Daphne BlueBird & Alekos Georgoulopoulos are a guitar-looping & voice duo. Their sound is a more than interesting blend of rhythm n blues, jazz / pop, reggae, dub, neosoul & ethnic. Although, we haven’t listened a lot to them, what is available online is more than encouraging. Tomorrow, April 24, they will appear at FAUST Bar-Theatre-Arts and there will be no entrance fee! Hours before this event, Last Day Deaf managed to capture some words from them, that we hope you’ll find more than intriguing.
Really happy to have you Daphne & Alekos! So let’s get in on with you introducing the duet to our readers…
Thank you for the invite!! We are a guitar-looping & voice duo. Alekos (guitar) is the one who sets off with building each music piece from scratch, by adding gradually many layers of instruments and/or sounds while keeping on a loop the previous ones. Although the sounds might sound sometimes digital, that’s because of the sound effects which can be used when playing. When we play there are no saved or pre-recorded sounds. Everything is being created live at that very moment. Which basically means that in case there is a big mistake, we will have to start the piece again. And that’s what we love about what we do! Daphne is the vocal lead of our duo, and she has been studying and influenced by various music scenes, mainly black-oriented sounds and musicians. We do improvise a lot during our sets, although we do have a set-up basic structure for each piece. Almost all songs’ instrumentals have been re-made, in other words the songs we are covering have been greatly changed and adapted to our style and music preferences.
I really enjoyed and found it “comforting”, your track ‘Who Will Comfort Me’. What is it about?
This is one of our favourites too.. This is an original piece by Philly artist Melody Gardot. The song is about 3 fundamentals for all mankind: the soul, the heart and the home and all of these three have or are being defeated. It’s asking openly for help, it’s about seeing what is breaking you down and admitting to it openly. And then the healing can begin. Because you know where it’s coming from and you have the courage to see eye to eye, be honest about it.
Your influences vary from rhythm n blues, jazz / pop, reggae, dub, neosoul to ethnic. Which are your beloved artists then?
The artists who we admire are too may to mention, that it would be unfair just to name a few and not others. We are both open to plenty of styles and sounds, we are not strict listeners of one kind. Black-oriented music is definitely on the top of the list but not limited to..
You recently opened for Kadebostany. How was this experience then? Enjoyed it?
We are thankful for this opportunity. We experienced two nights of great professionalism and well-mannered staff and that came as a result into both of the shows. Very different nights to each other and both great to remember – it is our first mini-tour together and – despite some mishaps – we had an awesome time. Kadebostany were incredibly friendly and collaborative and were eager to help us out and provide us with our sound check times and other music-related needs.
Any thoughts of involving a 3rd member in the project? Either as a session or a live one?
We have discussed this as an option. We are not saying no. We are probably saying not yet. So far we are happy the way we are moving, it makes things much easier and at the same time the challenge is bigger in order to manage to keep things fresh and new!
As far as I know you are also involved with other projects apart from the duet. Would you like to talk about them?
Alekos is working as a musician on plenty of projects, and he has been in the music field for a long time. Apart from being the bass player of The Burger Project, he is also a session/invited player for various other artists. He is also writing his own material currently.
Daphne is a musician and operates as a singer & songwriter. She has been collaborating with various producers from around the globe (Canada, Germany, UK, Poland, Greece) releasing tracks and she is now working on new projects with new and old collaborators (Blend Mishkin, mCurtis, AkizzBeatzz, dreadsquad etc). You can follow her music news here: https://soundcloud.com/msbluebird and here: https://www.facebook.com/daphne.msbluebird/.
On April 24th? Why should we come over to see you live at Faust Bar?
Live music, great vibes, chilled atmosphere, a sexy bass, and a great venue. Why not? Plus, you will probably hear music that you haven’t heard before, which is what it’s all about, right? Just come and enjoy 🙂
Should we expect your debut release any time soon?
Yes.! We are working on it.. But we can’t give any dates out yet.!
Feel free to ad the last words to this one…
He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction – That human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.
Photo credits: Andreas Altamirano (1st one), Alekos Papadopoulos (2nd one)
Christos Doukakis