Akis Boyatzis

AKIS BOYATZIS

AKIS BOYATZIS, founder and main nucleus of SIGMATROPIC, marked his musical presence in his native Greece for the first time in the early 80’s with local bands CAPTAIN NEFOS and LIBIDO BLUME. CAPTAIN NEFOS (a tongue in cheek moniker & loosely translated as “Captain Smog” as a tribute to the menacing & hovering Athens pollution cloud) were a clear cut and poppy New Wave outfit. Together with LIBIDO BLUME AKIS BOYATZIS appeared on several singles on a couple of albums therefore making an early successful mark on the Greek music scene as an English singing artist.

In the late Eighties he moved to the US Midwest & started a band called HUM with American musicians. Upon returning to Greece in 1990, after a short-lived reunion of CAPTAIN NEFOS he founded the ephemeral DEKA METRA DENDRA (Ten Meter Trees) but with no official recording output.

After a period of playing as a session musician AKIS BOYATZIS definitely abandoned the New Wave power punk persona and reemerged in 1997 as a new revolving outfit called SIGMATROPIC. Aptly named after a chemical reaction type, it soon blossomed from a single person home-studio project into an exciting full blown live band. Meshing breezy Mediterranean flavoured beats with ice-chilled Electronica SIGMATROPIC soon dished out some excellent material. Together with the wizardry of highly respected musician-producer Antonis Livieratos, SIGMATROPIC released a single “Air” & an album “Random Walk”, both on cool Greek indie label Hitch Hyke. In 1999 the EP “If You Were Me” helped to enhance their profile with a heavy airplay rotation.

The same year, Sigmatropic were invited to perform at the great Athens summer ROCKWAVE festival as a local band sharing the same stage with the likes of Blur, Prodigy, Patti Smith &Placebo. Despite a raised profile and critical success in Greece, AKIS BOYATZIS remains far removed from the overall music scene. As an elusive master technician he only emerges to occasional dazzle audiences with a live set.

In 2002 SIGMATROPIC released to an unsuspecting public the Greek original version of “Sixteen Haiku And Other Stories” which was based on the poetry of the late great Nobel laureate George Seferis. This album had the decisive production of Coti K and contained a sprawling musical & literary odyssey with outstanding results. The extensive praise underlined spellbinding soundtrack like music with the sophisticated vocalisation of the Haiku poetry.

The next instalment by SIGMATROPIC will be the international version of “16 Haiku And Other Stories”, produced by Antonis Livieratos and Akis Boyatzis. This highly anticipated project is the English version of the album featuring 18 guest vocalists from both sides of the Atlantic. An astonishing list of cult musicians graces this enhanced version, delivering their own vocal interpretation to an English translated poetry over the same music.

Akis Boyatzis Discography

Cpt Nέφος:

·   “Cadillac Dreams - Enjoying”, Happening Records HP1009, 1983.

·   “Silence Interrupted”, Creep Records, 1984.

Libido Blume:

·  “Colours Melting”, DiDi Records 101, 1986.

·  “Brilliant Names and Dames”, DiDi Records 105, 1987.

·  “Liquid Situation”, DiDi Records 115, 1988.

Deka Metra Dentra (Ten Meter Trees):

·  “Το Ιώδες (Violet color)”, Audio CD - 21, 1996.

Sigmatropic:

·  “Random Walk”, Hitch Hyke Records Lift 054, 1998.

·  “Air”, Hitch Hyke Records Lift 055, 1998.

·  “If you were me”, Hitch Hyke Records Lift 065, 1999.  

·  "Δεκαέξη χαϊκού και άλλες ιστορίες" Hitch Hyke Music Lift 070, 2002.

CD Collections:          

· Audio Magazine, CD - #21, 1996 (The only discographical presence of Deka Metra Dentra (Ten Meter Trees) project. They appear with one track.

· Pocket Ozonizer, Hitch-Hyke Records, 1998 (Sigmatropic appear with two tracks)

· Local Heroes: The Fine Art of Hitch-Hyking”, Pop & Rock, 1998 (Sigmatropic appear with onte track).