For the first podcast of 2015, something different! A special mix made for a global collaborative event and album release out of Athens, Greece.

«CIRCE :the black cut:» is the project of Greek musician and artist Anna Stereopoulou. Anna's work combines and unifies music with theatre, cinema, poetry, dance and architecture, drawing inspiration from philosophical and scientific subjects and her Greek sea-faring roots. Her approach is full of light, love and enthusiasm, and through this she has drawn together fascinating artists from around the world to collaborate in a spirit of experimentation and generosity.

From the 15th until the 21st of December 2014 a series of events were held in various spaces and venues in the city of Athens, beginning with the release on 15th December of the album Vuelo Libre (Free Flight), a "family work" album of nine tracks composed by sound artists and musicians from ten countries. The exhibition was firstly housed in the neoclassical building of The Place in Athens, hosting various works of the artists, created especially for it and which were later freed and spread around the city, in various other points, including an historical cinema, the university of Athens, the Gallery of the South and in a taxi!

The artists involved:   (UK) ~ Asymmetroi Faroi (Greece) ~ Ilias Charis (Greece) ~ Yianna Dellatolla (Greece/NYC) ~ Jennifer Eberhardt (Berlin) ~ Erissoma (Spain) ~ Francis Etto [with Glaucus Noia] (Brazil) ~ Huixtralizer (Mexico) ~ Katerina Iliopoulou (Greece) ~ Hechem El Jed [with Walyeddine Messaoudi & Emna Omri] (Russia/Tunisia) ~ Stathis Kampylis (Greece/UK) ~ Katie Mavromati (Egypt/Greece) ~ nobodisoundz [with Mona] (France) ~ Nickos Roumpakis /lamδa/ (Greece) ~ SKRU2URKS (Greece) ~ Sonic Crime (Nick Piliouris) (Greece) ~ Anna Stereopoulou (Greece) ~ Carlos Suero (Spain) ~ Kyriakos Tsoukalas (Greece) ~ Vortex Count (Spain) ~ Whodoes (Vasilis Chountas) ~ Xyramat (Germany)

 The culmination of the week was the premiere of the music of « c i r c e :the black cut: » new compositions by Anna Stereopoulou with Labros Kantzos, Michael Mazis, Elsa Papeli, Nick Piliouris (Sonic Crime) and Dimitris Samir, celebrating the winter solstice and, as Anna says, "feeling the Free Dome of Nature itself, in which we all belong equally." Artists creating music and sound, visual art and sculpture, photography, video and performance, all responded to the projects' themes and ideas. These themes come from Anna's explorations into mythology, science, architecture, philosophy and linguistics. Inspired by the work of Dr. Gareth Owens, a linguist who is co-ordinating the ‘reading’ of the enigma hidden in the Phaistos Disk (made of fired clay, circa 2nd millennium BC, the Phaistos Disk is inscribed with a ‘Cretan hieroglyphic’ script, covered on both sides with a spiral of stamped symbols, an ancient unsolved puzzle) Anna followed threads through the Labyrinth of Greek mythology and its connections to stories of Mother Earth.

Gaea(Earth), Potnia, Hestia, Ariadne, Persephone, Athena, Circe, Arianrhod ... symbolic goddess, the human need to construct the ideal society, and seek the truth. From ancient time to now - "2014; the transition towards a new state requiring a passage through darkness, where we are called to see with ‘different’ eyes and distinguish our voice, out of the chaotic urban noisy fields; a redefinition of our era’s cutting edge; a rediscovery of our senses."

"Darkness and lack of information is also symbolised by aeaea, the mythical island of Circe. ‘Who’ is Circe and what does she represent? Does she offer illusion or clarity; or both? Circe carries both qualities and she is the female Potnia through whose spells we must find our exit from our personal and social Labyrinth. Sound is Ariadne’s helping thread; it is the map of (Mother) Earth, revealing the structure and function of our society." ... Read more of Anna's fascinating explorations and the inception of this project, and listen to her compositions, at her website: https://annastereoscopic.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/circe-the-black-cut-analysis/ ... In Greek: Διαβάστε στα Ελληνικά: http://artic.gr/mousiki-more/mousika-nea/6993-circe-the-black-cut-parousiasi

Out of this seeking and searching has grown this collaborative global project, the exhibitions in Athens, the album Vuelo Libre, and this LAPKAT mix. Taking the works from the album and adding organic sounds of the sea and voices both animal and human, I created this mix which was played in a taxi moving in the Greater Region of Attica, (driven by Mr. Alexandros Linardos), at The Place exhibition main space from 15th - 17th December, and in Gallery of the South on 19th and 20th December.

The album Vuelo Libre is now available as a free download from 7MNS records. Six of the artists on Vuelo Libre composed a complete piece and some created various recordings /poems /texts, all of them reflecting moments of their memories, dreams, vibrant pensiveness and sounds of their every day life near or away from their home, which were set in three new tracks worked as an audio montage by Anna Stereopoulou and signed as “CIRCE Family Work“. The album includes both music and spoken words (in six languages), working as a soundtrack of the listener’s own imaginary film. In this mix I weave the works together in a further extension of this deeply collaborative and multi-layered project. You'll hear the artists' works in roughly this order:

1. CIRCE Family Work – Νama

2. Xyramat – Was Ist Verrat

3. CIRCE Family Work – Free Wheel

4. Ilias Charis – Cantus Circaeus

5. Erissoma – Psychic Sounds

6. Jennifer Eberhardt – Seven Horses

7. Stathis Kampylis – Dreams of Future Past I

8. CIRCE Family Work – Writing Is Making Love

9. Asymmetroi Faroi – Voyage

The poem at the beginning and end is Australian poet A.D. Hope's Circe (after the painting by Dosso Dossi) read by myself. I chose this poem not only for its lyrically and circular rhythm, but also for his interpretation of Circe  - so often viewed through the prism of societal fears of animality / humanity - as an inheritor and claimant of our animal nature, as symbolic of the light and darkness in passion and sexuality (interestingly the painting he is voicing is not nearly as visceral as his own poem...)

So, enjoy this special summer/winter mix, and follow the link to download the album. Groovalizacion and La Danza Poetica will be back in the full incarnations next month, the first Monday of February.

Until then, pace e bene - let us make this a fearless year!