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| WARP DELIGHT from BILLY TSOUNIS |
The album opens with a pair of shorter songs that waste no time introducing everything that Billy Tsounis has to deliver: energetic guitar solos, full-force psychedelic improvisation, and never a place where the songs get lost in their meanderings.
"Gone Swamp Shopping" is my favorite not only for its title but I love how much energy it delivers. For this song, "shopping" is a euphemism for "blasting off into space at warp speed" to take us on a wild ride amongst the stars. There's simply not a skippable song on this album.
"Last Dance Space Boots" is a little shorter than the others, but delivers its sonic energy with style and does not feel rushed.
"Babalas Lilo" gets back to a longer song and might be the most experimental track on the album.
"Becoming Butterfly" slows it back down, and after Babalas Lilo a break is a nice thing. A good album has a pace and flow to it amongst its songs, and WARP DELIGHT has that covered.
There's not many bands delivering instrumental psych jams or improvisations right now with the kind of quality high-energy sound as WARP DELIGHT. A band of similar talent and style is INSEKTLIFE CYCLE out of the Philippines so check them out, too.
I reached out to Billy Tsounis with a few questions --
Fuzzy: Would you call your songs jams? or improvisations? or ... ?
Billy Tsounis:
A majority of the songs on the album are jams / improvisations based off specific riffs / chord progressions. I had a rough frame for most and colored in. The songs "Cow Lands Plane Eats Pilot" and "Last Dance Spaceboots", "Messy Nostalgia Machines" as well as "Too Nervous to Reincarnate" were structured and I improvised over them.Fuzzy: Any plans for a CD?
Billy Tsounis:
The CD will be available by the end of October. [Fuzzy: right on!]
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| Aris Weathersby, Billy Tsounis, Theron Lynnot, Lucas Marquardt |
The band members are:
BILLY TSOUNIS- GUITARS
LUCAS MARQUARDT- ELECTRIC CELLO
ARIS WEATHERSBY- BASS
WILL RURY- DRUMS
Some info from the band:
Billy Tsounis is a guitarist/composer/multi-instrumentalist based out of Southern California. Originally from Athens Greece, he grew up in Johannesburg South Africa and later moved to Boston MA to attend Berklee College of Music. Later he moved to Los Angeles and soon after signed with indie label TON music which released the debut cd of his psychedelic/freak pop/experimental band Vasoline Tuner which continues to record/perform to date.
Billy has several solo releases available, the most recent being “Warp Delights” as well as having had his music placed on the CBS and MTV networks. He is currently signed with Rescue Records/5 Alarm music for the representation of some of his compositions for film/TV. In 2016 he was the music director and performed in the backing band for the Spanish production of Grease “Vaselina “. In 2017 he co-wrote/recorded the album “four” with hard rock band Circus of Power featuring Brant Bjork on drums.
He currently performs with his all instrumental psychedelic/experimental/jazz rock band, Billy Tsounis and The Amazing Androids, does session and live guitar work, music therapy for adult day care/mental rehab centers throughout Riverside CA, is a faculty guitar instructor at Temecula Music Academy, Harvard Street Music Exchange in Hemet CA, along with collaborating/playing/recording with rock gods of various pedigree.
Billy is featured in the January 2017 issue of Guitar Player magazine in the play it forward section for his work in mentoring players young and old and for his work encouraging creativity in his music therapy classes.
WARP DELIGHT is available for streaming and download now, and Billy Tsounis has a CD on the way at the end of this month. So be sure to follow him on Bandcamp to find out when it's ready and stay on top of his new music:
