Kore. Ydro.
Kore. Ydro. were a rock/pop group from the Greek island of Corfu.
Biography
Kore. Ydro. were formed in Corfu, Greece, during the autumn of 1993 by 15-year-old schoolmates Pantelis Dimitriadis, Giorgos Arvanitakis and Spiros Katagis. Konstantinos Amygdalos joined in 1997 and Spiros Katagis departed in 2000. Pianist/multi-instrumentalist Alexandros Makris joined in 2001, creating Kore. Ydro.’s music core with Dimitriadis.Kore. Ydro.'s early output was "no-fi" home recordings of trash aesthetics, peculiar live performances, "raw" video clips and humorous short "films". Their self-produced official debut If All Ever Ended Here was released in March 2003 by the Greek label Wipeout Records in 515 copies. The downloadable-only mini album Seven Months Later followed seven months later.
February 2004 saw the release of the first official Kore. Ydro. video - also produced by the group - for the song "Your Kindness", the highlight of If All Ever Ended Here.
In February 2006, three years after the release of the critically acclaimed debut, Kore. Ydro. released Cheap Pop for the Elite on a new label.
The album's title referred to the self-proclaimed "new post-erotic, post-christian, post-communist, post-progressive, post-post-punk manifesto" of the band. The album was recorded ahead of the EMI contract in the group's home studio in Corfu by Dimitriadis, Makris and three new members: drummer Alexis Apostolidis and the guitarists Spiros Spirakos and Nickos Varotsis, exempting Arvanitakis and Amygdalos from their musical obligations and leaving them free to concentrate on the group's visual arts activities which was always their main subject.
The record received enthusiastic reviews by the Greek music press and the first single/video "No More Affairs" became an unexpected hit.
In March 2006 Kore. Ydro. appeared live for the first time in Athens, while it had already been made official the collaboration of the group with bass player Panagiotis Diamantis, who directed the second video from Cheap Pop for the Elite, for the song "Now that I Do not Have Anyone" . The band-directed video for “The Lovers of Nothing” followed in November 2006. In the same month, Greek music magazine SONIK named Cheap Pop for the Elite “the most important Greek album of the decade up to now.”
Kore. Ydro. live appearances climaxed precisely one year after the release of CPftE with their second live in Gagarin 205 in front of a fanatic audience and with an impact that rendered the particular gig a peak in the band's history.
During 2008 all the lately recruited members left or were gradually alienated from the group. Since then Kore. Ydro. continue as a duo again, with the assistance of the visual arts duo Arvanitakis-Amygdalos and drummer Fivos Anthis. The third official Kore. Ydro. album The Whole Truth about the Children of '78 was released in April 2009 on CD by Capitol/EMI. A collector's double LP edition followed three months later, on the independent Inner Ear.
The band's final album Simple Exercises on Existentialism was released in April 2013 by Inner Ear. A year later, in 2014, the band broke up, as announced on their official website.