‘Songs’ by Inverz is granny records’ third release following the split release between eventless plot and good luck mr gorsky (2008) and the compilation cd ‘bits of quartz glitter’ (2004).
Inverz is the moniker under which Savvas Metaxas records his music the last four years. The ‘songs’ album was recorded during the winter of 2008 at inverz’s home and the compositions were built upon various layers of electric and acoustic guitars, vintage synths and field recordings. The album is enhanced with two collaborations, one featuring Iraklis Iosifidis from 2l8 on ‘bow song’ and the second featuring one mile tar on the remix of ‘q song’. Inverz, being an actual member of good luck mr gorsky and also playing and recording for the 2L8 band has established his presence in the underground musical community of Thessaloniki. In this album he offers his own interpretation of wide landscapes, abstract ambience and noise that stands out as his most complete work to date.
tracklist
l song
d song
r song
k song
f song
v song
bow song
q song
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reviews|
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Recorded and mixed by Inverz (real name Savvas Metaxas, based in Thessaloniki, Greece and a founding member of Good Luck Mr Gorsky) at home during last winter, Songs' eight settings were assembled from multiple layers of electric and acoustic guitars, synthesizers, field recordings, loops, electric piano, an old tape recorder, melodica, and samples. Though they're short for the genre (most are in the five- to seven-minute range), the pieces are fundamentally ambient noise drones that Metaxas has shaped into slow-moving panoramas of immense textural depth. And though they're not conventionally pretty in character, they're not unmusical or dissonant either. The source materials are sometimes melded into teeming abstract wholes and lose their identifying character as a result: “l song” pursues a linear trajectory as it slowly swells into an immense vortex of droning layers, and “r song” opens with scattered pings of tinkles that are eventually buried under a hammering wave of noise. In other cases, the instruments remain identifiable: “k song” brings the intensity down a few notches which allows the electric guitar to be clearly heard amidst the industrial churn, “v song” opens with peaceful layers of acoustic guitar picking that are eventually engulfed by sheets of noise, and “t song” presents a seething blend of piano tinkles and what sounds like amplified seashore sounds. The fifty-four-minute collection includes two collaborations. The deep groan of the bowed contrabass underpins upper register string fragments in the album's longest and most memorable piece, “bow song,” which Metaxas constructed using several contrabass samples played by Iraklis Losifidis and which grows into a heaving, near-tribal mass of percussive accents and layered strings. The closing “q song,” a remix treatment featuring One Mile Tar, seems a rather anomalous inclusion by comparison, given the degree to which it gravitates towards conventional rhythm-based electronica. Even so, the rather cheekily-titled Songs should certainly satisfy listeners with an appetite for abstract sound sculpting.
textura
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''Savvas Metaxas (which sounds like a good drink) is the guitarist from 2L8 and a member of Good Luck Mr Gorsky but also active solo under the guise of Inverz. For his album 'Songs' he plays guitar (electric and acoustic), vintage synthesizers and field recordings. That may seem like old hat, and obviously the end result doesn't offer much new under the micro sun, but I thought the result were pretty neat. Tinkling guitars in the middle of sea of swirling electronic sounds, field recordings being processed to quite an extent where they become unrecognizable. Maybe its all done and said before, and occasionally also better than this, this is still a fine copy of say Fennesz meets Machinefabriek. Core piece is 'Bow Song', which features only the contrabass by Iraklis Iosifidis, in various, layered samples, building a nice drone piece. On a hot day like this, I'd like to sit back and enjoy whatever is coming to me in a nice way, and this is just the one for such a day; when more thinking is not necessary''. (FdW)
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