This own musical expression that us music critics so often long for – it sure is present here. Cheers to the odd ones!”(Intro Magazin #233, June 2015: https://www.intro.de/popmusik/heimspiel-233-mit-benjamin-walter) And Oxmox Magazin gives it 5 out of 6 stars, calling it “one of the most remarkable albums of the last months” (Oxmox June ‘15 http://www.oxmoxhh.de/cd-dvd/hands-of-kanellos-rio)

About Hands Of Kanellos

The band was founded “due to musical differences”.
The younger brother had gone and made a name for his band Acadian Post on xxs-Records alongside Fink, Veranda Music etc. in hamburgs Country and Americana-Scene. The older brother had jumped on the britrock wave of the 00s with his band Elefants and was splashed from the Dockville festival, through supporting Dennis Lyxzén and others, to a release on an EMI Sampler. But both weren’t satisfied and still hungry for something else. So each of them took one companion from the old band and the four of them started exploring their musical differences: Hannes Klock and Lukas Tügel of Acadian Post vs. Jan Klock and Björn Weirup of Elefants.

They used Lukas’ music school and sound studio as their laboratory in which they locked themselves debating and experimenting for more than four years. Alongside piano, guitars, slideguitars, cello, violin, trumpets, and drums they used pencilcases, trashbins, downpipes, bottles, electronic waste and much more from buildings centers to interior decoration stores for musical instruments. Standards were high: not making conventional “songs” but still creating something that all four of them, coming from such different musical genres, would enjoy listening to. The idea of a musical mosaic: Something that can be listened to from afar and be perceived as enjoyable songs while showing all the dissonances and abnormalities when getting closer to it. So efforts were made to play guitar without hitting actual notes, writing song structures without verses and refrains, and always following up with something that one would expect least.

That these standards can not be reached within the span of four lives is obvious. But as they go on trying to get closer to that highest goal in June 2015 Hands Of Kanellos have released one stepping stone after experimenting for more than four years: Rio!
That is six songs of musical slow food steadily boiled down and produced over the period of almost half a decade. And that is also Martha - Björn’s great grandmother - riding a dromedar in front of a pyramide. Because disruption is king.
This first stepping stone is raw and bits and strings are hanging out in all sorts of musical directions - but there is something like a very rudimentary basic direction that is still hard to put a finger on and harder still to describe. The tension between the different musical genres the four are coming from is kept alive and as long as there are musical differences, there will be further stepping stones from the path of Hands Of Kanellos voyage to the pleasantly sounding notsong.

“Rio” was released on Halcyon Records throughout iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Amazon, Beats Music, Rdio, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube Music Key as well as selected record stores on June 5th, 2015.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/handsofkanellos
Bandcamp: http://handsofkanellos.bandcamp.com/album/rio
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkX1hVVghB9WvpqsjIW3fDA
Instagram: http://instagram.com/handsofkanellos
Website: http://handsofkanellos.de/

Halcyon Records: http://halcyon-records.de/