LIEBE are the Greek electropop duo comprising of George Begas and Dim Zachariadis.
Hailing from the Hellenic art capital of Thessaloniki, LIEBE released their debut album ‘Club Royal’ in 2010. Their second album ‘Somewhere in Time’
The lead single ‘I Believe In You’ imagined PULP’s Jarvis Cocker joining PET SHOP BOYS circa 1987 and was accompanied by an alluring promo video which gained traction on MTV Europe. Their most recent album ‘Revolution Of Love’
Ultimately an optimistic experience shaded in melancholy, ‘Revolution Of Love’ is a wonderfully escapist pop record. LIEBE vocalist George Begas kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the duo’s career so far.
LIEBE’s music has a very retrospective visual element to it, as well as being danceable?
We think that our music is not dance music, some songs have a high tempo but the core and melody gives more of a radio pop friendly character.
‘Flamingo Nights’ does take you back to love boats and cruises…
‘Flamingo Nights’ is a different side of the music we like. We try to sometimes sound a bit different from our main electropop sound. It is a song written in an easy listening mood with us thinking of Burt Bacharach and Stan Getz.
Who are LIEBE’s main musical influences?
Main musical influences? Hmmm… from disco to easy listening and electro 80s music to indie pop and new wave, both of us like similar bands and sounds.
Is the musical vibe of LIEBE almost inevitable when you are living somewhere that is sunny?
In Greece, the sun is shining a lot and gives us a feeling of a free spirit. With a more easy going style of everyday life, the music we make could lead to bossa nova and easy listening summer grooves. But unfortunately our music is full of dark and melancholic areas with slow drums and chaotic synths… it’s not the sunniest music you can hear.
Is the Jarvis Cocker afflicted droll in the vocals accidental, like on ‘Meet The Stars’?
We both like PULP and sometimes we pay a bit of a tribute to the voice and maybe some lyrics. That had more of a preaching style, but there is some Jarvo into it.
What makes Italo disco so maligned by some, but loved by others?
Italians do it better I suppose, this 70s piano music that makes the people dance is back in a fresh new edition. A flashback to music is always welcome, especially with such super sounds.
‘I Believe In You’ is possibly one of your best songs and a good introduction to LIEBE. How was the song conceived?
It’s just another song we have written for our third album, I can say that it has all the elements and sounds that LIEBE is fond of. Thank you for the compliment, but it’s hard for us to rate and to put in a favourite scale to our songs, but it is definitely one of our favourites.
The video for ‘I Believe In You’ proved to be very popular on MTV Europe. Where did the concept come from?
We asked a dance school to make a choreography for the song; the idea was to make something different from our other video clips and to avoid our own main role on the screen. The girls did a fantastic job and gave a nice view to our music.
SARAH P. who was in KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS says there is not much of an electronic music scene in Greece, what do you think and how has that helped or hindered you?
Music in Greece or the music industry in Greece is pure Greek lyrics and R‘n’B, hip-hop and traditional bands. There is a music scene in Greece playing pop, indie, new wave and electro but the audience is limited. Radio, TV and magazines give a poor recommendation to bands like that. However, we have an international view for our music.
Your most recent album, ‘Revolution Of Love’ perhaps has an indirect political message too? Has the economic mood in Greece had any effect on the music you make?
Things in Greece over the last few years are not the same as they used to be. The bad economy gives a really hard time to the society and us. The idea was to make a revolution made by love and for love, let’s make a revolution for a good reason, pure and crystal love with a will not for a need, but peace and togetherness. The problems in our country had no effect to our way of writing songs and to the feelings behind them.
LIEBE have explored some new directions like on ‘The Box’ which sounds a little like JEAN-MICHEL JARRE?
‘The Box’ has these synths and pianos of Jarre, but the chorus goes a bit NEW ORDER in their ‘Regret’ era. With dark and big synths, it’s one of our good ones in our live set.
‘Sound Of The Moments’ explores a more house based club direction?
It’s our dancey song on the album, a bit of PSB kind of singing, like telling a story about flirting in a bar under this music. The end has a more classic summer feeling with the trumpet leading the way to the end.
You both undertake a variety of projects outside of LIEBE?
Dim is writing songs for his personal project, in a dancey, slow disco, funky style with some Italo moments. I make some pop songs, indie stuff and a bit of easy listening guitar music.
What’s next for LIEBE?
At the moment, we are rehearsing with a drummer, guitarist and trumpet player to make a full live band for our forthcoming live shows. I hope one day we will play in UK, but until then, all the best…
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to LIEBE
Special thanks to Thanos Avratoglou
‘Revolution Of Love’
https://www.facebook.com/pages/LIEBE-official-page/257440579094
http://emerald-and-doreen.com/2016/03/20/what-we-need-revolution-of-love/
Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by K Kechagioglou and John Brightside Simitopoulos
27th August 2016
was not included on the debut FAD GADGET long player ‘Fireside Favourites’ that came out a few months later, but it helped establish Mute Records’ credentials as an early champion of independent electronic music.
via Mute Records
was a worthy transitional recording although where Foxx headed next was the more romantic and band oriented textures of ‘The Garden’.
via Metamatic Records
was not a hit on its original release, but the world belatedly caught up when a remixed reissue reached No11 in 1982.
via Virgin Records
was the posthumous hit single that documented the relationship turmoil which JOY DIVISION’s lead singer Ian Curtis was facing prior to his suicide. The initial attempt at recording had been much faster and tighter, but producer Martin Hannett slowed the band down and suggested Curtis take on a more Sinatra based drawl. The looser end result added further poignancy.
via Rhino
via Beggars Banquet
was the first release from THE BLUE NILE and the esoteric template that later emerged on ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ was already omnipresent. Rawer and more aggressive than songs like ‘Stay’ and ‘Tinseltown In The Rain’, this was a fine opening gambit from the enigmatic Glaswegian trio who had met at university. Originally self-released, the single was picked up by RSO who promptly folded after its re-release.
via Virgin Records
co-produced by Mike Hedges was an interim 45 prior to the doomfest of ‘Pornography’. The band’s potential for success now looked like a real threat as The Raincoat Brigade seeked out a successor to JOY DIVISION. But in late 1982, THE CURE lightened up for the first of their fantasy singles, ‘Let’s Go to Bed’.
via Fiction Records
. The multi-lingual phrases highlighted an expanding world market while Glenn Gregory provided commentary on how personal relationships were like business transactions.
via Virgin Records
, a song that had not been originally included on their second album ‘The Friends Of Mr Cairo’. Jon Anderson’s lyrics were almost spiritual while the widescreen sonic backing from his Greek chum complimented the mood. Vangelis himself was about to enter his most high profile period with ‘Chariots Of Fire’ and ‘Blade Runner’.
via Polydor Records / Universal Music
via Music Club Deluxe
being appended to the album.
via EMI Music
effectively bookended Marc Almond and Dave Ball’s imperial pop period which had started with ‘Tainted Love’. Another song that came via the Northern Soul scene, it was originally recorded by Judy Street and had more than a passing resemblance to ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’. The recording was quickly disowned and was to be SOFT CELL’s last Top10 single before the duo entered much darker musical territory and on the path to ‘Mr Self Destruct’.
via Phonogram / Universal Music
allowed Clarke to put his new Fairlight CMI through its paces, while a gospel flavour came from SYLVIA & THE SAPPHIRES.
via Music Club Deluxe
was a cynical attempt to ensure DURAN DURAN got a UK No1. Nick Rhodes made it clear the song was not going to be on the next album while completely different versions featured on the 7 and 12 inch formats. This synth laden single featured that dreadfully unforgettable line “You’re about as easy as a nuclear war”!
via EMI Music
featured a charming four way call-and-response vocal while the huge use of portamento on the lead synth line fooled buyers into returning their singles to the shops thinking it was warped!
via Virgin Records
via EMI Music
was considerably less harsh than his band’s pioneering electronic body music. Although not featured on Görl’s first solo album ‘Night Full Of Tension’, ‘Mit Dir’ did much to help lighten his mood considerably that he was attempting synthpop with EURYTHMICS’ Annie Lennox on songs like ‘Darling Don’t Leave Me’.
via Mute Records
was a brilliantly glorious statement with Billy Currie’s OSCar interventions being its undoubted musical highlight.
via EMI Records
was the bridge between the industrial flavoured synthpop of ‘Some Great Reward’ and the darker aesthetics of ‘Black Celebration’. Much more accomplished than the more throwaway standalones like ‘It’s Called A Heart’ and ‘But Not Tonight’ which followed, ‘Shake The Disease’ continues to be performed live at DM shows in a less interesting stripped down form with Martin Gore on lead vocals.
via Mute Records
became an unexpected American No1 on the back of the movie’s success and took Jim Kerr and Co into the stadiums of the world.
via Virgin Records
, a one-off for London Records. Engineered by Dan Lacksman of TELEX, it featured a sonic passage that would have made Trevor Horn proud. Lines such as “I’ve been thinking we’ll get back together again someday – your hair will be some weird color by then…” reminded European audiences of how quirky SPARKS could be.
via Lil Beethoven Records
actually follows a chord progression very similar to ‘Enola Gay’. Interestingly, the song failed to enter the Top40 on its release in the UK.
via Virgin Records
is one of the Mancunian’s combo’s more underrated singles. With a synth riff borrowed from Shannon’s ‘Let The Music Play’, it successfully combined some gritty rock energy to a solid Italo disco backbone featuring a great sequenced bassline.
via Rhino
was a throbbing Moroder-inspired disco tune that borrowed counter-melodies from Donna Summer’s ‘Love’s Unkind’. Independent labels such as Mute and Factory were more likely to indulge in releases that weren’t specifically tied in to albums, and it proved to be a perfect move to maintain ERASURE’s profile while they were preparing their next plan of action.
via Mute Records
. It all seemed so camp and ridiculous in the video when Neil Tennant was singing it wearing a Stetson, but then in 1992, out popped Bono doing something similar on their ‘Zoo TV’ tour!
via EMI Music
singles collection is a timely reminder of what PET SHOP BOYS achieved under Watkins’ stewardship. But his contract was not renewed and while he states in the book he was gutted at the time, Watkins admits that he has missed working with Tennant and Lowe, even though in his words: “Unlike Neil Tennant, I could mould Matt Goss and his brother with complete control”.
is published on 7th July 2016 in hardback by Virgin Books
featured AIR, TANGERINE DREAM, Vince Clarke, John Carpenter and Laurie Anderson; so for those who were unaware of any electronic music before AVICII, it came as something of an education.
has no less impressive a cast, with PET SHOP BOYS, THE ORB, YELLO, Peaches, Gary Numan, Hans Zimmer and Sebastien Tellier all willing conspirators in one of the ambitious music projects ever undertaken.
album of 2007, there are big bass riffs galore for a great poptastic exploration that is both catchy and danceable. A sample from the Minipops rhythm box that appeared on ‘Oxygene’ even drops in for possibly the standout track on this collection.
, ‘Elysium’, nearly put the group alongside the likes of DEPECHE MODE, with their dwindling reputation and the general feeling that one cannot expect a decent long player anymore. ‘Elysium’ was stripped of the energy and the vitality, one has grown to expect from the London duo.
. Also produced by Price, well known for his collaborations with MADONNA, HURTS, SCISSOR SISTERS, KYLIE MINOGUE and GWEN STEFANI amongst many others, together with ‘Electric’, ‘Super’ is another comeback to the inherent 
The instrumental ‘Pazzo’ introduces the next track, ‘Inner Sanctum’ which reacts to German techno pop scene based in Berlin’s Berghain, the ultimate night club with its cavernous main room. The track is heavy, punchy and dizzy, perfect for a pounds, shillings and pence induced rave.
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