Label: Self released, 2022
Personnel - Thomas Mitrousis: guitar; Kostas Yaxoglou: piano; Paraskevas Kitsos: double bass; Dimitris Klonis: drums.
The effortless approach to music adopted by Athens-based guitarist Thomas Mitrousis is very much in sight on his first album as a leader, The Seed, a warm quartet collaboration that blurs stylistic territories with modern instinct.
Solely composed of originals, the album opens with the strongest one, “Crossing the Lines”, a well-delineated expedition in seven that borrows the fashionable jazz-pop-rock formulas of E.S.T. and The Bad Plus. Starting things out on the automated side, pianist Kostas Yaxoglou recycles a sharp ostinato and then improvises prior to the bandleader, whose relaxed phrasing serves as a recipient of his valid ideas. During the closing vamp, bassist Paraskevas Kitsos sings louder, while the rhythmic chops of drummer Dimitris Klonis are properly accentuated.
The teamwork between bassist and drummer translates into a magnetic groove on “Bipolar Express”, where sleek fretless slides and syncopated breakbeats are exhibited. The nice melody travels through wide-open spaces on top of this contemporary rhythmic underpinning. In turn, the squarer and harmonically compact “Chopping Therapy” presents a flair for pop/rock playfulness, but that disposition fluctuates along the way. The group ends up in an ambient trance with the bowed bass creating soaring and swooping motions. As distinguished from those, “Quinta” is a delicately brushed waltz with an airier and jazzier side.
Delivered in five, “Fax From Fux” takes the form of a world-inspired dance, whereas “Tararirarom” employs a septuple meter, melding folk and rock genres. This idea is reinforced by Kitso’s voice, and the group sounds so loose that it inspires a Jarrett-esque piano solo punctuated with muted notes. Mitrousis and his peers leave positive indications with this first work, and the sound of the group can only get better in the future.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Crossing the Lines ► 05 - Tararirarom ► 08 - Bipolar Express