Review Summary: A mind journey to neverland.
Your Hand In Mine are a two-piece act from Thessaloniki, Hellas, formed in 2006 by two friends and multi-instrumentalists, Manos (wurlitzer piano, melodica, toy piano, ukulele, accordion, programming) and George (toy synth, mandolin, glockenspiel, zither, custom rhythms). The band came into existence due to the members’ mutual interest in European folk/soundtrack music and in discovering/implementing rare acoustic instruments (most frequently of children or toy size), whereas they construct their own too. Besides being fairly fond of acoustic instruments and synthesizers, they are dedicated collectors of weird sound producing machines. Soon after their foundation, they recorded their first musical improvisations for their eponymous EP, limited in 100 handmade copies, which were quickly absorbed from the inner circles of the indie/post-rock underground of Thessaloniki and Athens, for the most part.
No wonder really as to why this has occurred. The music in
Your Hand In Mine EP could legitimately be a successful soundtrack for a short film, in which humor and melancholy coexist in the plot. The combination of awkward custom instrumentation (especially in the development/realization of the minimal rhythmical background, which might bring in mind traditional Japanese music) and conventional toy-sized accordion, piano and synthesizers, succeeds in transmitting a comfortable feeling, which balances equally between joy and grief (χαρμολύπη). The sole flaw of the EP is that it lasts only for 4 songs and fifteen minutes, however, its temporal length is more than enough for waltzing its listeners to the neverlands of their childhood, regardless of their actual age. Your Hand In Mine EP offers a shortcut to the long lost childhood innocence, in which all of us used to soak in back in the day, be sure not to miss it in time to come.
