Veliotis runs 2:13, an improvised and experimental music club in Athens. As a cellist he has interpreted works by composers including Cardew and Xenakis, and his improvising associates have included trombonist Radu Malfatti, saxophonist John Butcher and harpist Rhodri Davies. Made in June 2003, Radial is a three part solo work, where sustained cello sounds are interspersed with brief interludes of silence. Veliotis used an acoustic instrument and no overdubs, but the resultant piece has layered depth and strange sonorities that suggest careful arrangement and calculated effect. Wood and bowed metal are shrouded in booming feedback-like resonance, timbres suggesting electronics and the audible beating of clustered overtones. The three non-silent parts of Radial are overtly static atmospheres with a busy interior life. -- Julian Cowley

Veliotis is a cello player from Athens, Greece, and actively involved in the new music scene there. His CD Radial is a recording of Veliotis playing his cello without overdubs or editing. There are three parts of sound and four parts of silence, all making up this work. The piece is extremely minimal: the first sound part is a dense tone being played swiftly and without pause. The duration is over twelve minutes and this gives the part its strength, toghether with the frantic playing. The second sound part is again very minimal, but the atmosphere is totally different from the first, very gentle and soft. The third sound part is somewhere in the middle of the former two, but has a lightness that the other two lack. It says on the cover that random play is encouraged and I can actually imagine this having a good effect. It would certainly shuffle moods as well. In all its bleakness, this work is so strong and forceful that one will have to surrender to it completely or probably throw it out right away. There seems to be no middle ground here. As the reader may have noticed I surrendered and thoroughly enjoyed this work. Very well done