Nikos Grapsas Filocalia Quartet
Berlin, Berlin, Germany | INDIE
Music
Press
The most famous American rapper JAY-Z travels in top 10 world music charts, with a sampler of a greek song "One day in Athens" composed by the greek band "?he 4 Levels of Existence". Nikos Grapsas is one of the 4 members of the band. - Music Heaven
N.Grapsas, gives his personal style and color on great traditional songs that are intensely filtered by his aesthetics not just in terms of instrumental execution as well as in terms of interpretation. - Mediatech
Sensitive, tender as well as tough is Nikos Grapsas’ sound. Contemporary sounds crossing with traditional music. From folk songs of East Mediterranean to improvisations, old and new compositions.
- In.gr
The sounds of the city create images, plays with those little moments during tension and Nikos Grapsas recorded them. A game with the music, the faces, the space and the senses. Away from the “tight habits of time” and mainly away from the “tight habits of human souls”. With the resistance the “little loves in the sad city” hide…
- Pop & Rock
Grapsas and his group approach these 14 songs and tunes far more in an intuitional way (in terms of atmosphere) than concerned to ascribe the specific features of each musical style. - Eleytherotypia
Even though he has a European oriented musical background, N.Grapsas could not resist the charms of traditional music […] “I am not interested in being called traditional but making stuff that I like and use the material with honesty.” […] Two records that invite us in “journeys” without borders, in “meetings” with musical testimonies of centuries, pieces of a broader but communal cultural map, that of Eastern Mediterranean. - Rizospastis
Discography
AEGEAN FORCES (LYRA, 1985)
MELODISTS OF PASSION (ORATA, 1986)
AEGEAN FORCES SOUND B (SIRIUS, 1987)
THERE ARE CHILDREN IN SIRIUS (MINOS, 1987)
EASTERN WINDOW (SIRIUS, 1989)
THAT'S WIND/ IT'S WIND (SIRIUS, 1990)
PANDORA VOL 2 (ORATA, 1991)
AVATON (SIRIUS, 1991)
PANDORA VOL 3 (ORATA, 1993)
WOMEN OF BITERNESS (LYRA, 1993)
POYLOLOGOS: THE WEDLOCKS OF A ROOSTER (ORATA, 1993)
ARKADIA MOUNTAINS (MBA, 1993)
EMPTYNESS (MIRROR, 1995)
IONIAN SEAS (LYRA, 1995)
GIRL FROM AMORGOS (LYRA, 1996)
SONGS BROUGHT BY SOUTH WIND (LYRA, 1996)
LITTLE LOVES IN THE SAD CITY (LYRA, 1997)
ROSE OF A ROCK (MBA, 1998)
SUNKEN SHIP ANCHORS (MINOS EMI, 2001)
TRICHORD, THE SOUND OF OUR SOUL (BMG, 2001)
AEGEAN FORCES, ALL THE DAYS I WAS MISSING (AEGEAN FORCES, 2001)
EON (AEGEAN FORCES, 2002)
MUSICAL HERRITAGE THRAKI - AEGEAN - CYPRUS (KOTSONIS, 2003)
LIE DISGUISED IN TRUTH (UNIVERSAL, 2005)
Photos
Bio
Filokalia Romana Quartetwas founded byNikos Grapsas.Nikos interest inthefolk musicof theEast and the Balkans with its many rhythms,findsjoyinimprovisationwhile he is in a constant search for the roots of this music. He started traveling toMinorAsia, Smyrna, Cappadocia, Middle East andtheBalkans, discovering traditional musical instruments andexploring new ways of performingthem.Nikos has studied Byzantine and European music, as well as the Arab andTurkish musical systems, before he started composing his own music. He also holds a master in Human studies. Hehas created a rich archive ofsongs fromthe Greek islands,after having completed research with the old music records of the Academy of Athensandlistened carefully to the various idioms of theGreekprovincial music. Together with Christos Tsiamoulis,they havecreated the ensemble "Aegean Forces",performing withinstrumentsthat have been used bydifferentmusicculturesand putting forward the strong local idioms of its people. Nikos Grapsas has produced 18 albums.
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