I was going to Athens to see someone really important to me. His name is Karolos but we call him Karolaki Mou (“My Karolos”!) because of our other Georgetown friend Tucker. Karolos showed me the light my senior year of college. That there are other creative intellectuals. He and I both majored in math and took music classes and in our final semester, we did an independent study on mathematics and sound together.

He and I would hang at his house in Burleith which was behind campus, and play music. We’d eat amazing food that he’d cook with ingredients fresh from the farmer’s market and then we’d work on problem sets together and philosophize. I missed this very much.

Seeing him was epic. He hadn’t changed. He is quiet and thoughtful and only speaks when it makes sense. We spent one whole afternoon at his friend Grigori’s house talking about sipping inspiration from the sky, smiling and being good. We talked about a bardo, that is, the gap between two things, like rain and no rain. And we listened to Grigori play his fender Rhodes for hours. It was too wonderful for words really. I want to go back to play with them in the summer when they go to Santorini.

On Friday night, Karolo, his friend Alkis and I played a really unique show at a new bar called Senzabar in Exarhia. The project was called There Exist Angles. One friend spun minimal music while I alternated between playing congas and drumset live over the music. I wore headphones as I do in the MIA show to keep my sticking tight and volume controlled. Karolos played guitar. ρυθμός. Με φτιάχνει.

Then, a beautiful moment happened. Another DJ named Demos needed to switch in so Karolo and I looked at each other and decided to play live with no DJ during that interlude. I could see that people were in a trance dancing to the pulse of the music, and in order not to kill the vibe, I would have to keep that feel and beat going. And we did. It was an honest moment of fear and apprehension when the DJ was about to stop: will it work or will the party stop? The moment came though and the DJ dimmed out and I kept grooving on bass drum, hi hat and snare and Karolaki dropped in a perfect upbeat Fela sounding riff and we went for it. The highlight? No one even noticed that the two live instruments had taken over. The dancers on the floor experienced our set as a build from the minimalist electronic set and they vibed hard with us. We went till 6:30am.

I grew as a drummer during that experience. It marked a new milestone for me.

Key work I came across in Athens: Ατομισμός. Atomism.

“There Exist Angles” by Karolos Berahas

if

takes time to listen

for anything;

there exist angles

from which it is true and not

of perception,

possibilities for illusion, derivatives

and delusion.

How to make a circle out of

a sly, acute or

jailed, obtuse

polyglot-polygon

remains

my mystery.