A concrete electronic collage with a touch of nostalgia
Dimitris Santziliotis aka bellerophone is a musician and sound designer who was born in Athens, Greece.
While his interest in music began quite early with piano and various instrument lessons, it was not until his late teens that he started experimenting with song forms and home recordings, guided mostly by intuition and his diverse influences. Iannis Xenakis’s death in 2001 marked a turning point for him, as this unfortunate event became his introduction to experimental, electronic music and Avant-Garde in general.
This interest developed through extensive reading, listening and attending various concerts in Athens and Edinburgh where he studied Sound Design with Martin Parker, composer, improviser and laptop soloist. He also started taking composition lessons and cello lessons, which he continues to this day.
His artistic practice primarily revolves around musique concrete, early electronic and drone music although his output includes also ambient and computer-generated music.
Since 2006, his music has been released on various Greek and International labels while he has performed and collaborated in Greece and abroad with artists and performers. Recent projects include “Uses of Gravity” (From A Tree Records) a dense conceptual noise/drone project, “In search of the riff” (Attenuation Circuit) and “Zivilisation” (Submersion Records) both a homage to Eliane Radigue and Luc Ferrari respectively.
Contact
.…This led me to form a collage aesthetic, where sounds, sonic materials and sonic patterns can be combined freely through improvisation. The only intervening force allowed is my sensorium, the fulfillment of my sense of pleasure that can be obtained through sound. There is no prescribed structure or form that should be applied to the final result, nor targeted emotional expressions or nuances regarding the content.
Listen to
The driving force is constant testing and the identification of random sonic structures that develop through this “game”.
Soundscapes
The
process
extreme playback speed rates without pitch alterations
Archived tape loops presented under various types of treatment. Extensive use of frippertronics.
a raw production methodology
Aims to more abstract and spontaneous forms, towards a raw production methodology.
Using similar hardware and recording strategies bellerophone pays a tribute to those unique musicians projecting their sound in a 21st century dystopian atmosphere.
Tape loops
Performances
FEB 2017
Differences
4 different composers/musicians of contemporary Greek music will present their work – order of appearance ((gildedbrute)), bellerophone, Big Fat Lips, Antonis Livieratos
Organised by Stylianos Tziritas at 6 d.o.g.s, Athens
May 2016
Encore vol. 1
Music festival, 6 d.o.g.s, Athens
april 2015
Stylianos Tziritas & Kaprus + bellerophone
Live performance supporting Stylianos Tziritas W/ Kaprus at Six Dogs, Athens
MultiChannel Recording thanks to six dogs and Kostas Ekelon.
May 2014
2nd Improvised Music Festival
Live perfomance during the 2nd Improvised Music Festival, by More Mars in Empros Theatre
Reviews & press
“
delicate but rough and ready ambience
STRAW DOG (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
Bellerophone is something I had not encountered before. Here we have one piece that lasts thirty-one minutes (which seems a standard thing, right?) and a quote from Tao Te Ching on the cover… As said minimalism rules in this piece and for the main part it is all quite low in volume, going from mid-range to low-range, on an active course of change, ending on a more fierce note towards the end, without it getting the all-noise treatment we got from Meinein &N(48). Delicate is the word I was looking for, but this rough and ready ambience was well received..
Vital weekly podcasts
Week 14 – 04/10/2021
“
claustrophobic stream of sound
STRAW DOG (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
Industrial release by Bellerophone from Greece. A two tracks work produced on cassette, as usual, by Emerge Attenuation-circuit. All analog synth and tape recorders lovers will find bread for their teeth listening to the claustrophobic stream of sound of this artist. Probably one of best into recent label production.
Ra Sonologyst
May 17, 2016
“
a never really occurring rhythmic
STRAW DOG (CDR by Attenuation Circuit)
High-pressure and decaying gas flames or the sound of surf waves; Filtered through thick, enclosed walls:
First concentrated entirely on organically sound bass events, then expanded by comparison to clearly artificial, oscillating electronics; Dark ambient with the paradox of the meeting of deeper calmness and at the same time unstable agility, later with almost full sinust stability at the boundary of the sourceless mesh; In itself resists in itself. But also with an inkling of contradiction: deep, warm, round; Yes, but also lurking, on the leap into a never really occurring rhythmic. Until this is like an endless moment and the flames, weighed, which reign supreme.
V by N attenuationcircuit.de
26 December 2016
“
Bellerophone’s Playland
Bellerophone (aka Dimitris Santziliotis) is also a player.
At the heart of the music of the worldview are dominated by games. He invents, designs, programs his own digital ones sonic gaming machines, idiosyncratic sonic platforms, a processing based on the game (game process). Everything happens while playing with the sounds, in live time, randomly, intuitively, impulsively, freely, temporarily. And with an intense, sweet, melancholic, retro mood
artmagazine
Feb 9, 2014
“
musical polaroids
Bellerophone’s first album is called “11 songs for Polaroids & Playmobils” and is released by the independent record label Dreamwaves. It was based on an idea, which involved the composition of short electronic compositions, based on polaroid photographs, on the theme of playmobil children’s toys. The sound is absent, although D. Sanziliotis finds it difficult to describe it: Last time I thought of the term: kraut-pop. It is a collage of sound influences, unrelated to each other.
Kathimerini, D.Kanellopoulos
2006
“
the electronic searches of Dimitris Santziliotis aka Bellerophone
“My music is adventurous”
I listened last week to his first CD entitled “11 songs for polaroids and playmobils”. “Strange sound” I thought. Nobody told me that my music sounded weird, D. Sand told me two days later when I met him at the American chain coffee shop downtown. “I have never been here before. I like America but in images of the 50s, he added.
Naftemporiki , P.Andreadis
20-26 October 2006
bellerophone’s compositions combine a fresh perspective with a touch of nostalgia
