monochrom reviews ikon

At a certain level of abstraction all rationalization becomes very complicated and complex and hard to follow. When I first listened to “Music for Airports” and then also when I first listened to “My life in the bush of Ghosts” I was very much less than thrilled or excited, and maybe the reason for this reaction was on the one hand that I listened to these pieces some decades after they were first released, and on the other hand after I had read a lot about them, so my expectations were completely formed. And, of course, the two reasons worked together to result in a self-fulfilling dissatisfaction. My lesson from this was never to go towards a new record with prejudices. Or at least try to, because honestly, it is impossible. All you can do is to check and re-check your reactions.

Eventless Plot construct music on a level of abstraction that makes especially wholeheartedly subjective, purely emotional listening hard to reach excitement. On the other hand, pure rock and a well played guitar riff, e.g. “Brown Sugar” by Keith Richards, goes directly to that part of your brain but will probably only hold up to a more intellectual consideration by heavy re-argumentation and re-connotation. (Which should be avoided by changing to this argument: “I know, it’s only rock’n’roll but I like it.”) Therefore it is usually the best to take music as it is. And if you are able to enjoy and experience a musical rendition of stasis that is not ambient or drone but postrock in the best sense of the word as stated above, then you are ready for this little album. Because with all means available to them, this band / project from Greece dives into the notion of non-movement with full force. It took me some months to get to the bottom of this, and maybe I didn’t but just managed to find a place to stand on that allowed me to take a good look, so what may be disregarded as simple and uneventful pickering at first sight, is actually an exciting endeavour.

Compared to their last release Eventless Plot (the split lp with Goodnight Mr. Gorsky also on Granny records) has taken a big step towards a new journey, which will take them to new places and unchartered waters. Who can say where to exactly? Probably not even they themselves. But moving is good and important on a different level, especially when it leads you to analyze non-movement in an artistic sense. Maybe it was all given away and predictated when they chose the name “Eventless Plot” and they back then never thought anything of it. “Ikon” takes that travel for six times in six very different ways but every time the basic non-motion remains. Even when there is a break, a bridge or a change in rhythm in their tracks it seems as if it only adds to the overall stasis. It must be an intention, because “ikon” says as much. What is an icon, if not something that is so fixed in people’s minds that is a complete fixture and cannot be changed? (That is except for irony, because irony can do anything…) It is hard at times to even make out if Eventloss Plot are a band playing on real instruments or electronic or both, because they mix it up with grace and skills, producing subtly winding tracks that make Sunday mornings hold their breath and not go by. Unfortunately every record has to end at some time.

Nowadays I listen to “Music For Airports” and “My Life in the bush of ghosts” from time to time and I say I enjoy listening to them. I also listen to “Made in the Shade” from time to time and I enjoy it. As a listener there is no reason to constrain yourself, as opposed to the producer of music. The decisions each one takes are very different. “Ikon” should be a well-thought decision on the listener’s side, but if taken with consideration a great reward as well.

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good luck mr gorsky & inverz photos from the recent live in the city of Xanthi

Many thanks to all and especially to Giorgos, Mihalis, Pasxalis .

good luck mr gorsky
inverz


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Loop reviews ikon



Eventless Plot the Thessaloniki, Greece-based trio delivers an electro-acoustic sound using clarinet, piano, melodica, guitars, and processed electronics.
"Ikon" is their fourth release to date after some splits and compilation appearances in independent labels.
They blend keyboards, glitchy snippets and jazz like sounds. The effect is a flickering tension between improvised and composed ambience.
The omnipresence piano notes on “Ikon 3” give classical touch alongwith digital sound bits, a perfect soundtrack for a thriller. “Habit Habitant” continues these dark passages with deep keyboard lines that go beyond the horizon. Stunning! On “Two Season and Autumn” merged slide acoustic guitar sounds and domestic found sound objects that interact perfectly.
“Ikon” is a gorgeous album where improv compositions and more structured ones are well-balanced.

Guillermo Escudero
August 2009

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ikon review by textura magazine

After split releases with Mescalina Eden (Gracetone, 2005) and Good Luck mr Gorsky (Granny, 2008) and a few compilation appearances, Eventless Plot steps out with its debut full-length ikon. On the forty-minute disc, the Thessaloniki, Greece-based trio generates electro-acoustic pools of processed electronics, field recordings, microsound textures, samples, and the acoustic sonorities of clarinet, piano, melodica, and guitars in six heavily-textured settings.

“Ideate. Words Cannot,” a slow-motion ambient workout of processed stutter and fuzz, provides a credible opener, if one not much different in character from electro-acoustic settings of its kind heard before. Much of what follows, on the other hand, is distinctive, in large part because many of the subsequent pieces use one or two acoustic instruments as their core. “Harck Back” sounds wholly unique in its marriage of clarinet meander (by Tasos Stamou) and space age electronics. There's a rhythmic pulse at work but it's more felt than stated, and the piece crawls along at a lumbering pace—all the better for the clarinet and electronics to pursue their explorative trajectories. In similar manner, a brooding piano motif occupies a central position in “Ikon.3,” acting as the glue holding together the speckled electronic dust that sputters, clicks, clanks, and pops throughout. The electric guitar takes its turn at center stage in the album's densest setting, “Paraccium,” as a cauldron-like broil writhes alongside guitar shadings and, again, clarinet playing. Though speckled with acoustic guitar fragments, “Two Season and Autumn” is reminiscent of the shape-shifting processions of manipulated sounds that flow through Entain and Multila's long-form tracks—until, that is, a loud whirring noise nearly swallows “Two Season and Autumn” whole.

Though the penultimate piece, “Habitat Habitant,” a heaving cloud formation of electronics and processed sounds, reverts to the protoypical “glitch” focus of “Ideate. Words Cannot,” its doing so doesn't overshadow the individuating quality of the album's surrounding material. Ultimately, one could just as easily imagine 12k releasing ikon rather than Granny, given the album's atmospheric and sculpted character. Still, what sets the release apart from others in its category is its inspired incorporation of acoustic instrumentation.

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Australian magazine Cyclic Defrost reviews Ikon.

Eventless Plot is something of a misnomer, as the post-clicks n’ cuts electroacoustics of this Greek ensemble displays more confidence and direction than most in this game. The three-piece use a variety of organs, field recordings and digital processing to create beatless flickering pieces that resemble the work of 12k artists like Seaworthy and Sawako. It’s almost ambient, but too unsettling, with wavering sine tones touching on almost-painful highs and a cold, reverberant din evoking the alien(ated) terror of the abandoned space stations of science fiction films.

In ‘Ideate.Words Cannot’ a bass drone looms low like a shark, forcing greater shivers from the surrounding waves, while ‘Ikon 3′ pits springy analogue tones against a spacious laptop-keyboard duet worthy of Alva Noto and Sakamoto. Eventless Plot are at their finest in dialogues of this sort, best demonstrated in ‘Harck Back’ where Tasos Stamou guests on clarinet, duelling with aquatic digital blurts like some kind of undersea jig, drowning in a submerged New Orleans jazz-joint in the midst of Katrina.

Joshua Meggitt

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Sound Proector Reviews ikon

Recently I got the debut work of another, unknown for me Greek project Eventless Plot. Music of this trio is a mixture of experimental ambient and various live instruments such as piano, clarinet, guitar, it all is skillfully filled with characteristic electronic microsounds. One can hear something similar in releases of such labels as Mille Plateaux, Raster-Noton or 12k. I found something interesting and catching in this album. The sound doesn't just spread over the walls and doesn't drone monotonously, there is the development of composition, even not development but a hint at development that makes Eventless Plot's work a little bit delusive and misty. Discernible inescapable melancholy doesn't make acquaintance with this album simple, though it's interesting to listen to it as if you were opening the new verges of your perception. Above-mentioned live instruments perfectly fit into general sounding, using these instruments, to my mind, points ikon out among many other similar works. For example in track "Harck Back" exactly clarinet accentuates the darkish tones creating the atmosphere of such noir from 'twilight zone'. And the repeating piano chords in "Ikon.3" sound even a little bit frightening but at the same time attractive and charming.
The album must undoubtedly interest the fans of various experiments, there are enough of them and the 40 minutes of the record pass without mention. (sound proector)

Eventless Plot have joined sound proector's last podcast here