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20 years after... and Konstantinos Vita (Κ.Bhta) continues to take us on a journey through his music. 20 years ago... we met the boy that runs alone and has pulled some of us running along side with him. Many albums, many thoughts, colorful sounds that electronically take us for a journey all these years.
We took some of his time and asked him to write some thoughts about life, his journeys, his influences and his new work “Antihisi” (Αντήχηση).
After so many year and so much music through your ears, tell us... how many journeys have made you and you are still composing?
K.Vita . Each one of us exists in his life’s journey that is non other then the choices and the decisions he made. When I was young I was impressed by journeys and all the things I saw around me. As I grew up and saw my errors, my carelessness, my ignorance about my surroundings, the unconscious and impulsive choices I made, I tried to look inside of me and see, in a sense, towards which side my consciousness is looking at. I think that the journey for your consciousness is the most exciting, the places everywhere are almost the same, I mean nature, the cities. These don’t excite me as they used too.
If you don’t have inside of you a beautiful soul and heart, with what kind of eyes will you see the world around you? You ‘ll see it as a postal card, you ‘ll approach it emotionally, you ‘ll constantly be missing things, places and people. I think that the world that exists within us is our mental consciousness, the search for truth, the attempt to bridge inside of you good and evil. If man doesn't lean with love over his own mental being he will never see through the eyes of his soul and the world that exists around him, he will just get excited by the buildings, the sunsets and images in general. Within those circumstances I try to write and communicate. I am my music, extracts and notes of a world that I am still trying to understand.
Without those journeys would you still be, who you are, today?
K.Vita . I have traveled a lot and lived abroad for long periods. I had some nice experiences, good and bad. I learned to live in Greece. I tried to learn, to understand the people around me, to accept them as they are, good and bad alike.Through them also to find the way for me to be better. Everything needed to happen.. as our poet K. Kariotakis says. Through these I was brewed and I still create my music, my songs.
How many times do you listen to each song before you deliver it to us?
K.Vita . Too many, but, that is something that needs to be done, it’s part of our work. Musicians live like this. It’s like painting or like an architect, before he delivers a final design he will examine it thoroughly.
When do you like to listen to music and whom do you prefer to have along when you are listening to a new sound from an artist you love?
K.Vita . I don’t listen to music often due to my work. I like to rest my hearing for long periods. In my house I have a record player and I listen to vinyls I buy occasionally. I like listening music alone, I lay on the floor and close my eyes. It’s something I have been doing since I was a child. I tend to listen to music lightly when I am around other people.
“Antihisi (Αντήχηση) is like a letter, an email you send to a friend trying to explain how you are doing this time. It’s a diary of random thoughts, fleeting images that transfer the echo of today’s state.” What are your influences?
K.Vita . I started the previous summer to compose a few songs, I had left for a far away trip and I had along me a guitar. I was observing people, all those things that were happening right around us, the sorrow that unemployment left behind, the decrease in salaries, the attempt for a new life, a pervasive ethical disorientation... it all started to fill up my thoughts and with my own internal process, transferred into songs, random poems and notes. I recorded some songs on an analogue 4 channel Tascam I had with me, and they remained that way, for instance “the stranger”, 87 and some parts of “Its not too late”. I was really interested in the axis between hate and love. Its like a slow journey into the aftermath of the previously amoral years. That's why I named it Antihisi, (Echo) from the echo of things, in a sense.
So what is after all the basic problem of the modern human? What is he really missing?
K.Vita . I think its faith in him self. He learned to live in an amoral world, capitalism made him an egoist, vain, dividing. All of these have hardened him. He thinks he is someone and he got used of living on the surface and indifferently. Was forced through social circumstances to love materials more than the spirit. Believes in luck and not in his own soul power. Cannot love because deep down inside he knows not, who he is. That's why he fails at relationships. A person without faith is like a desert without water. Faith is the home he seeks and may he realize that at some point. This is freedom. The road to consciousness. Our ancient philosophers have written it down, Socrates, Plato.
From all the cities that you could have chosen to stay, why did you pick Athens? What do you see in this city that other people don’t?
K.Vita . Athens is my place. It is the city I love, I love her as she is, even if everyone is blaming her. I try to see her through my heart. Its a city that for whole decades lives off the hubris and rage of the people. I like her cause she is humble like a silent mother that loves all her children as they are.
Have you been in the Netherlands the past years for a show or to meet the country? What image stuck on your mind the most and what feeling did it leave you?
K.Vita . I have lived in Amsterdam during the 80s and I have visited many times up to today. The last time was in 2007. Its a beautiful country. It has a pretty countryside, pretty smiling people. What I remember the most from the Netherlands is the color of the sky during the summer, it has all the shades of blue. It’s a filling sky. My favorite painter is Van Gogh.
How come it hasn't crossed your mind to come and stay in a country that is a journey on its own.
K.Vita . I’ve lived in many big cities all around the world, I have an Australian citizenship and I could live in Australia. But I’m not changing Greece. I like Peloponisos, Mani, the islands of the Aegean. A trip up to Sounio by car is the most beautiful thing ever. I like working here. We need each other, we need to work and create even through the difficulties and the adversities.
What now, whats next?
Well.. something will come along, a song, some random notes, the next summer...
I thank you all and I love you through my heart, I wish my music makes you feel nice, wherever you might be, kisses K. Vita.
You can find Κ.ΒΗΤΑ new album Antixisi/Echo, on itunes, or you can find out more + all the lyrics at www.kbhta.gr
