I was lucky to have a brief live chat with Thodoris koutsogiannis (DJ Thodoris One Two, Boxes Of Blow, The Odd Paths among others) who is one of the key figures of the Greek u/g darkwave scene, regarding his very own solo project, Strange Sense. Hope you enjoy this, as much as I (we) did…
Hi Strange Sense & welcome to Last Day Deaf! Would you like to talk about how the project was brought to life?
Hi, I created Strange Sense because I wanted different musical motifs than the two other collaborations The Odd Paths & Boxes Of Blow.
Different sound-wise? Or concentrating more on solo?
I wanted to release separately some musical pieces and on the other hand, I wanted to keep my own sense of music. of course Strange Sense are different from the other two projects. That’s why, I created my solo project.
Cool! Doing my investigation, I found out that your wife, Maria Kotsafti, is behind the lyrics of Strange Sense’s debut release ‘It Starts to Shine EP‘. How did this come about? Is Maria also involved with other projects?
Basically we’re dealing together for the musical pieces in a strange way. Maria is fond of writing lyrics through the music and we really like to do this way. Her painter’s view even in music gives her an advantage to know better the path of creation. She has also been involved and written the lyrics for the old projects of Planet 314 and The Odd Paths, too.
Let’s focus on your debut EP. Listening to this, I notice an old-school darkwave approach. Would you agree with this? Which ones would you consider the main influences behind this EP?
Yes I agree with you, certainly the decade of the 80s characterizes all my creations, it is obvious that my influences comes from the sounds of 80s and my drum machines and synthesizers have a sense of old school and Maria’s lyrics have a new romantic style. Groups such us The Cure, Grauzone, Cabaret Voltaire, DAF ,etc.
Depeche Mode?
Of course Depeche Mode!!! The first albums of them is influence.
My personal favorite is ‘Coming Down‘. Which was the main inspiration for this one?
The inspiration comes from Wim Wenders‘ film “Wings Of Desire” which is about an angel who is coming down on earth to see through the human’s eye the truth and the futility of existence.
Awesome film, indeed! And George Priniotakis? How did he get involved with Strange Sense?
George Priniotakis plays the guitar themes with Alex Othon Theodoridis and all together we made the final production. Gerasimos Dionatos also, has helped me with the composition and the initial production of all the music pieces. Their help is really important for many productions they have made in other groups.
Are you planning to do any live appearances in order to promote the EP then?
Surely, I’m going to schedule some live shows, in spring, and finally I want to say that I playing with Boxes Of Blow some songs from Strange Sense in their gigs.
Looking forward! How would you describe the current Greek darkwave scene at the moment? Any new acts you admire?
Yes, there are bands that have made a good effort in the Greek dark scene and there have recognized from global scene such as Selofan, Regressverbot, Human Puppets etc.
Some new acts are Convex Model, You Beast You Act, Meat Injection etc.
Photo credits: Stratos Fotinos
Christos Doukakis