September Days... not so bad after all?

Painting above from one friend of mine and actually one of my favorite new very talented artists Efi Liarokapi.

It's almost mid September, some boredom in the office (not the best period actually for my main employment), some anxiety due to "CRISIS", my Tax Statement and the worhless people they needed to have a kind of countship in their lives (yes, I mean the Greek Government). Though, I wasn't searching for any lost meaning out there...

Regardless the above, I believe that "September Days" are good for clearing your head. Change of weather, change of images when you're wandering in the town (any town I suppose...). And that's why I'm actually writing this post. Just to clear my mind a bit and to prepare for the new season's challenges.

First of all, the Poplie challenge. Beginning of the new season (for me actually) is being planned for the first days of October (every Wednesday since 3rd of October most probably), and I'm already playing with new software, Ableton Live, of which the results from a session some days ago:



Gandomese skunk is actually a work in progress. Without copyright-s, hopefully they will keep it playing for a while more... The final (not really...) version to be heard in one of the forthcoming shows of ChicOnAir.

Further to the Ableton Live software, there comes also one dilemma as concerns the hardware/midi controller. See one quite informative video following:



Step by step...

In my humble opinion, Ableton is better for a more performance-style mixing (a lot of tricks and mind-burning involvement). As a dj-mixing tool, I'm always fond of vinyls and their sound, or something simpler like Traktor Pro (!!??) etc. (ok, even Traktor is developed a lot with new machines and controllers, but after Ableton I don't think I will return so easily). I do not expand my recent (to be honest) interest to controllers or groove sequencers or the MPC generation (it's not the purpose of the article). I really got enthusiastic with Ableton, but I still love to have a strictly vinyl set as well. Maybe combine the two of them? Creation comes first (I repeat humble)...

Speaking of live sessions, Adrian Sherwood made one of my most favorite live sets lately (or even of all times) in Boiler Room:



Yes, this looks even more impressive than an ableton software within a mac pro...

In the process of preparing some of the sets for the new poplie season, here are the releases (fresh or older) that are being played again and again (and again...) in my new studio in my new home (forgot to mention...):



I bought the full box set "Mala in Cuba" and me and my whole neighborhood as well are listening to it daily.



Also, some new vinyls I bought from Boomkat, Vinyl Microstore and Discobole (I got very happy to find out that this historical - for Athens - store is still alive and strong):





One release from Cessa, a release from great label Hardleaders, still trying to find which (not any info on the vinyl and the cover)... And loads more just to keep the tension...

And last but not least, I'm always fascinated to read the School of Philosophy by my friend Nikos Triantafillopoulos (last class here, I know it's in Greek!!!), one modern myth here and the dialogues from Konstantinos & Eleni here.

As concerns theater or any other forthcoming events, I'll definitely keep you all posted if anything will come up. In the meantime do not miss the poplie parties every Sunday evening to night at Blink.

So, that's about it with my mid September mood and hope this post finds you all good. I will be very happy to see you tuned in the poplie new season and readin this blog as well.