OUR TRIP SO FAR
Floridis - Skopelitis - Temiz
Preis / Price : 15.08 €
Bestell-Nr. / Purchase Order No. : M Records 520487601013
  Warenkorb
   
Floros Floridis flute, alto sax, soprano sax
clarinette Bb, bass clarinette
Nicky Skopelitis electric guitar, electric 12 string guitar
Okay Temiz drums, cembe, electric berimbao, guica, electronical pyramid
   
01.
 Nar Cicegi (Temiz)
02.
 Pitch Black (Skopelitis)
03.
 The Ever Sound (Floridis, Skopelitis, Temiz)
04.
 Happy Elephant (Floridis)
05.
 Stars (Floridis, Skopelitis, Temiz)
06.
 Kulla Baba (Temiz)
07.
 Night Falls (Floridis, Skopelitis)
08.
 Greetings From Overseas (Floridis, Skopelitis, Temiz)
09.
 The Light Blue Above (Skopelitis)
10.
 Gringos (Floridis, Skopelitis, Temiz)
   
 
    

All compositions by Floros Floridis (A.E.P.I.), Nicky Skopelitis (B.M.I.), Okay Temiz (S.T.I.M.)
Recorded @ Magnanimus Studio, Thessaloniki (Greece) on 12-15 September 2000
by Martin Ekman and George Pentzikis
Mixed by George Pentzikis, Martin Ekman
Mastered @ Athens Mastering (Chris Hatzistamou)
Executive producer: Floros Floridis

Special thanks: George Florakis

 
First release: May 2001
 
Long Trip Around The Corner
As we tend to refer to everything as civilization, essentially aiming to justify our own existence through the process, we have come to realize that, beyond a certain level of musical expression, it is useless - if not mistaken - to interpret the musical work on the basis of reigning musical forms or distinguished melodic paths or inherent key rhythms. Beyond a certain level, music corresponds to pure emotion and can therefore be solely understood through emotion. Interpreted, it cannot be however and certainly not exhaustively as, beyond a certain level, emotion becomes tantamount to technique as a creative force. OUR TRIP SO FAR develops in precisely such a high level of musical expression. Within certain musicians such as Okay Temiz, Nicky Skopelitis and Floros Floridis, emotion is not produced anymore as a result of a momentary impulse but on the contrary, even as it emerges from the soul, emotion is subconsciously filtered by an advanced and totally mastered technique. One could therefore say that OUR TRIP SO FAR is born from the meeting of three originators. (…) The sound they produce (…) exceeds the sum of their musical experience as well as of their personal possibilities. What they produce is their own civilization. These are no chance experiences. American guitarist Nicky Skopelitis (of Greek origin) has dived to the depths of New York avant-garde, bringing up to a surface (…) dozens of answers to the question of how to create contemporary music without betraying one´s rock background and without falling into the trap of rigid formalism. (…) Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz has many times distinguished himself in ´ethnic´ meetings as well as in numerous ´traditional´ fairs, absorbing popular immediacy and returning aesthetics. (…) Greek Floros Floridis has explored every hidden corner of free-jazz experience and has penetrated every secret domain of freeform experimentation, working (…) with the crème de la crème of improvised music. (…) It is their ´divergences´ that create the magic of OUR TRIP SO FAR and constitute the challenge. (…) All this happened during the four days between the 12th and 15th of September 2000 in Magnanimus Studio in Thessaloniki. (…)
Archie Zilos
Translation: Marguerite Ovadia 
 
Finding the right chemistry
Excerpt from an interview with Floros Floridis

Let´s begin how the three of you got together.
Okay Temiz and I have collaborated frequently over the past 10 to 15 years. As for Nicky Skopelitis, I first met him in Germany about 10 years ago. At that time, like all musicians, we had expressed the wish to work together at some point of time. As a trio, we met up in the studio for the first time last September with the objective of making over 45 minutes worth of music - because that´s what the contract stated! We all arrived with some elementary ideas in mind that were developed and given structure. Four of the album´s 10 songs are totally improvised - just us playing while the tapes rolled. (…) It sounds like we´ve been working together for years. We were content when we heard what had come out of this collaboration.
Was the album recorded in Thessaloniki for practical reasons?
Yes. We and also considered New York and Istanbul, but Thessaloniki proved to be the best alternative.
You recently made an interesting remark about the ironies behind being a ´professional improvisor´. Could you elaborate? Yes, we´re practising the occupation of our choice. But people don´t seem to appreciate free improvisation, a field I adore and feel that I know better than all the other styles. We don´t have an audience. So we need to transfer this approach, attitude or type of expression to our jobs. For example, when I´m playing with Himerini Kolymvites, or Banda tis Florinas I express myself through my style. Improvisation is a basic means of creativity. It simply resurfaced, so to speak, in Western music of the 20th century, but had always existed in other types of music. (…) The only way to make music is by either improvising or writing the notes down on paper, depending on the type of music being composed. (…) But nobody can force us to accept that the only form of music that can be considered serious is that which is written on paper. (…) Tha´ts clearly a matter concering academics who want to be academics.
George Kolyvas, in: Kathimerini, English edition, April 17, 2001
 
Review
A Turk percussionist, a Greek on reeds and a Greek-American on guitars can only mean one thing: Ebullient originality. OUR TRIP SO FAR is brimming with the sounds of the East, the West, and… the heart. Its uniqueness, however, doesn´t lie in its cultural diversity, it´s in the way these three instrumentalists experiment. Thus we have the traditional Greek 9/8 motif dressed in bold drums and daring reeds. Complex rhythmic patterns are thrown at the listener who´s thrown out of his seat once the guitars and sax take lead. (…) Remember Coltrane´s Meditations or Davis´ Bitches Brew? Set yourself free and ´travel´ - one instrument at a time. That´s the only way to get the complete jazz experience.
Maria Paravantes, Greek Beat, April 23, 2001


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