Chris, Fotis and Elias.
Tendts perform live their own mixture of psychedelic, space disco, African acid, rave. A multilayered musical universe unfolds.
Intergalactic travellers with their congas, synths, guitars and drummachines, headed for a new dimension.
Tendts - The interview
How and when did you decide to start making music?
We all have different backgrounds but it probably started like any other intergalactic love story for all of us.
What’s your studio set up like and what’s your favorite piece of kit?
Chris: Right now I’m using the old, rusty Korg Rhythm 55. I’m digging all these samba and chacha grooves.
Fotis: Right now I have a very compact setup which consists of a laptop loaded with free VSTs from random individuals, a bunch of guitar fx pedals, and a Yamaha RM1x.
Everything recorded through the pedals then back in. You know the drill.
Elias: For this record, I used my Fender Jazzmaster with Boss DD 20 Giga Delay, Electro Harmonix Warm and Canyon pedals and TC electronics Hall of Fame Reverb.
I usually use a Nord Rack as an external synth, a Korg Volca FM and lots and lots of VST’s.
What is your routine when creating a new track?
We start with morning prayers trying to communicate with the Great Omega.
Our Ancestors told us stories about His infinitive creative power and the mystical drum grooves that change the course of our timeline.
But…you know… We don’t usually manage to establish a connection with Him.
So… Chris or Fotis write a basic idea.
A bassline and a set of simple drums.
Then each one passes the project to the other and we are trying to make it as big as we can. Because size matters as Mrs. Yamblin says.
Meditation and astral projection are useful during this stage of production.
At the end, we make sure one of us, usually Elias as “un grand expert de la guitar”, puts his Pleiadian magic powder and the track starts to breathe like an asthmatic Trampfish.
You are from Thessaloniki, Greece. What is the electronic music scene like there? Any artists from your hometown we should watch out for?
The electronic scene in Thessaloniki is kinda small. But we can tell for sure that is blooming.
Nowadays in Thessaloniki, probably like everywhere, there is a need for expression and that is mostly accomplished by music or even better by any form of art in general.
There are a lot of artists that you should keep an eye on!
Some of the top of our heads (we are sure we miss a lot of ‘em, so sorry) are Alien Mustangs with their psychedelic guitars, DimDJ, Foukodian Riddims, Anne, Sera J, and Sky Above for their raw electronic sound, Red, Radio Etc, Totsouko and Raj Pannu for their fat broken beats and many many more.
Tendts on stage
Tendts on SoundCloud
What are your top favorite electronic music artists at the moment?
James Holden & The Animal Spirits, Lena Willikens, Soulwax, Your Planet Is Next, Autarkic, Octo Octa, and Kelly Lee Owens are some of our fav artists at the moment.
What would be the setting time and place for the perfect gig?
Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere
On a more personal level, what would a typical day look like?
Chris: No interstellar or pleiadian magic here for me.
I wake up in the morning, eat a huge breakfast with honey and tahini, and go to do my earthly duties.
When I finish take a small nap and rest for a while. If my head is in the right place I’ll write some music.
Fotis: Kinda same for me. Wake up usually late.
Brush teeth, drink coffee, smoke a cigarette while driving to work (pleiadian magic done right there!).
Finish what you people here on planet earth call work. Go home.
Feed my two tigers and cook something to nourish my human body. Stay up late learning random stuff on the internets. Sleep.
Elias: I weak up a bit early in the morning to go to my morning work.. I return in the evening and I break a wall to release the tension of the day.
After that, I become another person and after a little rest, I play it cool and do some miracles in music.
Can you tell us about your upcoming album Faith?
We’ve been working on the tracks for this album in the last couple of years. They were actually shaped during our gigs.
Because of the fact that Elias joined us and the sound changed, it all became a bit of a slow process.
Faith was the last track of our setlist and every time we played it people were getting crazy with it, so we named the album after it.
And you know maybe we need some Faith during these strange days that we all live in.
Did you test out any new techniques or creative processes for Faith?
We sure did! After Elias joined us our sound changed and so did our studio and recording process!
As the album was forged between live shows and studio jamming sessions we kept going back and forth as to what works best and what sounds better to us! This hall process pleased us the most and was totally satisfactory.
Our live and studio gear got bigger but each of us had to stick to a couple of machines especially for our live performances.
As far as the recordings and writing process, the exchange of files, stems, and samples between three people and testing them out in a jam session or a live show was totally cool and creative.
It made us feel liberated and really changed our perspective on what a track should sound like or how it’s gonna evolve.
Any plans for the upcoming months?
Workout, eat well, get some rest, learn, evolve, stay safe, be healthy. Maybe you should do these too.
It is Pleiadian advice, so use it.
Tendts on MinimalMag
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