Your Hand in Mine

"I think that during the past 15 months you haven’t read much on Greek musicians and Greek bands –at least at this blog. I would just like to stress once more how much I liked this album and how it verifies the usual cliché that “if it were a British or an American band, they would have received enthousiastic reviews worldwide”.
- winter academy

"YHIM’s music for the black and white stills of the silent film by Mikio Naruse (1933) at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival could easily be an independent work of dream pop, familiar to the compositions of Colleen or to the symphonic poems of Reich. 23 short music themes compose one of the most complete works that were released this year by a Greek artist. Superb!" - m.hulot

"Your hand in mine are two 23-year-old students from Thessaloniki, Manos Milonakis and George Papadopoulos that express a really lyric style. They have composed a totally hand-made ep, with 4 tracks, that ends exactly where you want it to last forever…You can find their ep exclusively in their page at myspace:www.myspace.com/theyourhandinmine, you put it in your cd player and everything flourishes, just like the flowery cover. Don’t let anybody claim that there are no young musicians worthwile. Of course there are. Did you try to find them?"
- Christos Papamichalis

“When your hand glides in mine, the lonely crowd of Explosions in the Sky meet with the sweet murmour of Amelie and, suddenly, flowers of the most rare species flourish in wintertime”. - Rainman

Manos Milonakis and George Papadopoulos are the guys behind the band “your hand in mine” from Thessaloniki. "we don't know if this road is a deadend...but we're sure it's gonna be thrilling to walk this way" say in their myspace profile. Their ep, just released by themselves, is one of the most beautiful recordings that was distributed lately.
4 pieces of orchestral dream pop recall children’s lullabies of Lullatone, “dressed” in a very stylish spring cover, photographed by Manos. Chances are that the few (may be not so few, after all) and noble of indie-elecrtronic elite will be their loyal fans.
Their ep isn’t sold in big record stores, their compositions are not among the boring “stuff” of the Greek radio –despite a few exceptions. They will probably never be invited in a TV-show, because every TV person is highly associated with the most silly and unwitful side of Greek reality, being too busy to live in the real world.
- m.hulot

Your Hand In Mine: Every Night Dreams
Inner Ear

Every Night Dreams is a rather distinctive collection by Your Hand in Mine, a two-person outfit consisting of Manos Milonakis and George Papadupoulos from Thessaloniki, Greece. The hour-long recording can be enjoyed either autonomously as a collection of transporting vignettes or as it was designed, as a musical accompaniment to Mikio Naruse's 1933 silent film Yogoto No Yume which the duo presented live at Thessaloniki's International Film Festival in November 2007 (in the film's absence, the lovely illustrations by Benjamin Nerot shown in the CD's booklet—one image per song—function as a credible substitute). The duo's arrangements dazzle, and one would never guess the music's a product of two musicians when almost every piece presents a plenitude of largely acoustic sounds (Milonakis plays wurlitzer piano, melodica, toy piano, ukulele, accordion, and handles programming, while George plays guitar, synth, mandolin, zither, glockenspiel, and percussion). Arresting instrumental combinations abound: electric guitar and toy piano in “Sudative Luminareten,” piano-glockenspiel and mandolin-ukulele in “The Stranger,” accordion and mandolin in the waltz “At the Bar I,” and glockenspiel, accordion, and toy piano in the dirge “Fumio.” At the same time, some pieces feature one or two instruments only which helps prevent the album from becoming claustrophobic over the long haul.

Melancholy pervades even the most potentially uplifting song; “Tea Time,” for example, includes percussive playing that's almost funky but its jubilant spirit struggles up against the brooding ambiance Milonakis and Papadupoulos clearly gravitate towards. Familiarity with Yogoto No Yume, however, suggests that it's the film's narrative which explains their approach: in the film, a woman is deserted by her husband following the birth of their son; when he returns, the husband can't find work in depression-stricken Tokyo so when his son is injured in an accident, he commits a robbery to get money to pay for the medical care; when his wife rejects the money, the husband, tormented by shame, drowns himself (even if one is unfamiliar with the film, its tragic dimension is conveyed by song titles like “Please, Surrender” and “Take Care of Our Son”). Despite being so wistful in character, Every Night Dreams' material also exudes an innocent charm similar to the kind one finds in Yann Tiersen's music (his Amelie soundtrack, for example); the accordion waltz “At the Bar III,” for one, has Tiersen's name written all over it. Though many pieces are so short as to be fragments, each flows into the next, making Every Night Dreams an hour-long travelogue. All in all, it's the perfect soundtrack for a walking tour through Montmartre on an overcast September Sunday.

September 2008 - textura.org

Many artists dream about writing soundtracks. Even more so, when the assignment is for a silent movie where every note carries just as much importance as the actual image. So it's no wonder Greek duo Your Hand in Mind seized the opportunity of scoring the music to a performance of Japanese flic “Yogoto No Yume” with both hands when it was presented to them. A now classic example of early Asian cinematography, the movie tells the story of a man ruefully returning to his wife and son after having previously deserted them. Against all odds, he is truly intending to be a husband and a father this time and gradually builds a fragile relationship with them. Pressure and suspicions from societyprove to be too much of an obstacle, however, and his suicide ends this short period of hope after a mere week. But even though the situation seems the same as it was before his return, a lot has changed. Manos Milonakis and George Papadopoulos have withstood the temptation of dressing their score in clicheed sounds and Japanese references. Instead, their work has a folk-touch to it, combining brittle Mandolin- and Guitar-sequences with plaintive, drunken Accordion and discreet electronics. Using recurrent motives to create cohesion and disarming melodies, the soundtrack, published under the title of "Every Night Dreams" has garnered encouraging comparisons with Yann Thiersen (of "Amélie"-fame) and turned into the ideal album for anyone to whom the falling leaves and grey skies of Autumn are not sad enough by themselves. - tokafi.com