Already well established in his home country of Greece, Thodoris Triantafillou follows a string of stellar releases on Connaisseur and Upon You with a beautifully crafted deep house cut on pioneering label Chapter 24.
> For the people reading this who haven’t heard your music before, how would you describe your style, and the key elements that define it?
I would put myself in the category of diverse styles, not a specific type of genre or sub-genre. I could drop a new sub-genre name and say that I play and write “afrotechnodiscotrance” or something like that. But to be more clear – even for the people who are not aware of the sub genres – I can say that I love dance/club music with character and a straightforward statement of intent; music that can stimulate your mind and move your feet without the need for any chemical substance.
Every artist has a story to tell which is spread through their music. So this is my story and every track I have made is part of the tale of my experiences.
> You have recently released “Avrio” on Chapter 24. What inspired you to produce the track?
‘Avrio’ is a six minute cut from a very long track that I recorded the winter of 2016 – the full track was 35 minutes long. The inspiration at that time for me was to record everything live, in a single jam session, wherever possible.
> Where did you record it? And how?
The recording took place in my studio ‘Glory Hill Studio’ in the centre of Athens. I was in a very creative period, making a lot of tracks and ideas every day for about a month or two. I don’t remember all the exact details but I sure remember that I couldn’t edit the tracks I was making back then, all the tracks were more than 20 minutes long! As I was trying to create a more organic feel and play everything live, recording all the jams and mistakes was liberating and inspiring.
All the percussions on this track are played live by myself with the pads of an Akai LPD8 midi controller using NI Kontakt as my main sampler. The percussions library is from ModWheel – no looped samples here. The repetitive pattern of the synth is the Roland JP08. The claps and shakers are a recording of my own handclaps and shakers, looped and edited, recorded with a Rode NT2A through Universal Audio Preamps.
The kick drum is an 808 I think probably from the Roland TR8, the “Noise HiHat” is from the Novation Bass station via its own step sequencer. Other tonal/pad sounds are coming from the Waldorf Streitchfett. The bells in the background are from Omnisphere and the sub bass from U-He Diva. I don’t remember the mixdown session at all though. In most cases I do the 80% of the mixing during the recording session. If it doesn’t sound as I want, I end up doing so many mixdown versions that in the end I don’t even remember how I started.
> How did you get in contact with the record label?
I met the Chapter 24 crew in Amsterdam during ADE last year. We had a really good time with the guys at their label showcase. A lot of tech talk with Sam and Marcus among other things and of course plenty of drinks and music!
> What’s up next after the release? Are you working on any other projects?
Sure, yes, I have a lot of releases and remixes coming in the next months. The label of Berlin duo Boot Slap, ‘Perplex Recordings’, is going to host my next EP ‘WE’ coming straight after the release on Chapter 24 – it contains the rest of the ‘Avrio’ track hahaha! Also a release on ATLANT Records coming in May, plus a totally new project with another name and various collaborations.
It’s nice to see all this hard work over the past years paying off and getting released on labels that respect the artists and gather so much positive and real feedback!
> Thanks for taking the time to speak with us today, we like to finish our interviews with a couple of questions that are a little bit light hearted… without getting too personal, could you tell us something most people won’t know about you?
Yes, I used to wear colourful clothes!
> You don’t need to mention names, but what’s the most “outrageous” thing you have ever seen in a club… was it something outrageously brilliant, like a blindfolded DJ mixing seamlessly and scratching with their elbows, or something outrageously cringe-worthy, like some embarrassing drunken raver urinating on the dance floor?
Haha, I like your imagination on that question. The truth is that I have witnessed a lot of stories.. Especially one night when I had the closing set at a festival in Greece, where the crowd really got into it, dancing like crazy and chanting my name like I was a football team or something (don’t ask me how they did that with my name!). After an hour or so of my set, a lot of people came up to the stage and gathered around me and the DJ booth – the security wasn’t very helpful with that – but everybody was happy, so no problems so far, we were all having so much fun together!
The problems began when the manager of the event told me that the party is about to close, because the location needs to be cleaned up for the next day’s event.
When I dropped the last track, everybody went bananas! I remember that I played Locussolus – Berghain (Darkroom Mix) on International Feel. The track was banging, strange sounds came from everywhere and everyone was insanely happy. The track reached the last seconds and ended, and then silence… everybody was looking each other for a while… and then they started shouting “more, more”, “don’t stop now” you know, all sorts of things like that. The party had stopped an hour short of the scheduled ending, so the crowd were right to be mad, but unfortunately the main target was me.
There were hundreds of people, and the event manager decided to let me carry on for a while, because the crowd was furious, so I kept on playing and everything was ok again. But then the site owner was threatening the event manager with calling the police. I realised then that I had to escape… I left the track playing, my headphones, my 2 USB sticks with all my music and everything else and the security guys escorted me to the back exit – hahaha, that was the only choice I had… the situation was dangerous!
> You buy & stream the release HERE
> You can find Thodoris Triantafillou on Beatport HERE and Soundcloud HERE
