Christos Chondropoulos

Fingerpainting

Genre: JAZZ / FUSION, ELECTRONIC

LP (Black Vinyl)

Boomkat Product Review:

Stunning, self-released 2013 debut by virtuoso percussionist Christos Chondropoulos, jagging deep into the roots of his self-conceived Athenian Primitive sound with results highly tipped to fans of Eli Keszler, Valentina Magaletti, Chris Corsano, Rashad Becker

Recorded in Athens, 2011, using a full battery of traditional and non-standard percussion, ‘Fingerpainting’ first outlined the advanced atavistic tekkerz that would come to bloom in breathtaking, iconoclastic ways on Chondropoulos’ sides for The Tapeworm, 12th Isle, The Death of Rave and Live Adult Entertainment during the past decade. In six parts, the album moves from swift dervishes of dazzling, polymetric meter to resonant, location-finding tonal sonar, thru grindcore-length prang-outs and deepest Headz-style jazz. Whatever way one looks at it, it’s a unique affair, and ideally characterises the artist’s uncanny knack for instrumental, folk-wise storytelling that reads his native Athens like a deep topographer diving into his city’s multi millennia palimpsest of accreted, historic energies and cultural traditions.

After terraforming the uchronic fantasies of his ‘Athenian Primitive’ sides - encompassing ‘Music from the Early Robotic Societies of Basin’, to his ‘Athenian Primitivism’ regression, thru the lush AI folk of ‘Relics’ and ‘Cyberfolk’ - Christos recently transposed his drummers’ instinct to the Aleksi Perälä-esque intricacies of ‘Acid Music For Buddy Bolden’ (magdalene’s Apathy, 2022) and more faithfully explored his practice in the deep research of ‘Chants & Songs’, a mixtape for NPLGNN’s MBE series, and a staggering live performance in a 100 year old Piraeus workshop using a midi-triggered robot drumming ensemble. ’Fingerprinting’ is spiritually and physically closest to the the latter works and show, demonstrating jaw-dropping grasp of meter and proprioception as it reels from the impossibility of ‘Apple Hunters’ and liquid metal sheep bells of ‘Flock’ to white hot shards of ‘Images of Chaos in Athens’ and Sonambient-like resonant shadowplay in ‘Sequence of Stars’.

LP (Black Vinyl) (6)