Novi_Sad
Participant in
SoundLAB VI – sonic art project environments
soundPOOL – a challenge for imagination
Novi_sad (Thanasis Kaproulias, b. 1980) graduated from the Economic University of Piraues in 2005. He lives and works in Athens, Greece. Influenced by the pioneers of audio assault, he began generating sounds in 2005. Amplified environmental recordings, drone manipulations, structured ambient soundscapes, microtones vs overtones, all come together in a hyper structure of iconoclastic form. Novi_sad’s sonic power operates on a level in which the audience participates as transcendental listeners. The sounds explode from sonic movement and lead to the appearance of instantaneous images as experienced and created by each member of the audience.
All of his works, display a high level of technical ability, as well as a sensitivity to the nuances of location. The strength of his soundscapes works in the same elaborateness for the whole creation process, starting from a basis of very strong conceptualism, the intense examination of field recordings over the actual composition work, to the point of performing back the result onto location.
Recently, Novi_sad did a recording session at the prestigious VPRO studios in Amsterdam
[the Netherlands] for the Dutch National Radio. His latest work “Dramazon†is now available on TouchRadio from the publishing house Touch [U.K].
www.novi-sad.net novi-sad@novi-sad.net
Selected festivals and perfomances:
20/03/2006 live at Polytechnic University, Thessaloniki, Greece
25/03/2007 live at Ultrahung festival, Budapest, Hungary
20/05/2007 live at Videodance festival, Athens, Greece
15/08/2007 live at Field recordings festival, Berlin, Germany
30/11/2007 live at Lab w/Fennesz+KTL, Copenhagen, Denmark
1/12/2007 live at Theater Terrier, Malmö, Sweden
4/12/2007 live at Plex Music Theater, Copenhagen, Denmark
15/03/2008 Silence, aircraft noises and harmonies in pain presentation in 8 channel
soundsystem at festival Zeppelin, Sonoscop, Barcelona, Spain
16/05/2008 Hz vs Church presentation in 16-channel soyndsystem at
Electromedia Works festival, Athens, Greece
20/05/2008 live at the Danish Institute Athens, in quadraphonic sound,
w/Jacob Kirkegaard, Athens, Greece
22/06/2008 live at Observatori festival, Valencia, Spain
Residencies: – participation in the workshop/residency Mamori art Lab, created and
directed by Francisco López, Amazon, Brazil, November 2007
– residency at the Center for Composers, Gotland, Sweden, September 2008
Projects, works: Silence, aircraft noises and harmonies in pain, March 2007
Amazon vs Electricity, November 2007
Recording session at the Dutch national radio/VPRO studios,
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, February 2008
Hz vs Church, April 2008
www.novi-sad.net novi-sad@novi-sad.net
Releases: – Everything looks better beside water
January 2007 / Format : mp3 / Label : Desetxea ( SP )
– Misguided heart pulses, a hammer, she and the clock
March 2007 / Format : cd / Label : S/R limited edition
– Dramazon
March 2008 / Format : mp3 / Label : Touch ( U.K )
– Jailbirds
November 2008 / Format : cd / Label : Sedimental ( U.S )
Some selected reviews:
This poetically titled disc is the first full-length release by Greek musician Thanassis Kaproulias, aka Novi_Sad, and it is an exceptionally strong debut. Suffused with tension and a sense of dark foreboding, each of the three long pieces is composed using a few simple, but finely wrought elements — field recordings, organ drones, a voice, sine tones, and the like. The disc opens in near silence with the sounds of a trickling stream emerging out of the murk and then, gradually, more sounds enter the mix, accreting and evolving into a richly detailed, gently pulsing drone. Overall, the structure of the pieces is relatively straightforward, but the care with which they’re put together and the quality of each individual ingredient, sets them apart and above. This is never more true than on the closing track, “Crawling on the Pavements of Your Skull.†Clocking in at almost 23 minutes, it’s a two-part epic that begins as a warm harmonic drone overlaid with an angst-ridden monologue by Liv Ullmann from the Ingmar Bergman film The Passion of Anna. After Ullmann’s voice fades to black, there is quiet until a sine tone pierces the silence, and another, more abrasive drone takes hold amidst a sea of haze and distortion. The piece builds to an ear-wrenching cacophony, and then, just as you can bear it no longer, drops out, leaving only the comparably soft sounds of traffic and street noise in its wake. Stunning.
Rare Frequency, U.S
www.novi-sad.net novi-sad@novi-sad.net
Beautiful, cryptic and spartan, these three tracks by the Greek producer Thanassis Kaproulias -not to be confused with the artist Novisad on the German Tomlab label- ask many more questions than they answer. They sprawl through space, as unruly, suggestive and difficult to pin down as their titles. Firmly rooted in drone, each piece builds from scratchy near-silence, swelling towards a succession of bracing but opaque climaxes. The opener “Everything Looks Better Beside Waterâ€, begins as nothing more than harsh, spare white noise, but eventually a sound of liquid arrives, and the two parts fuse together, flowing eventually into a single, resonant note wreathed in nameless, high pitched chatter. “Crawling On The Pavements Of Your Skull†is lengthier and more deliberate still -sound shards chafe against a low, oscillating chord, and gradually the voice of Liv Ullmann (sampled from the Bergman’s film “The Passion of Annaâ€) enters, bringing with it a dose of quiet desperation and opening up connections to the early work of Godspeed! You Black Emperor.
The Wire, U.K
The new disc by Novi_sad (Thanassis Kaproulias) is a categorically astonishing debut. From the start, this nearly hour-long triptych of pieces is a multi-layered, expertly edited collage of dramatic fluid and crunchy textures. In this light, becoming a transcendent departure from your sense of space. “Everything Looks Better Beside Water,†indeed. And if you simply close your eyes while playing this you may envision haunting streams of consciousness on the edge of clinical abduction. At times the low end delivers indelible hypnotic vibrations, searing metallics and a steady sense of the percussion of presence in the distance. The almost inaudible high pitched sine waves of “O you sweet and spontaneous Earth. You answered them only with spring†shift the velocity some. That is until about four minutes in when a siege of encrusted razor tones builds to a drone that obliterates most anything in its path. It’s noisy, yet resilient, and Kaproulias smartly knows when enough is enough, and as such mediates his own table of elements.
Igloo magazine, U.S