Stelios Vassiloudis

Greek composer, producer, DJ, all-round polymath, Stelios Vassiloudis returns after a ten-year gap with his second album the cinematically inspired, enigmatically transpired ‘All Else Fails’.

Abjuring from his more club-oriented call-to-arms output, this is a collection of Meditate-terrain-ean ambience, a ritual divining (and subsequent spiritual realigning) following two years of psychological and physical incarceration and perpetual propagandistic fear-mongering that signaled a retreat within to attempt to articulate the structural collapsing and socio-political relapsing. Pressing the ‘reset’ button to ‘reconnect’ so to speak.

The ten tracks (the physical formats come with four remixes) that make up this album are similar to Brian Eno’s journeys into existential environments and solipsistic soundscapes, a necessary shutting ‘out’ and sealing ‘in’ the noises of the corporeal, hyperreal and unreal.

Chasm>Phantasm>Spasm: ‘Avissos’ (‘Abyss’) blends and bleeds into ‘Womb’ which seeps into the title track ‘All Else Fails’: a triptych that takes us back to the beginning, before preconception and deception, a safe haven free from the system glitches and the dictum pitches.

‘Neon Dream’ is captured fractures, loose fragments, psychically splintered shards of a collective whole, a reflective hole, a blink and you’ve missed it encounter. ‘White Cells’ trawls the frequencies, palls the pulse-beating, sprawls across the human grid to coordinate and recalibrate the next steps.

E-Vangelism meets ambient trance-ience: Additionally, there are both sonic-silhouettes that remind of compatriot, Vangelis, (’End Transmission’ in particular) himself no stranger to soundtracking and augmenting visual architexture and with the use of ghostly echoes and disembody-snatched dialogue, the gloominous ominosity of Cabaret Voltaire is present and direct.

Osmosis>psychosis>diagnosis: Indeed the closing ‘Time to Die’ is informed by ‘Blade Runner’ (for which Vangelis composed the seminal score in 1982).

As Vassiloudis notes: “Fans of Philip K. Dick and/or Ridley Scott will recognise the source of the titular line of dialogue and be aware of the symbolism and subtext in these works. Of course, I had absolutely no intention of referencing either or writing music that could be in any way related to the lore of “Blade Runner”, but some crucial aesthetic and musical choices are likely informed by the existential, religious and philosophical messages I’ve interpreted from the film and book”.

This change of direction and destiny is (d)riven by the reaction equals creation impetus, external energies transposed to internal inspirations.