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~Every week from the vaults… a vinyl rarity which crackles, grinds, moves, grooves, hurts, or just awfully tickles…

Smasher of the week # 4

When you think of Greek Pop, probably first Demis Roussos, Nana Mouskouri, Vicky Leandros and then Vangelis or Mikis Theodorakis come to mind. The expirimental new wave duo Psycho, consisting of Dora Antoniadou and Stefanos Kotatis (Nina Hagen/Kate Bush meets David Byrne in Kareila, Attikis), never attains international fame. On the LP “Montage Fatal” from 1982, a fairly rudimentary 80s synthesizer production, the duo first takes on Psycho Killer, the classic song by Talking Heads. After 40 seconds, singer Antoniadou makes a spectacular entrance. The frail Greek happens to have a quite impressive voice!

The self penned songs on this LP are unfortunately not all equally strong, but the album is very entertaining nonetheless. The production is sometimes just too kitschy. On the track “The Prisoner”, Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth joins on keyboards. The band makes a second LP in 1987, entitled “40 days”, before calling it quits. Singer Antoniadou is also a member of a Greek Eurodisco band, Anno Domini, around the same time. After 1987 there are no traces of Dora’s singing talents anymore: on Greek internet sites it is written that a car accident already ended her life in 1987. Others claim that she dies of cancer in 2003.

As a Greek dessert, Psycho’s “The Prisoner”, carried by Dora Antoniadou’s opera-like singing