I recently been to Athens for work. There would be words to spend at the work in question (record the sound of the violent fireworks that frame Orthodox Easter) but a separate article would be needed. Rather, I want to underline an aspect on which, in my previous incursions, I had not focused enough: that city is really horrendous! In reality it is not to be surprised too: clouded under centuries of Ottoman domain, he was hastily promoted capital after independence and remodeled in the 1950s to face the demographic boom, Athens was the often improvised product of sudden changes, which overwhelmed it before it could come true. It is not surprising that many residents (including my contact on site) suffer from this absence of personality, far from the elegance of a European capital but also from the decadent charm of many Mediterranean metropolises.
What I underestimated, if anything, is that this malaise had channeled itself into a new music scene at the glass. Also here, nothing new: at the time Greece has boasted a respectable new wave season, strong of bands (Metro Decay, Clown, Yell-O-Yell, Art of Parties, among others) agglomerated around the glorious Creep Records. A spirit somewhat handed down and which now finds asylum, yes parva high schoolin another willing team: the Inner Ear. And if the spokesman Eddie Dark was last year with his contemptuous “Disko-terrorist”, to this tour the torch passes to “Detroit” of π.ι.ε.β. (Piev, for those who are fasting of versions of Greek). Eccentric beatnik multimedia, soul of the collective The Bad Poetry Social Club, the author juggles between Spoken Wordbooks, videos, exhibitions and performance Of various kinds, with which to give voice to an ATEE far away from friezes and capitals.
Walking through Exarcheia, it was not difficult to come across his tracks: the face wing Cover Moroder made a mustache show on countless posters. As is difficult not to take it in sympathy and run by yarn to listen to the disc. Declaimed with excited impassiveness, counterpointed by the Synth-Gothic bases of Viktoras and the singing inserts of a large parterre of guests, the acting of π.ι.ε.β. He coexists Grime and Synthwave (“Saeio”), he resells Middle Eastern package (“φασαίοι”), stumbles on Electroclash sinkings (“Cheeseburger”), Aidan Moffat's morbid detachment (“μουντή κυρακή”), the industrial gear gear (“Τι νύχτα και αυτή”) and knocks on the door of an enhance Drum'n'Bass (“το πιο σκληρό κορίτσι στην πόλη”), finally marrying the soft darkness of “ευαισθησία”.
What about the title Motor City? Perhaps more a horizon of meaning than musical, as if the metropolis on which the decline of capitalism has been mirrored to make metaphor of all cities killed by human stupidity.
“Tourists Enjoy Your Stay in the Cimery (sic) Of Europe “, says one of the many speaking walls of Exarcheia: if the message had not come to its destination, to increase the dose, it is boiled π.ι.ε.β, anti-Aedo of the Archrigna Suburbia Athenian.
10/05/2025
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
