2.5.13

Kyriakos Sfetsas: Greek fusion orchestra - Without boundaries (1980)


Kyriakos Sfetsas: composer, arranger, conductor

Kyriakos Sfetsas was born in 1945, in Amphilohia. He took his first music lessons in Lephkada, in the small town band and music school. He continued attending piano and advanced theory lessons in the National Conservatory of Athens from where he graduated in 1965.

In 1967 he settled in Paris, where, thanks to a French Government Scholarship (1968 - 1972), he continued his studies -composition and musical analysis- under Prof. Max Deutsch.

His musical career started in 1968 with the first public performance of his "Episodes" for solo piano in the Latin-American Hall in Paris. Since then, his compositions have been played in festivals of contemporary music in France as well as throughout the world including Greece.

In Paris, he worked with various groups of contemporary music and many of his works were comissioned by the ORTF, the ARS NOVA orchestra, the modern dance group of Vitry and other Institutions. A great part og his work has been published by the music firm "Editions Transatlantiques".

In 1975, Kyriakos Sfetsas returned to Greece and began working for the Greek Radio as a free lance producer. In 1977 he was appointed head of the music department of ERT First Program, a position that he has held since then.

His work encompasses a wide spectrum of compositions: symphonic music, chamber music for various ensembles, choral music, works for solo instrument and small ensemble, stage music, works for solo instrument and small ensemble, stage music, ballet music, electronic music, jazz compositions, songs based on modern Greek poetry. Recently, another sort of musical expression was added to this list: music for the movies. During the Salonica Film Festival in 1980, he was awarded a First Prize for his musical contribution to P. Tassios' film "Parangelia".

Jazz, with its worldwide popularity, the broadness of its expression, and the element of improvisation it includes, is a kind of music that early captured the composer's imagination. In it - in its improvisational character in particular and in the way instruments are played - he perceived a relationship with the traditional music of Greece. In the four pieces on record, this relationship takes the form of a dialogue: creative coexistence of Greek and foreign technical and expressive elements.

Nikos Kizilos

Rejoice with FLAC without boundaries for limited time.

Dance music for people who know...


... how to make love

After Dark is New York at 4am, with the lights off and the strobes flaring. It's a Dalston basement with slow chugging basslines propelling a dancefloor. It's a starlit night on the coast of Croatia with glittery girls and burnished boys grooving to 110bpm anthems.

So what is our After Dark, exactly? It's great dance music with the Bosh-O-Meter turned to 0. If you want a drop, break or explosion every 16 bars, then Swedish House Mafia is that way. This is music for dancers who know to move. It's slow release carbs, with a startlingly high pleasure count. Groove is in the art.

We're on a dedicated mission to unearth the unreleased, the impossible-to-find and the darn-right-funkiest music this side of the Dardanelles. Take this little gem in your palm right now. We've got previously unreleased mixes of the Doves and Twin Sister, a pair of new tunes by Tad Wily and Beans & Company, plus the rare-as-hen's-teeth mega disco tune 'Love The Way You Love Me' by Marti Caine. Stick that in your CD player and smoke it.

There are some other killers, too: A super funky Philip Zdar mix of 'Machistador' by --M--, while I:Cube delivers a terrific reworking of Karma's 'Beach Towel'. We end the session with Asha Puthli's dramatic 'Space Talk'. It's the end of this journey, but not the night. This is where we live. This is our life. After Dark.