At age 69, from cancer. A very important figure for Greek music, but I would say for progressive rock in general. Akritas is the single most important Greek progressive rock album for me, a magnificent blend of the music of Yes and Gentle Giant with the local Greek traditional and Balkan sounds. Some quite interesting solo work too, although I am not very familiar with it.
that intro to the album is prog rock heaven for me. Stupendous stuff
Sad to read this. The Akritas album was very good.
Descanse Maestro!
Pura Vida!.
There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. ∞
Duke Ellington.
An outstanding piece of work; deserves it's 11.22 rating on Gnosis (with plenty of 13's and 14's - even one 15).
My only issue is that the CD isn't segmented by track so I have to play the whole thing each time. It's a relatively short album, but still...
The Gnosis ratings are just crazy! I think I've given it a 12 although sentimentally it's a 13 or 14 for me. I can't quite understand how it could sound to a non-Greek audience, because of the language barrier. The text is essential to the whole experience, based on John's Apocalypse which is written in Greek anyway. I am usually very negatively biased towards Greek rock music, but Akritas always stood out for me for being very informed about what was going on around the world at the time. It is a progressive rock album with Greek elements, not a Greek rock album with progressive rock elements, if that makes sense. The same applies to Axis.Originally Posted by SunRunner2
An outstanding piece of work; deserves it's 11.22 rating on Gnosis (with plenty of 13's and 14's - even one 15).
My only issue is that the CD isn't segmented by track so I have to play the whole thing each time. It's a relatively short album, but still...
He had a great voice and excellent compositional skills. However he was unlucky in his choice of associates that could push his career forward.
Vangelis "Chariots of Fire" that won him an Oscar, was based on a melody of his...
He stayed original to the very end.
RIP.
Last edited by spacefreak; 04-16-2022 at 04:57 AM.
Sad to hear it.
The Akritas album is excellent and still stands safely on its own; I always felt that the usual comparisons with other artists came in futile with this one, as it so often does with truly original works - be they "progressive rock" or otherwise. For instance, there's a decidedly spiritual sense of improvisation going on with parts of that record which completely lacks in most British contemporaries and would rather point to someone like Agitation Free etc. Still, no overall likeness to the latter either.
A friend of mine owned the s/t (first, I think?) Logarides solo album, and I recall it being a somewhat vocal-heavy singer/songwriter affair with some akin to Kostas Tournas or passages on the Iraklis release. I still find a thing or two to enjoy on the Poll s/t (beige minimalist sleeve) as well, although obviously it's much more of a refined pop record. Thanks to the Poll's relative success he got the opportunity to realise Akritas, so there's an important connection nonetheless. I never heard the debut Poll title.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
I have to say that there are so few vocal sections in comparison to the endlessly mutating and exhilarating instrumental parts that the lack of comprehension doesn't seem to matter. The libretto excerpts in the CD booklet appear rather ludicrous to me and their connection to the Kazantzakis texts that purpotedly inspired them rather tenous. Actually, I've thought that the "byzantine" complexity of the music as well as the flavour of some of modal material itself reflects the idea of the Byzantine Akritas character/myth. But I'm probably missing something.
R. I. P.
I have the self-titled album from 1978, and it is certainly a mixed bag of songs and instrumentals. While there is an unfortunate tendency towards disco and rather pedestrian rock, I've always enjoyed the cosmic vibe of the Jon and Vangelis -like "Close the Door" and the couple of instrumentals.
I understand the court ruled against Logarides in his claim of plagiarism by Vangelis. Certainly, you can hear part of the theme in Logarides' piece but you can essentially hear it almost complete on Vangelis' earlier works.
What was the gist of his argument? I understand Logarides and Vangelis had collaborated in the 1970s. Did Logarides claim that they worked on what would become the opening titles theme for Chariots of Firetogether and he deserved to be credited? Or that Vangelis swiped the whole thing from this demo?
I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a link to the court's decision in the wiki article of Chariots of Fire, which sheds some light on the arguments at hand.
http://cip.law.ucla.edu/cases/1980-1...K03opinion.pdf
τί ἐστιν ὃ μίαν ἔχον φωνὴν τετράπουν καὶ δίπουν καὶ τρίπουν γίνεται;
εἰσί κασίγνηται δισσαὶ, ὠν ἡ μία τίκτει
τὴν ἑτέραν αὐτὴ δέ τεκοῦσ` ὑπό τὴσδη τεκνούται
τίς δὲ κασίγνηται δύο;
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