Permanent by Stelios Vassiloudis
Stelios Vassiloudis has worked in multiple genres throughout his decades-long career, but feels most at home with experimental, low-tempo music. That’s because of his background. He trained as a classical musician and composer in New York, and was busy learning to write film scores when he first discovered electronic music. As a result, his exploration of the genre was rooted in the intricacies of Bach and the innovation of Beethoven. He was drawn to the experimental, experiential sounds of Massive Attack and Portishead, which led him down a progressive house-shaped rabbit hole.
Vassiloudis’ productions were snapped up by the zeitgeist labels of the mid-to-late 2000s like Bedrock, Audiotherapy and Renaissance. But with such diverse taste and influences, he soon veered into new sonic territory, gravitating towards techno, hip hop, drum ’n' bass, breaks and electronica. In 2011 he released his first low-tempo album on Bedrock, and then focused on club music right up until the pandemic hit in 2020, which finally afforded him time and space to return to his cinematic, introspective roots. He spent lockdown holed up in his home studio in Athens, producing an expansive catalogue of music, which formed his second low-tempo album All Else Fails on BALANCE, released March 2022.
His latest EP Permanent out on November 21 2022 on Reflections, occupies a similar space. It’s more than a move away from club music; it’s a reaction to it. “People listen to Spotify tracks for 30 seconds, which is not music appreciation,” Vassiloudis says. “We’re bombarded with stimuli, so no one sits and listens to a full symphony or an indulgent jazz album any more.” Permanent aims to resist this. The five-track EP encourages deep-listening because each production has so many complex, interweaving elements. The time signatures are unexpected and the instrument selections unique. Wood chimes, bells, guzheng, flute, suona and piano all dance together, creating coherency with a hint of chaos.
“All my music starts with a jam and tinkering with equipment in my studio,” says Vassiloudis. “And this kind of music means I can experiment more than on a dance track, like with ‘The Year Of The Ox’. It’s a 3/4 time signature, like you get in a waltz, which you don’t usually find in dance music.”
This sense of creative freedom shines through the EP. You can hear it in the lo-fi beats and high-pitched vocal samples of ‘Dunggu’ and in the complex, understated ambient track ‘Ja Matane’ and in the freestyle jazz piano in ‘Oh, that’s good’. But Vassiloudis says writing ‘Year of the Ox’ was a particularly freeing creative experience. “It came very naturally, and I wrote it in this flow state of pure creation.”
Vassiloudis asks for one thing from his listeners – their pure, undivided attention. “This kind of music can be put under the umbrella of chill-out,” Vassiloudis says. “Which basically pushes it into this category of background music. But I hope people can get past that and really listen, and let it jog their imaginations.”
Permanent is out on Reflections on November 21 2022.
Tracklist
| 1. | Nowhere To Go | 3:35 |
| 2. | Dunggu | 4:49 |
| 3. | Ja Matane | 5:01 |
| 4. | Oh, That's Good | 2:05 |
| 5. | Year Of The Ox | 5:16 |
Credits
2022, Anjunachill
License
All rights reserved.
Anjuna’s home for ambient, chillout and downtempo.
Anjunachill is an independent record label based in London and the third imprint within the Anjuna label family, founded by British trio Above & Beyond.