athos

With a background in classical music, brothers, Anthony and Demetri Kastellani embarked on an excavation of their Cypriot heritage through a common education of bond and blood. Recorded in their ever changing home studio, their often aleatoric approach to recording encouraged a curiosity in each other's experimental nature, resulting in a charming duality of idea and practice. The debut album ‘To Know Where It’s Going’ represents their love affair with ‘Éntekhno song’ (art song) and its relation to soundtrack music. With influences ranging from Mikis Theodorakis ‘Serpico’ score to other European composers such as Basil Poledouris and Ennio Morricone; to likened artists such as John Cale and Woo. Athos create a meticulous hive of their shared experiences, existing in a realm solely their own. Growing up as part of the Greek Cypriot diaspora in London, the search for meaning in identity was of course a powerful one, and is by definition a profoundly disruptive experience - a continuous feeling of liminality. With the intention of illuminating the longstanding political struggles and division of the island, the auto-biographical record details the relationship between remembering and experiencing self. The narrative develops through their formative encounters of village life on the island of Cyprus with a focus on the imaginative epithets of places and people. Through a personal, musical love letter to their childhood, the space between conjured memories from the past, and those formed anew, we pay close attention and embrace the natural disruption that surrounds us - encouraging us to notice more keenly the things that last. They were capably assisted by an array of generous guest artists, including Peter Zummo (Arthur Russell, Peter Gordon) Raven Bush (Speakers Corner Quartet, Syd Arthur) Ross Blake (Buttonhead, Poino) Clementine March (Dana Gavanski, Blue house).

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