Lia Hide is the prolific lady of Greece’s dark, avant, progressive, art pop. She has collaborated with various artists on celebrated projects and is featured in numerous Greek and international compilations. She has studied classical piano, operatic singing, music technology, advanced harmony and song writing. Knowing this all the album has to great! read further if you want to know if I'm right ...
Lia Hide's influences of Kate Bush and Tori Amos are strongly portrayed, meddling with scents of Massive Attack, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Anne Clark, Cocteau Twins and Radiohead. Hide's classical music training is evident, though carefully unpretentious, and blends evenly with Aki'Base's dark post-wave style and George Rados' laid-back naturalness.
Brief history:
In 2013, she formed her trio to compose, perform and release their music. George Rados is on drums and Aki'Base on bass, Lia Hide on piano and vocals. All three are producing their music and work together as one. Their first album, “Home”, was released by ΕΜΙ-Universal (2013). “Everyone Seems to Know Who I Am”, 2017 (mastered by the multiply Grammy awarded Adam Ayan) and “Tells no Fairytales”, 2019 (mastered by Denis Blackham) were released by their own indie label, DontHideMe.
All three albums were produced by Lia Hide and mixed by Yiannis Lampropoulos, in Athens, Greece. In 2020 they released “Fairytales Remixed” (Amour Records) with remixes by renowned international Electronica producers and artists. In the meantime, Lia Hide composed music for theatre and dance productions (Copia Aperta - Dario Fo, 2012 and Genoktonia - Pavlos Kourtidis, 2019). Lia Hide have collaborated and performed with numerous acclaimed Greek and international artists (Tricky, Joseph van Wissem, Anneke van Giersbergen, Kadebostany, Keep Shelly, Molly Nilsson, Kovacs, and more) in diverse festivals in Greece. They have toured Europe extensively and also performed in Montreal and the US. Their latest European tour was a 40-day venture with 28 shows in ten countries. They are currently releasing their 4th album and producing new music from inspiring young artists. Lia Hide spend their time between Athens and London when not on tour.
The album borrows its title from Plato's 'Timeaus' dialogue opening line. The songs talk about the emotional struggles of the recent Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, human mortality, and the place of the modern man in the universe. Lia Hide's songwriting is clean, pop, structured and lyrical, yet bears progressive music elements. Glitch and jazz fragments (trumpets by Stelios Chatzikaleas), cinematic guitars (by Denis Morfis) and orchestral layers, electronic sub drones and industrial noises, that all dress up the clarity of the piano trio: Lia Hide is on the piano, keys and vocals, Aki'Base on the electric bass, bass loops and double bass and George Rados on percussion and drums. The album was produced by Lia Hide, mixed by Ian Shaw at Warmfuzz Productions, Florida, and mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering, UK.
Birthdays sounds like a lullaby guided by a piano and the fragile voice of LiaHide (influenced by Tori Amos). The song builds up slowly. It’s a real beauty.
Uterus Will goes more into the poppy & triphop direction (Tricky) with a poetic Anne Clark touchand strings. The piano ending is really lovely (just as the vocals).
Niobe (fun fact: I know Niobe as the highest difficulty level you can play in the Sacred 2 PC/PS3 game) has already been launched before. The song has a touch of Tori Amos with the vocals and the piano part. I also hear a more poppy side and several cool layers on the vocals (making them sound like backings). There is also a more jazzy part. The trumpet is another great extra touch!
Row Row Row reminds me a bit of the Avant Garde sound from Deine Lakaien: mixing electronic sounds with industrial slices and multi layered vocals. I also feel this one might score during gigs! I adore the tempo and the cool vibe of the song!
Proposal is the ideal track to show off the vocal capacities of miss Hide! Next to that I hear some late David Bowie influences (Blackstar & Outside). This is one of the strongest and most captivating songs on this album!
Cloud has a more post-punk & New Wave kind of approach: listen to the bass and to the lead guitar! The spoken word is pretty cool. At that point I hear clearly some The Cure influences (the darkest touch). At the end I can only say: WOW! This is a must have!
Dinner goes on in a more experimental way (with electronic bleeps) and a postpunk influence. The vocals are fragile and sounds like almost whispering, whilst we get again some kind of jazzy touch. Triphop is in the house, next to the other stuff already mentioned. The trumpet creates a bit of a chaotic sound when mixed with all the influences. The sudden stop at the end makes you grasp for air and might even scare you.
Wyonnona has for sure some Greeck musical influences and gets a bit of a bombastic touch (next to great vocals). The sound mixes stringed instruments with electronics. The end fits the end of this album: a big bang and might be also the closing track of a regular set, thanks to the wall of sound.
Well: this was my first review from this artist and I liked it. The different styles, the global mix, the vocals, the lyrics … it all fits well and kept me interested from the very first note until the very last one! I hope other magazine’s will also review it and that a lot of media will report about it in a positive way as I rally love it and want to shout it out! Congratulations!
