First of all, music is a passion of mine, not my job. It’s sad that I wasn’t able to work on something that I love, but at the same time I am glad that I am not forcing deadlines, deals and money making on something so important to me.
I started my music journey by learning how to play the keyboard at a local music school. My first full sized keyboards were Yamaha FM synthesizers. It blew my mind that I could dive into sound exploration for hours and always find something new. I quickly became curious about sound synthesis, noise, distortion and saturation. For example, I realised that recording a drum beat from my synthesizer to a cassette tape would make it sound “better”. Recording the same sample from one cassette tape to another a couple of times would make it sound even more interesting. I would then mix entire songs by adding more layers on top of the recorded material.
At the age of 15 I started experimenting with the sound editing software available at the time (I think Cool Edit was the one I end up using a lot) and some DAWs. At some point I switched to Macs and Logic Pro that I use to date along with Ableton Live.
In 2008 I released my first official album called “Up And Down” under the alias Loopa Scava.
In 2001 I moved to a small city in northern Greece to study Economics in college. I invested all of my free time in music making, and I met some wonderful people who shared the same passion as me. One of them was Pelina, the singer of the album. At some point Cayetano, a Greek musician and producer approached me and we agreed to help me refine my tracks, mix and master them properly so they could be released. And so we did. The album was released in 2008 by Etage Noir recordings and it’s available on physical format and on all major streaming / downloading platforms.
In 2016 I released my second album called “Escape Through The Dusty Clouds” under the same alias.
This is a lo-fi, self mixed and mastered bedroom album. There is nothing professional about it but I love it. It’s dirty, sad, hopeful and bright at the same time, or rather that’s what I get from it. My brother Kostis wrote and performed the guitar tunes. The raw material of this album dates back many years before it’s release time.
You can listen and download it here:
In 2016 I purchased a Dreadbox Erebus V2 which introduced me to the world of (semi) modular synthesizers. After that it was just matter of time for me to dive into modular synths for real. I built a few DIY semi-modular synthesizers and modules, I designed a few as well. After a lot of experimentation and trading, I ended up building my modular system around sampling techniques, granular processing and complex effects. These new tools along with my analog synthesizers opened up a new world of sonic exploration for me. My music was different, my interests around music were different. In time I accepted that I don’t have to turn everything I do in a (widely acceptable) structured piece of music, but I can just enjoy exploring, finding those rare gems hiding in the clouds of sounds and textures. The need to freeze some of those moments in time gave birth to my YouTube channel Dusty Clouds.