Today, let’s discover our musician of the weekend, a creative artist who goes by the name of Efthymios Stavropoulos AKA eforez.
His latest album is entitled “Fossil Sprouts” and offers an outstanding musical world between soundscape, haunting melodies, and mysterious atmosphere. A unique cinematic project, A masterpiece of 2020.
We were thrilled to meet with eforez to discuss his musical journey.
Press play on “Fossil Sprouts” and Rendez-vous below to read our full interview with the artist.
Welcome to our redaction! Can you tell us who you are and how you started to do music?
My name is Efthymios Stavropoulos and my artist name is eforez
I started making music as a teenager when I first got a simple computer microphone and I discovered what recording means, this should be around 1997.
I was studying classical guitar back then and being a composer was not even in my dreams.
It was not before 2009 when I decided that I want to study composition.
I had just graduated from the forestry engineering university in Thessaloniki, Greece and my gut told me to follow the music/art path.
3 years later (after a few months of preparation and basic composition and arranging studies + applications to conservatoires in Europe) I was in Rotterdam doing my bachelor in the jazz composition department of Rotterdam consercatorium (Codarts) in the Netherlands.
I continued with the master studies and graduated in November 2018 All six years under the guidance of the incredible Paul M. van Brugge who literally changed my life and helped me enormously!
In April 2019, I released my first album “Our 25th Hour” composed for a quintet + audiovisual tape and since then I have been working with various artists, composers, musicians, preparing new music and audiovisual projects. In December 2020 I actually released 2 more albums.
The Road to Cappadocia
and Fossil Sprouts – which is my latest work.
What inspires you to write music?
The inspiration can be found on everything and anything.
It could be in an article I read about new found Earth like planets, or in a conversation I had with my girlfriend about people’s relationships, or in a picture or a short text I saw or read somewhere. I don’t seek for it, but I try to always be open to detecting and perceiving it.
Inspiration actually feeds on the creative proccess of each one of us and although it actually exists, I personally don’t always count on it. If it’s not there for me I would anyways start working and it inspiration will come along the way.
What is your creative process?
My creative process relies on creating material and revisiting them 2 or 3 times, creating this way a project based library of material of different generations and then enhancing them, instrumentating them or altering them according to the concept of each project. Sometimes the concept already exists before even having any material and sometimes it just emerges while putting all the pieces together, during this collage like creative process.
Sound wise I like mixing electronic and acoustic sounds, having a hybrid type of result. The acoustic sound would most of the times be 1-5 instruments. The electronic sounds are synthesizers, guitar and vocals effected through pedals and devices of that kind.
Can you tell us more about your latest release?
Fossil Sprouts is actually a recycled and refined collection of 7 miniature works, which I composed during the first wave of the corona virus before the summer (between March and May 2020).
Although an independent artist I want to produce my projects as better as possible according to the ever current experience and knowledge I have and of course the sound quality is and was always one of my concerns.
Well, the quality is not easy thing to have with virtual projects, where people record with their phones or laptops BUT I definately wanted to produce an album with good quality using those pre existing recordings. (which btw you can find here: bit.ly/38csQXh )
Using reverb and delay I transformed them into an ambient carpet and on top of which I intended to refine and reshaped the same musical lines using synths, field recordings and samples, mainly looking for depth and contrast between foreground and background. My only limitations were not altering the original material and keeping things as simple as possible.
And…the result is…Fossil Sprouts, which resembles the rebirth, or the bloom, of something old, like a fossil, which is still fertile though.
What do you plan for the future?
For the future I have a new album coming up named “Demigod”, which is the result of my collaboration with Micheal Hermens under the name “misters.me”.
I am also part of an experimental audiovisual duet name “Bzaka and the Owlgod” which mainly intends to be a sonic/ sound exploration and a few other projects like making music for short films and documentaries, as well as songwriting.
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