Nikos Veliotis

Tip! In the realm of experimental music, certain collaborations feel inevitable - the convergence of like-minded artists whose individual voices seem destined to merge into something greater than the sum of their considerable parts. Bitterviper represents precisely such a meeting of minds, bringing together four musicians who have each participated in some of the most striking avant-garde music-making of the past two decades for an album that redefines what collaborative minimalism can achieve. …

Cryo is the first album by the duo of cellist Nikos Veliotis (GR) and pianist Alex Zethson (SE). Veliotis is best known for the pioneering electronic group In Trance 95, MMMD and his collaboration with Giannis Aggelakas of the rock group Tripes. Zethson is a member of groups such as Goran Kajfes’ Tropiques, Martin Küchen's Angles, Fire! Orchestra, Vathres, and more. The duo met in Athens when Tropiques played at the legendary record store, gallery and concert venue Underflow, where Veliotis was …

Roto Vildblomma, a re-worked, re-mixed and re-mastered edition of MMMΔ’s first ever recording is now available on vinyl by Improved Sequence. Roto Vildblomma marked the beginning of MMMΔ’s (still ongoing) quest to tame the beast of melody grafted intermodulations. It was first released in May 2010 under the Mohammad moniker.

The Harmless Dust is a unique release in the discographies of both David Grubbs and the Athens-based cellist Nikos Veliotis (Mohammad). In 2005 the duo were on tour in the U.S. in support of Grubbs’s album A Guess at the Riddle when they took a most productive break at John McEntire’s Soma Studios, over the course of a day laying down something utterly different from the song-based set they were playing most evenings. The Harmless Dust presents the same composition in two arrangements: one for p…

Just when I thought I had collected all the recordings I could of Mark Wastell playing cello he unearths another gem from his vault, himself and Nikos Veliotis playing acoustic cellos. I started following Mark and the London/Berlin scene only about 6 years ago. I would be hard pressed to pick any other improvising cellists if had to choose a duet to hear. Lachenmann, Xenakis and Scelsi are my favorite cello composers and I imagine these two fellows are avid fans too. I missed out on the lowercas…

Nikos Veliotis - After an initial involvement in the Athens pop/electronic scene during the late 80s as a founding member of In Trance 95, Veliotis later turned to the experimental field (working primarily with cello & video). Since the late 90s he has pushed the boundaries of sound and image using unorthodox cello techniques,silence and multilateral abstract visuals. Collaborations include Cranc (with Rhodri & Angharad Davies), Looper (with Martin Kuchen & Ingar Zach) and Mohammad (with Ilios &…

**Nikos Veliotis plays the cello in Muhammad, and is also known for doing so solo and in improvisation with others. In May 2013 he recorded his 'Folklor Invalid' in Knot Gallery and Camp Gallery in Athens. As stated by Touching extremes "A solitary, ceaseless low cello note paints blackness over the surface of nothingness, but soon stops to contemplate that very silence. Seconds slip by, and the drone reaffirms its needs. This time its tactile properties are thicker and the throbbing sensed more…

How does music happen, and why does it happen sometimes? In June 2010, the TOT1.0 festival took place in Athens, small steps towards a greater affirmation of the small music community that has been blossoming in the hell-hole that is Greece’s capital. As part of the festival, two foreign improvisers (Ferran Fages and Grundik Kasyansky) were invited to take part in the proceedings. While we were at it, we got notice that Robin Hayward also happened to be in town during those days, for unre…

For slugabed’s duration, Veliotis and Filip seem to always be seeking an equilibrium, never comfortable with the one they’re currently nestled in. Despite this fickle dynamic, the music is never inpatient, nor worried. Like the drunk donkey (? horse?) depicted on its cover, slugabed is utterly comfortable with its languid meandering.Those familiar with Veliotis’ music, whether composed or improvised, probably have an idea what this meeting sounds like. A drone-based improvisation, slugabed resem…

Nikos veliotis and Anastasis Grivas have quite a long history of dealing with drones, improvisation, electroacoustic composition and experimental sounds. In this release, Ôvertical', veliotis' strings and Grivas' custom made guitars create a harmonically dense landscape that murmurs, howls, shrieks, sometimes even sings or just rests in silence. The key here is the experience of time, as the music brings a state of suspension and the frequency spectrum dissolves into a frozen uniform mass of pur…

Radial was recorded on the first of June 2003 on acoustic cello without overdubs or editing.  Radial is a piece in three parts, a structure of continuous sound and/or silence.  Random order of the parts is encouraged. "Nikos Veliotis uses his cello without overdubs to break long minutes of silence with longer, muffled "manual" drones. "Radial" is one of those records I like calling "Sunday afternoon winter music": it's perfect in those grey cold days when you just want to stare out of the window…