.bandcamp.com/album/duende

Spyros Polychronopoulos was born in Athens in 1980. His interest in sound, both as a physical phenomenon and as a means of artistic expression, began at an early age. He has a degree in Physics and a PhD in Acoustics. After his studies he settled in London where he worked as an acoustics consultant for three years. He then moved to Brighton, where he worked as a researcher at Sussex University on acoustic levitation. He has published numerous articles in the field of acoustics and one of his works, entitled “acoustic levitation with optimized reflective metamaterials”, was awarded as it reached the 10th most read article in 2020 in Nature Scientific Reports. In addition to his research in sound, he has developed unique sound objects (such as the LEM), released 17 personal albums and performed numerous concerts, presenting his music around the world.