The Hope Realm, by Thanos Fotiadis

The Hope Realm

by Thanos Fotiadis

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Cassette + Digital Album
Visual artist Teodora Ionescu made a 1,5m x 3m(!) charcoal drawing to the music of 'The Hope Realm'. Close-ups of this drawing are used as cover art for the limited edition cassettes, resulting in a unique cover for each cassette. Only 40 cassettes are made.

Includes unlimited streaming of The Hope Realm via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Full Digital Discography

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of the dragon is still alive, The Hope Realm, PICK & MIX 02, Nieuwe Electronische Waar 18, Movements for Listening, The Dirt, Flying Ginsu VII, Paesaggi integrati, and 111 more. , and , .

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1.	Earth I 12:20	buy track
2.	Earth II 11:30	buy track
3.	Ether I 13:50	buy track
4.	Ether II 07:32	buy track

about

For the album 'The Hope Realm' Thanos Fotiadis recorded several piano phrases/loops onto tape of various qualities, from microcassettes to half-inch tapes. He then manually processed the loops through a 2-track tape recorder, using various objects and his hands to create new sound artifacts. The audio resulting from this process was recorded onto a digital sampler for further manipulation. The result is a hypnotic ambient album with minimal looping tape piano phrases that blend together. The album is split into two halves - two 'ether' tracks and two 'earth' tracks - and is released as two sides of an audio cassette, because tape played such an important role in the creation of the album.

Thanos Fotiadis is a Greek classical pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist who currently lives and works in The Netherlands. His compositions are often electronic in nature and exist between extremes, from heavy music to abstract ambient. Fotiadis wants to create immersive and playful environments by treating silence like a sculpture.

The artwork for this release is something special, as is not unusual in the Esc.rec. catalogue. Visual artist and actor Teodora Ionescu is from Romania and now lives in The Netherlands. She previously collaborated with Esc.rec. – the music for one of her installations was taken from a release by Nobuka on this label. She has been making music-inspired charcoal drawings for some time. Her visual language is a perfect match with the recordings of Thanos Fotiadis and there are also thematic similarities. Both quickly became very enthusiastic about the idea of working together on this project.

Teodora Ionescu made a 1,5m x 3m(!) charcoal drawing to the music of 'The Hope Realm'. She sees this drawing as a 'sketch' for the live performance and album presentation that takes place on February 24th at Kelderfest - see perifeer.org/agenda/kelderfest-2024 - in which she makes another large charcoal drawing on the spot, in what can maybe best be described as a ritual performance to the live music of Thanos Fotiadis. Close-ups of the original 'sketch' are used as cover art for the limited edition cassettes, resulting in a unique cover for each cassette.

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Review by Frans de Waard in Vital Weekly:
"The name Thanos Fotiadis frequently appeared in Vital Weekly but as a member of Lärmschutz. Initially on drums, later on electronics, and then, more recently, he no longer seems to be part of the group. His solo work, the first I hear, is very different from the anarcho jazz punk of the band he was in. At the start of the four pieces on ‘The Hope Realm’, he recorded piano phrases/loops on various machines, from low to high-end microcassettes to half-inch tapes. The piano is for Fotiadis. It is his first instrument of choice, trained as a classical pianist. The loops he creates go through a two-track machine, processing them with “various objects and his hands to create new sound artifacts”, and then a digital sampler for some further manipulation. For such a complicated process, the music may sound very ‘easy’; it’s just a bunch of loops, right? I never believe things are ‘easy’ (and if they are and still sound good, what’s the problem anyway?), and while it seems ‘easy’ to set forward a bunch of loops, it is difficult to get them to play in such a way that it is all musically interesting. It all comes down to practice and experience, composing, editing, choosing, etc. It’s not difficult to see the music in a long tradition of ambient music, using piano, starting with Brian Eno’s first ambient record, but also someone like William Basinski is an undeniable reference; less so all these modern mood pianists, which I find pretty dreadful. In the four pieces here, Fotiadis uses extensive loops of varying lengths but also adds delay pedals, so sounds linger on and die out after a while and not straight away. At times, he adds dashes of reverb to suggest more atmosphere. None of the loops overstay their welcome, as Fotiadis keeps moving them about; there are significant shifts in each track, subtly changing the scenery. That’s what I mean when I say things aren’t as easy as they may seem. He does a great job, and the music is a true delight. Only forty copies are available, each with a unique charcoal cover by Teodora Ionescu, inspired by the music. She will create another large drawing when this cassette is presented, just as she did for these forty. Top quality product!"

credits

released March 23, 2024

Music: Thanos Fotiadis
Visual art: Teodora Ionescu
Design: Harco Rutgers

Funded by Jeannette Hollaar Fonds

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Esc.rec. Deventer

Esc.rec. is a small, critically acclaimed record label for adventurous music, founded in 2004 by Harco Rutgers in Deventer, NL.

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