The Greek blues of Moor and Kyriakides

At first glance, they have nothing musical in common at all. One is a classically trained composer, the other an autodidact from the rock and punk scene. And yet, the Greek Yannis Kyriakides and the Brit Andy Moor have found one another in rebetika, Greek urban bar music from the turn of the last century, which is sometimes known as Greek blues. There is nothing traditional, however, about the duo. “We deconstruct classics in order to reassemble them again, creating our own thing,” 
Andy Moor says.
The Londoner moved to the Netherlands to join the legendary punk band The Ex 22 years ago. He encountered rebetika by chance, when he was still part of the band Dog Faced Hermans. “We received many requests for CD swaps, but we were often sent really terrible music, Turkish hard-core, that kind of thing [laughs]. When a Greek contacted me for an exchange, I accepted on the condition that they send me something traditional. That is when I received my first rebetika cassette, 27 years ago. It is wonderful music, I was captivated 
instantly!”
Yannis Kyriakides may be Greek, but rebetika was never really an important aspect of his work. He is mainly specialised in mixing classical music with modern electronica, and in digital media and multimedia opera. Moor and Kyriakides started covering classic rebetika songs in 2000, using an electric violin, oud, and accordion. 
“Traditional stuff, but what was the point, it had all been done before, and much better,” Moor says. “So we started improvising as a duo, on guitar and electronica, with live sampling.”

Constant experimentation
Deconstruct and reassemble, that is what the duo does with their favourite rebetika songs. “I pick a song and send it to Yannis. He then puts it in his magic machine,” Moor says. “I’m not sure exactly how he does it. He makes samples of the songs, stretches the music, reworks it into a new musical foundation on which I then compose one or two melodies on guitar. We take that as a starting point and start improvising on it. Live, he samples me the whole time, adding another element we can play with. Consequently, no two concerts are ever the same and we never
really know what to expect, which is really exciting!”

Is this still rebetika, though? “Well, to get around that question, we just called our album Rebetika [laughs]. We play an interpretation of old songs that date from a time and a culture that are not our own. Yannis may be Greek, but rebetika was never really a part of his life. We don’t strive to recreate the nostalgic beauty of a bygone age, that would be pointless. We aim to perform this music in a new way. I don’t really care whether or not you can still call it rebetika. It is experimental, considering that we experiment with modern technology and electronica. We use an electric guitar, but does that make it rock, punk or noise? It is actually all those things; we are interested in all those genres, they are the roots of the music we are making now.”

Andy Moor & Yannis Kyriakides 21/6, 21.00, €5, Recyclart, Station Brussel-Kapellekerk/Gare Bruxelles-Chapelle, Ursulinenstraat 25 rue des Ursulines, Brussel/Bruxelles, 02-502.57.34, www.recyclart.be