Raw

Raw formed during the summer of 1990, when Giannis Papaioannou (media freak) and Makis Faros (film director) started composing music for imaginary films and waiting rooms! They combined the traditional “electronic” way of tape-loops, the industrial timbres of musique-concrete with the harmonics of world music, all filtered through digital sampling and computer programming. At the same time, they were working as basic members in Spider’s Web (Giannis on keyboards and Makis on drums), but Raw’s music was based only on electronic instruments and analog-digital manipulation.
During the fall of 1991 they recorded their first demo-tape, featuring 8 pieces, which was freely distributed among friends. From September 1990, both members attended classes in Iannis Xenakis’ Centre of Contemporary Music Research in Athens, and they presented their final algorithmic works, under the title “Creation”. Both pieces received prizes together with honorary reviews from their professors. In the meanwhile, during February 1991 they recorded four pieces on a 24 analog track studio and one of them appears in the compilation “Random Relations Part 1”, released by their own independent label, Elfish.
Two months later they decided their first full scheduled project, a future trilogy, which started from written thoughts on trips between Scandinavia and Greece. Their homes became two different studios, exchanging musical ideas and digital media of sampled material. The first part of the trilogy was called “Land” and it was a result of a three months programming on Igor (their dedicated Macintosh computer). The process was slow but the two friends were more productive than ever. After another month of late night recordings on 8 track and many different sessions with guest friends on acoustic or electric instruments, the result was more than magical! Haunting samplers and cooling synths, screaming e-bowed guitars and crying clarinets, invite the listener to a sonic trip through different musical landscapes, by blending Greek traditional and European contemporary music forms. “Land” was finally completed in September 1991, released through Elfish in November and as soon as it came out, received excellent reviews from Greek and European music press.
On Christmas day 1991 Raw did their first gig, featuring a harsh-ethno-cyberpunk experience to the Greek audience.
In January 1992 new ideas became reality during exchanging sessions inside a bigger studio. Very slow process of programming or de-programming six new songs, that should be used for the second part of the trilogy. It was then when the band’s steady sound-engineer became the third member of Raw. A spring of several appearances followed, with Coti K. (engineer) adding a Dictaphone, a digital horn, a melodica and many short-wave radio attacks on Raw’s samples and loops. During May Giannis met Dennis White (producer) from Detroit’s Charm Farm who was hanging around Athens at the time. As a DJ, he was involved with Panic In Detroit house parties, as well as Inner City, NIN and The Final Cut. Dennis produced a track called “Machine Tears” in several remixes and one of them was used for “Crash – A Tribute To J.G. Ballard”, a CD compilation dedicated to the British author. In this track, another friend from the States, Shane Berry, did the vocal part.
After a year of several recordings and many successful and not so successful performances around Athens, the band reached the point of completing “City”, the second part of their trilogy, a project fully inspired by the mechanisms of their own big town, Athens. This project sounds completely different than “Land”, presenting another electronic face of Raw, who manipulate more rhythm, analog synthesizers and harsh sampling to create the atmosphere of their city. A fine mixture of dreamy synthesized sounds and eerie fretless basslines, feature a trip to the grey Athens sights, the transformation of beautiful childhood dreams to young adult nightmares. Thomas Musialofksi, from Poland played saxophone on two tracks, and Tania Nikoloudi did the female vocal part on "Your Sweetest Pain".
After the release of “City” on Elfish, the band showed on a numbered list of gigs (one in the legendary record-shop Lotos in Thessaloniki – thank you Pakis!) which all of them were dressed in a cyberdelic slide-show, driven all around their stage environment by the Greek artist Pantelis Pantelopoulos. Then, they made the soundtrack to the video-art film “The Sea”, directed by the Greek underwater photographer Chris Vardopoulos, and two videos for their tracks “Transalbanian” and “Sisyphus”. They also appeared on national TV, interviewed by Argyris Zilos (journalist) and performed live on his show.
Unfortunately, in June 1994, Giannis and Makis had to face the decision of giving up with their record label, Elfish, since the limited editions of their releases hardly reached a limited distribution around their own country. Just a few days after they had received the legendary Lanterna album from the vinyl factory, Elfish ceased its activities and The Elfish Society closed its doors. Today, all of Elfish releases are considered as collectors’ items around their own country, some of them reaching high bids through e-Bay.
Together with Elfish, Raw vanished. Reasons remain unsolved. The third part of their trilogy, “Mind”, still remains unfinished and unmixed, though recorded on digital tape.
Thank you for taking a small step through our dusty memory lane!
Raw material from the Elfish Archives will be uploaded here soon.
You shall be informed!
Giannis Papaioannou: Vocals, Electronic Machines, Sampling, Programming
Makis Faros: Electronic Machines, Sampling, Drums
Coti K.: Fretless Bass, Radio, Dictaphone, Melodica, Sound Engineering
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