Eventless Plot is with their new album Memory Loss presents their first work for Moving Furniture Records.

Memory Loss  is released on CD mastered by Yiannis Tsirikoglou and comes in beautiful artwork designed in line with the Contemporary Series by Rutger Zuydervelt with extensive notes by Eventless Plot.

About Memory Loss

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia, a general term for memory loss and other cognitive abilities, serious enough to interfere with daily life. Loss of short-term memory is one of the most common initial symptoms. Several studies confirmed that music affects the brain in different ways; it doesn’t just help retrieve stored memories, it also helps lay down new ones.

Inspired by this fact, Memory Loss is comprised of two compositions based on repeated patterns that create a sense of the familiar. By removing the expectation of time, constitutes a proposal to (re-) experience the very essence of things, in a tranquil but yet salient and adventurous way. Keeping clear the main composing idea in the foreground, embedded in the brain, layers are added gradually creating multiplicities and tone combinations that lead the compositions into new aural terrains.

Instruments like the Model:Cycles synth have been extended with supercollider programming in an effort to remove the time and quantisation limitations of their sequencers and provide sounds richer in timbre and dynamics as well as organically evolving structures. The first part is based on sets of waves forming islands and constellations, seemingly repeating but never quite the same, creating a fluctuating space for the clarinet and other elements to evolve. In the second part, as a complementary element to the first but on higher intervals and pitch, the piano is setting the main theme. Here several pitch tracking and audio analysis algorithms have been used to add on the spectrum of the piano tones and slowly extend it in all dimensions. Though time can be perceived vertically and what is before or after doesn’t really matter. Music can work in all scales more like a body experience and less as a cognitive process.

This album is dedicated for those who suffer for memory loss. 

For E.

Reviews

Vital Weekly, Frans de Waard 

When I reviewed music by the Greek trio Eventless Plot before, I don’t think the words ‘modern music’ crossed my mind (well, maybe I’m wrong. I didn’t look for evidence). So, I am surprised to see their latest release on Moving Furniture Records’ division of Contemporary Music. In the press package are a couple of snaps of the trio (Vasilis Liolios, Aris Giatas and Yiannis Tsirikoglou),
and we see laptops, and a Korg MS20, which seem to be the primary instruments. Still, there is also a grand piano and a clarinet. This new work, in two parts, is about Alzheimer’s Disease and how music helps restore memories or create new ones.  Indeed, the music sounds very contemporary; had I not known better, this could have been a small ensemble. I don’t know to what extent Eventless Plot plays live or layers and mix their sounds, but it works well here. The clarinet plays a significant role in the first part and the piano in the second. Phrases are repeated, but I would think in small, slightly changing patterns. The electronics are in the background, playing a kind of hazy atmosphere but very remote. Almost non-present. Maybe they are used to colour the sound of acoustic instruments? I certainly had that idea in the first piece. It is not easy to say what everybody is doing in this piece, but it sounds wonderful together. In the second piece, the electronics are more of a
stand-alone sound, moving in and out of the mix and giving the piece (also) an electro-acoustic dimension. The music is prolonged and very gentle, dealing with sustains and silence between and beneath the notes played. It is also about what is left out, I guess. Towards the end, in the second half, of the second part, there is a more drone-like approach, and there is no more extended silence. At thirty-three minutes a relatively too short of a release. I could have easily enjoyed versions that are twice that length.

Subjectivisten, Jan Willem Broek

Door familieomstandigheden en het werk van mijn vrouw is Alzheimer, dat één van de meest voorkomende vormen van dementie is, iets dat hier helaas vaak de revue passeert. Het is een rotziekte, omdat je niet alleen je geheugen kwijtraakt, maar ook de grip op de werkelijkheid en deels jezelf op een mensonwaardige manier verliest. Ik kan daar oprecht intens verdrietig van raken.

Het Griekse trio Eventless Plot, waar ik eerlijkheidshalve niet eerder van had gehoord, brengt nu op hun nieuwe album Memory Loss een eerbetoon aan iedereen die lijdt aan geheugenverlies. Het is uitgebracht op Moving Furniture Contemporary Series, een zusterlabel van Moving Furniture voor hedendaagse gecomponeerde muziek.

De groep is al in 2002 opgericht door Vasilis Liolios (psalterium, tapes, synthesizers, objecten), Aris Giatas (synthesizers, piano) en Yiannis Tsirikoglou (programmering, synthesizers), waarbij ze in de eerste van de twee tracks ondersteund worden door de prachtige inbreng van basklarinettist Chris Cundy. Op uiterst ingetogen en respectvolle wijze laten ze hier hun visie horen op het onderwerp. De groep leent graag elementen uit verschillende genres en esthetiek, om er hun eigen hybride van te kneden. Dat is ook hier het geval, want het klinkt dan soms weliswaar als een hedendaags klassieke muziek, maar die bestaat in feite uit minimal music, elektro-akoestische muziek, elektronische experimenten en pianomuziek. Dat met veel herhalende patronen, die het gevoel van het bekende creëren. Mensen met dementie kunnen vaak nog lang putten op hun routines, waarbij die herhaling een grote rol speelt. Ze weten hier zoveel invoelbare emoties in te stoppen, dat gaat van verdriet, desolate en isolationistische gevoelens tot verwarring en onmacht. Muzikaal gezien moet je het ergens zoeken tussen Maninkari, Sarah Davachi, Dictaphone, Arve Henriksen en Tim Hecker.

Zelfs het hoesontwerp, dat prachtig vormgegeven is door Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek), past bij het thema door langzaam vervagende en verbrokkelende beelden te laten zien.

Het is een schitterend eerbetoon geworden, zowel qua gedachte als muziek en artwork!