μastroKristo ‘Departures’ is the fourth release in Lost Tribe Sound’s album series, Salt and Gravity. The series includes albums from Arrowounds, Adrian Copeland (aka Alder & Ash), Tony Dupé (aka Saddleback), ’t Geruis, Federico Mosconi, Sanr, and Alapastel. To receive 'Departures' on CD or Digital at a discount, subscribe to the series here:
losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/salt-and-gravity-series
----------------------------------------------------
Presenting ‘Departures’ (out now on Lost Tribe Sound), the debut album from μastroKristo. ‘Departures’ is a nocturne, built from a humble and quiet rehearsal for untuned piano, tuba, bassoon, and tapes. It's a tribute to the night, and to all the failed and successful attempts at falling asleep. In gentle gray and pale blue hues, its watery, moonlit emotions spill forth... a siren’s song tempting heavy eyelids to take the final plunge towards a long night’s sleep.
‘Departures’ makes use of the worn mechanics and incidental noises generated by μastroKristo’s nearly 100 years old John Spencer & Co upright piano and its exposed soundboard. The artist takes advantage of the fragile character found in the low fidelity recordings and uses it to serve an equally important role as the piano itself. The tired piano hammers collapse in cascading cyclical patterns, resting comfortably inside the hiss and the wow and flutter effects brought on by an old TASCAM cassette recorder. Further still, these moments are glued together by the relaxed conversations between a tuba and a bassoon, which help lend a certain film noir like character to the music. This combination of forward motion and fluidity creates an intoxicating ebb and flow.
If there is something positive thing to say about the tumultuous year of 2020, it’s that it gave life to some of the most emotive, struggle-fueled, and relief-bringing music in many of our lifetimes. ‘Departures’ is a great example of this. Without the time to pause, to ponder existence to the point of exhaustion, and to then formulate clever solutions for sedation, μastroKristo would have never made this record.
μastroKristo is a naive multimedia artist and music producer named Christos Parapagidis, who is based in Athens, Greece.
released November 12, 2021
------------------------------------------------
Originally released on Lost Tribe Sound. See Catalog:
losttribesound.bandcamp.com
------------------------------------------------
#1 FAVORITE AMBIENT ALBUM OF 2021 - LOW LIGHT MIXES
BEST AMBIENT OF 2021 (Honorable Mention) - POST AMBIENT LUX
2021'S BEST NEW ACTS: Ambient & Modern Classical - SON OF MARKETING
"With its softly swaying rhythm and bittersweet tune, could be the musical score to a dream, as if you've stumbled upon a ramshackle piano in a dimly lit attic. You can almost hear the dust pluming off the felt hammers..." - (Tom Huizenga) NPR
"Departures manages to capture those beautiful moments of half awake half asleep dreaming just as you’re drifting off like nothing else I’ve ever heard. Incredible." - (Bob Bakerfish) CYCLIC DEFROST
"A dark and atmospherically dense album - the perfect soundtrack for any film noir." - (Axel Sandy) BYTE.FM
"A remarkable debut album that strays off the beaten track, thus adding inspiring new impulses to a somewhat overcrowded genre." - AMBIENT BLOG
"You can hear that Christos already has a lot of experience in creating compositions, because he has produced very clever constructions with all small details and special effects. Not only does he vary with the various instruments, he also makes some sound far away and others more in the foreground, so that you get an enormous spatial effect in the fragile whole. Like being in his moonlit bedroom itself." - (Jan Willem Broek) DE SUBJECTIVISTEN
----------------------------------------------------
Total run time: 38 minutes
Music composed and produced by μastroKristo
Mastered by Christos Parapagidis
Artwork by R. Keane
Additional imagery from Agto Nugroho, Easton Mok, and Filip Zrnzevic
Layout and Design by R. Keane
© Lost Tribe Sound LLC / Christos Parapagidis
℗ Settled Scores LLC (ASCAP)