Chris Spheeris

Chris Spheeris is a Greek-American New Age composer. Inspired by the sacred and folk music of his Greek heritage and other world music, classical music, and pop, Spheeris fused these elements together into his own unique musical style. The folk aspects of his music were prominent early in his career as part of a duo with guitarist and composer Paul Voudouris in the '70s and early '80s. After they disbanded, Spheeris began to create a more complex, keyboard-based sound, which he documented on self-produced demo tapes. One of these demos found its way to the AR department at Columbia Records, with whom Spheeris signed a deal in 1985. The label released his debut album, Desires of the Heart, and Pathways to Surrender before he left in the early '90s to form his own label, Essence, which released most of his solo output and two reunions with Voudouris: Enchantment and Nothing but the Truth. Along with his solo albums, Spheeris has also composed scores for cable and public television documentaries. He released his Higher Octave Records debut, Dancing with the Muse, in early 2000.

Listening to Chris Spheeris' gently rhythmic but ultimately sleepy flamenco guitar based Eros, you might think you've stumbled upon outtakes from Jesse Cook or today's current master of easygoing pop flamenco, Ottmar Liebert. But those two usually have the keen sense to vary the tempo just enough to avoid each tune from bleeding into the next they'd never create a whole album of lullabies. A noted new age multi-instrumentalist who plays everything here himself, Spheeris' intention seems to be not to excite much passion, just to go with the flow and create some charming, acoustic guitar based bedroom music. An insert photo of him playing a secondary instrument, accordian, as a couple chats at an outdoor café bears this out…

On Pathways Spheeris takes us through pieces that are distinctly Greek, electric, choral and ethereal, finishing off this heartfelt, romantic album with graceful sounds that allow one to drift off in a new feeling of completion, a true "rite of passage" toward an unnamed peace…