Nyfida Sound Box
Welcome to the Nyfida Sound Box, a versatile device inviting you, the listener, to challenge the enclosed composed material’s form and intended use in perpetuity
- Operating as an Audio Player for the compositions by Spyros Polychronopoulos and Jannis Anastasakis
- Algorithmic Variation Employ an algorithm to simulate composer decisions and musician executions, resulting in endless unique variations of the material
- Soundscape Generation Transform your surroundings into ever-changing auditory experiences, creating inherently distinctive soundscapes
- Jamming Tool Interact with the album or the algorithmic variation of it, altering its sound through various effects and loops
- Synthesizer Functionality Create distinctive sounds by morphing audio material according to your aesthetic preferences
How it works
Switch between modes by adjusting the Rotary switch. Here’s how to use each mode:
Position 0: The device is OFF
Position 1: Album Mode
- Toggle switch off: Listen to the album as the composers intended.
- Toggle switch on: Customize playback using Pots 1-4 for effects like Pitch Tremolo, Chorus, Distortion, and Reverb. Transform Nyfida into a synthesizer and compositional tool.
Position 2: Live Mode
- Toggle switch off: Experience live playback with endless unique executions of the four tracks.
- Toggle switch on: Interact with live execution using Pots 1-4 for effects like Pitch Tremolo, Chorus, Distortion, and Reverb.
Position 3: Deepen Mode
- Toggle switch off: Immerse yourself in unique soundscapes using the endless variations of album tracks as a source.
- Toggle switch on: Interact with the soundscapes using Pots 1-4 for effects like Detune, Speed, Distortion, and Reverb.
Switch between tracks using the button (LED blinks once) and adjust volume with the dedicated Volume Pot.
Advanced feature: Looper
- Engage the looper in Rotary positions 1-3 with Toggle on by holding down the button for a loop size of up to 10 minutes. The looper supports multiple overdubs (adding new loops over existing ones).
- Double-tap to clear the looper (LED blinks twice) when the Toggle switch is on in any Rotary position.
- Return to Rotary position 0 (with Toggle on) to listen the loop on its own and adjust its characteristics using Pots 1-4, featuring effects like Pitch Tremolo, Chorus, Distortion, and Reverb. In this mode press the button once to play the loop in reverse. Switch Toggle off to silence Nyfida.
Download manual
How it happened
There is a Greek island called Lesbos, the island of an archaic poet, Sappho. In July 2021 Spyros Polychronopoulos and Jannis Anastasakis, moved most of their studio equipment and musical instruments to a small house next to the beach to record an album. The exact location the recordings took place was a house in an uninhabited village in the gulf of Kalloni called Nyfida. This house was where Spyros’s grandparents use to live. All the walls were covered by old pictures and embroideries made by them. This house affected how this music was made in very direct ways, in fact some of the sounds were made by using the props found in the premises: old materials such as parts of a loom, old sewing machines and more modern ones including a blender and a fridge all found their way into this recording. After the 2021 summer Spyros worked on the recordings for several weeks shaping the multichannel recordings to form this album. During this process the sounds with the embedded memories were reshaped and reimagined. This album is the product of the work in two contradictory environments a small beach village during summer and a sprawling city during winter.
This work found shelter at the record label Room40 and has been released in 12 July 2024 as an interactive sound box. This box, following Spyros Polychronopoulos’s release on the same label titled Live Electronic Music (2016), features knobs and a button allowing the listener to intervene in the execution of the musical material. Nyfida Sound Box is a versatile device inviting you, the listener, to challenge the enclosed composed material’s form and intended use in perpetuity.
This release brings together three artistic periods: before modernism, where from the invention of the phonograph onwards we can reproduce pre-recorded musical material; modernism, where the randomness of material execution is programmed by the artist; and post-modernism and beyond, where the choice for executing and shaping the work passes to the hands of the audience.
Credits
Spyros Polychronopoulos: composition, sound-box algorithm, electronics
Jannis Anastasakis: electronics
Orfeas Moraitis: sound-box chipset design
Natalia Manta: artwork
JAM pedals: assembly, manufacturing
Lawrence English: mastering
Room40 2024
Who we are
Spyros Polychronopoulos (aka Spyweirdos) is deeply entrenched in the world of sound, exploring its multifaceted nature as both a scientific phenomenon and an artistic expression. Currently serving as an Assistant Professor at HMU in the Department of Music Technology & Acoustics Engineering, his academic fields of interest focus on acoustic levitation, musical instrument simulation, and room acoustics. Beyond his scholarly endeavors, he has been passionately engaged in the aesthetic aspects of sound since the late 90s, resulting in the release of 20 albums, collaborations with various musicians, and numerous concerts worldwide. His innovative creations, such as Live Electronic Music (LEM, room40, 2016), have revolutionized the distribution and listening to music, offering a dynamic experience where each playback is unique. Spyros frequently conducts workshops and delivers lectures on cutting-edge technologies in composition and the aesthetics of sound, further enriching the discourse in this ever-evolving field.
Jannis Anastasakis (b.1984) is considered to be in a league of his own as a guitar player in Greece. He is also the creator of the JAM pedals. His unique, in-depth approach of the effects and the guitar as an ambient sound generator, results in a very personal sound and delivery, that sets him apart from all other players in his country. He is coming up with unique and fresh sounds that take the music from ambient to psychedelic and off limits to new territory. He has collaborated with: Arve Henriksen, Eivind Aarset, Christian Fennesz, Haig Yazdjian, Thodoris Rellos, Michalis Siganidis, Savina Yannatou, Floros Floridis, Lena Platonos etc and he has also worked with directors and choreographers (Thodoris Abazis, Androniki Marathaki, La Coja Danca etc). He also performs with his personal projects “Elektronik Meditation” & “Sound of Color”.
More info: www.jannisanastasakis.com