Full interview of jazz bassist, composer and vocalizer Apostolos Sideris on the release of his new album HANE. Presented by Vika Stankovic.

"A scorching August midday. I stand on my balcony, looking out at the sea, well, trying to discern it in the muggy haze on the horizon. Apostolos is on his way to sit down in conversation with me. I’m pondering my decision to start this podcast. Feelings of worry, excitement, anxiety are all intertwined and I try to give each of the emotions space. To recognise them and let them be. You see, I’ve been ‘in conversation’ with people all my life and greatly enjoyed discussions on all sorts of topics, but this has always been either within my profession (I’m an English teacher) or personal encounters with friends and family members. I’ve even been talking with artists, musicians, painters, composers, poets all my adult life. So, this is nothing new for me. Why was I then so nervous about this podcast, which by the way, was my idea to begin with? I glance down from the first floor and see a yellow Athenian taxi halting right in front of the gate. This instantly brings me back to reality.

Apostolos emerges from within and waves up in my direction, a cotton tote bag on his shoulder, a smile on his face.

He immediately apologizes for being late (only 10 minutes) and tells me laughingly that he had a hilarious time with friends the night before and that he was coming straight from his friend's place with next to no sleep at all.

I laugh along. I’m not worried in the least. Musicians, the world over, have always been night owls.

He does accept some coffee, though.

The first thing I notice is Apostolos’s childlike gaze as he, coffee in hand, looked around and started asking questions about the artwork on the walls with genuine inquisitiveness. I was right, I thought. Playfulness is one one of the key qualities of most musicians I’ve encountered so far and Apostolos was no exception. What followed was a serious of spontaneous questions on my part through a couple of games, which Apostolos accepted with due innocence. After all, his recent album release ‘Hane’ was largely based on improvisation, that is, playing around with whatever ideas and means he had at hand during the period of physical enclosure we’ve all been through. The mind, though, was free to roam and create, as Apostolos puts it himself."

Yogi, humanitarian and writer Sadhguru explains, in the process of becoming silent, shutting one’s mouth is only half the job. Those too enamored with their own thought process will only catch themselves in a loop of recycled memories.  Official website of Sadhguru: https://isha.sadhguru.org/uk/en Music by Yann Keerim Track: Paradise - https://musicsesame.com/ #sadhguruspeech #karma #silence

In celebration of World Poetry Day 2021  Recited by Vika Stankovic Original Music by Yann Keerim - Small Steps  TMC on poetry  IF - Rudyard Kipling  If you can keep your head when all about you  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,  But make allowance for their doubting too;  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,  Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,  Or being hated, don't give way to hating,  And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:  If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,  If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster  And treat those two impostors just the same;  If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,  Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,  And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:  If you can make one heap of all your winnings  And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,  And lose, and start again at your beginnings  And never breathe a word about your loss;  If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew  To serve your turn long after they are gone,  And so hold on when there is nothing in you  Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"  If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,  If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,  If all men count with you, but none too much;  If you can fill the unforgiving minute  With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,  Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,  And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!  Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)