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Marva Von Theo is a Greek elctro pop duo from Athens, formed in 2017.

Biography
Formed in 2017 by Marva Voulgari and Theo Foinidis, two classically trained musicians, driven by their experimental nature and passion to indulge in diverse genres of music. Marva is a classical pianist and has a background in jazz singing while Theo, apart from being a classical and jazz pianist, he is a Contemporary and Electroacoustic Composer, having graduated from University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and having written several pieces for orchestra and music ensembles.

Even though Theo Foinidis was living in Vienna and Marva Voulgari in Athens at that time, they soon found themselves drifting into an intensive storm of creativity, which led to their full-length Debut Album “Dream within a Dream”. It was the relocation of Theo in Athens soon after that made it easier for the band to evolve further.

Musical Style
At times darksome and dancey, but mostly introspective, gripping and moony, Marva Von Theo find their way through the dark synth music to twilight electro pop, representing a multi-layered work of innovative and compelling songwriting with expressive vocals and refined orchestration. Their sounds, melodies, rhythms and aesthetics cover a wide, contradictory spectrum, infused with their very own, distinctive vocabulary. Away from the old-school and the previous dogmas, they feel free to experiment, to take risks as artists and define themselves within the vast world of what is broadly called pop music.

Marva Von Theo sound futuristic, fierce, passionate, restless, noisy, risky, sophisticated, fragile, melancholic, darkly romantic, sensitive.

Band members

 * Marva Voulgari (2017-present)
 * Theo Foinidis (2017-present)

Dream within a Dream
Their Debut Album “Dream within a Dream”, was self-released in 2018, followed by Its vinyl edition via Shades of Sound/Wave Records (BR) in 2019. Their highly acclaimed singles ‘Embrace this Madness’ (2019), ‘Forever’ (2020), ‘Ruins’ (2020) and ‘Love’ (2021) paved the way for their second album ‘Afterglow’ (Shades of Sound/Wave Records, February 2021).

Afterglow
"During the recording of Afterglow we didn’t ponder about our style. We feel free to express each different aspect of ourselves and our music personalities, combining seemingly various elements to achieve that. In my opinion, art is a Whole. It doesn’t have strict limitations and only commercial reasons can impose clearer boundaries and self-limitation.

As for the intentions of the album, not its genre, I would say Theo usually leads the composition into more internal, dark paths, but -contrary to what the listener might suspect- it gives a more romantic light to it. Myself, I am driven by sentiment and give space to my psychological swings, that sometimes lead to unexpected bursts. Experimentation is the key that binds our partnership and satisfies us artistically, we have an open attitude of letting one another into new ways of inspiration.

There is hard work behind the curtain of Afterglow, in order for our ideas and every little detail to match and co-exist harmonically. When we come to the final cuts of the songs, we feel that the footprint of the initial idea is fading gradually, it is no longer clear who started what and where one’s ideas end. Each music genre, each disposition, colour and feeling is becoming one piece. This is where we try to decode, condense the substance of the album, so that the listener might have a first clue about what he will experience.

When orchestrating Afterglow, Theo had in mind that the tracks could potentially be played by a full band. The album sounds are not purely electronic, instead they are based on acoustic gaming features. The orchestration is also aimed so that a full and compact sound will be produced with a few and properly placed materials, so even in a live performance it would not be difficult to adapt. But we still consciously choose to perform as a duo. Certainly the flexibility and freedom that this choice makes us feel is of key importance.

But we now aim for our live performances to be accompanied by interactive visuals. It is an idea that we have been working on for the last year in order to offer a more complete experience in our concerts. Our music has many alternations and cinematic structures and we believe that the visualization of some of its elements will help the listener to immerse himself more easily in it and to follow the stories we have to tell.

At a more technical level, however, the composition of all our pieces begins with a piano and a voice. When this musical core acquires a clear form and dynamics, the orchestration comes to sculpt it, and to illuminate it accordingly. We are not of those musicians who keep a lot of ideas in the drawer and leave some there. On the contrary, I would say that when we have an idea, we work to bring it to fruition.

It is also the way Theo works, having the final result in mind from the beginning and even in the roughest demos one piece could be very close to its final form. In some more complex pieces, such as "Room of Doubt" and "My Moon", we may have had to redefine things in terms of voice interpretation and vocal production, sometimes instrumental touches had to be added to emphasize the melodic lines, until all the elements that tie them up together get perfectly blended. Apart from the vocals, that have been recorded at Artracks Studio, the mixing and production has been done in our Home Studio, with the absolutely necessary and basic means, but having to a very large extent the control of our sound. The Mastering was done by G. Priniotakis at Artracks Studio with whom we have a very good collaboration since our first album.

During the composition of our songs, it is certain that our main goal is not the listener or the current trends in pop music. Artistic creativity is something extremely personal, thus it doesn’t follow any rules, other than the ones we put ourselves upon our own creations. However, after the completion of our album, I believe that, just like every artist, we hope our music finds some people that will be deeply touched and make them find a part of them inside the stories in our lyrics. We do of course acknowledge the fact that we live in an era during which music is consumed with extreme speed and superficiality, making it hard for some alternative releases to really "shine". We are daring enough though to speak our own truth, inviting those who can understand it.

Dream Within a Dream consists of the spontaneity and young lust of two very different creators, who are getting together for the first time, exploring a brand new musical area for them. The albums have a lot of common points, however in Afterglow you can find a natural maturity in our sound, but you can also find a lot of experimentation, especially in production, upon things that we believe have been conquered during our first album (there was also some censorship on Theo’s extremely long intros). I can say with certainty though that our third album, since we are working on some new songs, will be something completely different. This is the nature of Marva Von Theo after all!" - Marva