The Fog Ensemble - Throbs

As the year winds to a close, your faithful record companies, including those that just exist online, have more or less thrown everything at the hungry (or less hungry) listeners and you enter a period of release drought. For those a bit more hungry for a good thing, or something they haven’t heard yet, this could actually be a blessing in disguise - you get a chance to sift through those piles of releases that have been coming to you through the year, and dust off to find something that is worth your time and trouble.

So to that effect, here’s something from the Greek shores, where it seems that the sea has caused musical waves that are thoroughly laced with psychedelia. One of the more recent examples - Thessaloniki’s The Fog Ensemble and their album Throbs. Now, these psych waves seem to be hitting the Greek shores for a while now, with the likes of Zappa/Beefheart influenced Chickn, or fuzz-drenched The Noise Figures, or the shoegaze-y Tango With Lions.

The Fog Ensemble is yet another crest in that wave, opting more for post-rock type of psych, lacing their Godspeed You! Black Emperor-like all-instrumental excursions with quite a bit of energy and even more fuzz. As with most of the bands that come from the places that are not necessarily considered foundations of rock, The Fog Ensemble approach their music with the concept that could be loosely described as, ‘if it sounds good to you, stick it in, and see how it works, who cares if isn’t supposed to be there’.

And on the evidence of Throbs, this is exactly what you get - riding post-rock themes drenched in your “classic” psych fuzz, particularly effective on the opening “Lighthouse”, “Weather Girl” and particularly the closer “Breathe”. You can go on trying to pick where The Fog Ensemble got what part, but it doesn’t really make no difference, it all fits in nicely together, and the trio, Antonis Karakostas (guitars, loops, programming), Nicholas Kondylis (bass) and George Nanopoulos (drums) have enough musical knowledge and skills to fit it all together nicely.

What you really get is actually one of the more memorable psych/post-rock combination of 2018. Could be all that sun, sea, feta cheese and olive salads.