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Europavox Advent Calendar 2022

16 min read


Europavox Advent Calendar 2022

Artists that were highlighted this year, all-time favorites of the crew, project partners and journalists : the entire family of Europavox is coming together during this holiday season for a discovery-oriented advent calendar. Explore picks from all over the continent, whereas it’s albums to absolutely listen to, books to put under the xmas tree, must-see videoclips, places to visit in Europe and even traditional holiday recipe to die for.❄️ Join us each day for a new dose of festive winter cheer, and try to win a Xmas pack with Europavox’s Bands of the Month sounds on Instagram!

December 24th

Romane Santarelli – Artist, France

📽️ Le Monde de Demain

It’s a mini-series from Arte that was aired this fall, and that I would call a true work of art. It recounts the emergence of hip-hop in France in the eighties, through the rise of artists like Kool Shen, DJ Dee Nasty, Joeystarr or Lady V. You don’t need to be a fan or a connoisseur, on the contrary : it’s not a NTM biopic per say, but a deep social story that can be enjoyed by everyone. It’s above all a series about an endearing group of friends, troublemakers dreaming to have more, in the midst of a cultural revolution.
The acting is astonishing, which is especially amazing when you know that it is, for some of the cast, their first experience in front of a camera. The writing and the era depiction are so well done that the series is captivating : I binged it in two days. I think that it’s ideal to watch on xmas, as it’s really human, full of emotions, and a way to learn things about the beginnings of hip-hop, with MCs, DJs, but also dance and street-art.

December 23rd

Theodore – Artist, Greece

🍽️ XMAS traditional “kourabiedes” (greek xmas butter biscuits )

‘Kourabiedes is a traditional greek dessert, found at every xmas table every year. I loved them during my childhood years and I am so happy to share with you my great grand mother’s  (Giagia Vaitsa) recipe! I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do every year!’

640g cow milk butter, at room temperature
320g almonds, whole or roughly chopped, with the peel
150g brown sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp margarine
1150-1280g all-purpose flour, sifted
1 glass of cognac
2 egg yolk
300g icing sugar for powdering

Mix the butter and the brown sugar, for about 30 minutes. Add the egg yolk, the almonds, the flour, the baking soda and the cognac, and blend; work the mixture with your hands, until the ingredients are combined and the dough is soft and easy to work. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180C; Bake for approx. 20 minutes. 

Roll them around, so that the sugar sticks on all sides. 

And Enjoy!

December 22nd

Victor Diawara – Loftas, Lithuania

🍽️ Kūčiukai (Lithuanian Christmas cookie)

In Lithuania, Christmas Eve, not Christmas, is the most important family gathering of the year. The table is traditionally meat-free and features at least 12 dishes (after the 12 disciples of Christ) – mostly fish (herring) is served. One of the tiniest, yet most quintessential to the table is a small cookie called Kūčiukas. Little pieces of yeast batter are sprinkled with poppy seeds and baked in the oven for 10 minutes. Pour milk over them and eat it like soup.

You will need: 

500 g flour 
250 ml milk
20 g fresh yeast
100 g sugar
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp of oil
50 g poppy seeds

Preparation: Sift the flour. Heat up the milk to room temperature. Mix the yeast with a pinch of sugar and a spoon of milk. Whip the rest of the milk with salt, sugar and oil. Add in the yeast and stir well. Pour a little less than half of the flour and mix. Cover the lid and leave in a warm place for half an hour. Add the rest of the flour and poppy seeds into the rested batter. Knead the batter for at least 5 minutes until it is soft and shiny. Then leave it covered for another 1-1.5 hours. Knead the batter again, pushing the air out of it. Roll small balls and put them onto an oil-covered tin-plate. Heat up the oven to 190 °C and bake for around 10 minutes. Baked kūčiukai should be left to cool and kept safe until Christmas Eve

December 21st

Katia Giampaolo – Estragon Club, Italy

🎸 Theodore

Theodore music is amazing. He is incredibly talented. One of those rare artists who reminds me why I am still doing this job with passion and dedication. 

December 20th

François Missonnier – Europavox, France

🎸 Love’n’Joy

I’m very happy to turn the page on 2022, and to get warm with my family and celebrate the holidays, but it’s impossible to spend that moment without thoughts of solidarity for the Ukrainian people and its artistic and musical scene. 

So for our traditional music advent calendar, I chose the Ukrainian psychedelic rock band Love’n’Joy, who powerfully embodies youth resistance and cry for help, all guitars roaring – I could have also talked about Fo Sho, Go_A or Alyona Alyona.

‘Love and Joy’, what could be a better wish for 2023 ?

December 19th

Evgenya Redko – Artist, Lithuania

📽️ ‘The Playlist’ by Per-Olav Sørensen & Hallgrim Haug

Movies or series that are based on true life stories tend to be one of my favourites.

This year I really enjoyed a Netflix series called “The Playlist”. It’s a story about Spotify, the pre-history, how it was created, some of the in between and the difficulties that its creators faced. I found it interesting, not only because I use this platform on a daily basis but also it was quite insightful to see how the whole industry and music distribution shifted. Also who doesn’t like a success story.

Maybe its not a very conventional choice for Christmas, but someone who really enjoys music and is interested in the music industry will find this series binge worthy.

December 18th

Gonçalo Castro – Journalist, Portugal

💿 ‘Music For Closed Airports’ de Lorenzo Morresi

When I feel the need to stay connected with myself, I put on a record. And this past year, the music from Italian Lorenzo Morresi was the escape I needed. Imagine a voyage into space and time, when you feel both at ease and also challenged. Jazz, funk, house, electronic, soul, and much more.

December 17th

Itta Ivellio-Vellin – Journalist, Austria

🎞️ ‘All Of Me’ by Schmusechor

If you’re asking me about my favourite music video of 2022, the answer has got be Schmusechor’s video of their cover version of “All Of Me” by John Legend. The arrangement is beautiful, the choreography stunning, and the singers’ voices exceptional. Also, it’s in black and white, and there’s balloons – so what’s not to love? <3

December 16th

Thomas Konings – Le Botanique, Belgium

💿 ‘YENNA’ by Marina Satti

Greek singer and composer Marina Satti achieved high levels of success in some southern European countries with the irresistible single ‘Mantissa’. In 2022 she released her much-anticipated debut album ‘YENNA’, on which she stubbornly mixes traditional folk music with today’s cutting-edge sounds. Satti’s concert at Les Nuits Botanique was a festival highlight that included a marriage proposal and multiple encores. We can’t wait to have her back in Brussels—we just know it’s going to be as delirious as last time.

December 15th

Susanna La Polla De Giovanni – Journalist, Italy

🍽️ Xmas Pear & Chestnut Flour

Actually this cake is one of my Xmas best kept secrets but to paraphrase a famous Depeche Mode song I guess this Xmas best kept secret won’t be so secret anymore. So here is the recipe of a special pears and chestnut flour cake. First get a 125g cup of white yogurt that will also serve as your measuring cup. Then mix it well with two cups of sugar, three eggs, three cups of chestnut flour, and half a cup of olive oil. In the meantime cut three pears into pieces and add them to the mixture and finally tip in one tablespoon of baking powder into the mixture which is now ready to be poured into a greased round pan. Bake in an oven already preheated to 180 degrees which you will lower to 120 degree and let it cook for 30 minutes. Then take the cake out of the oven and with a strainer sprinkle its surface with powdered sugar. Et voila, enjoy!

December 14th

Emilie Zoé – Artist, Switzerland

📖 ‘Dysphoria Mundi’ by Paul B. Preciado

Books are deeply inspirational for me, and a way to develop my thought process. I underline some quotes, I dog-ear pages, and buy those that thrilled me multiple times so that I can offer them as gifts. 

Paul B. Preciado’s way of thinking has really impacted me these last few years. It made me conscious that I wanted things to change, and that I didn’t want to wait for any validation to imagine, to do, to experiment on the fringes, and as a result to transform things as they were. To question your view of the world is a starting point for any change.

In his latest publication, ‘Dysphoria Mundi’, Preciado describes “the revolution hypothesis” : “It’s not an easy thing to know how a collective emancipation starts.,” he says. “However, it’s possible to feel the vibration that it provokes in the body it goes through. Also, it’s impractical to sum it up in one single narrative. One of the main aspect of ecologism, feminism and anti-racism is the multiplication of voices […], and languages plurality”.

To ensure this plurality, and to feed my image of the future I aspire to live in, I also read (among others) Rob Hopkins, Donna J. Haraway, Juliet Drouar, Isabelle Stengers, and Vinciane Despret.

December 13th

freekind. – Band, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia

💿 ‘Mother’ by Cleo Sol

By far the most impactful album of the year. Ironically, we kept getting recommendations to listen to it on our streaming platform, as it already knows our love for the ever-growing R&B and soul scene in the UK, but we didn’t press play somehow, for quite some time. There’s a quote that says “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” That’s how we feel about this album. So one day we finally decided to listen to it. We were absolutely captivated from the first song to the last. Left in tears. Speechless. Healed. If you like this, go check out the collective Sault and the artists that are part of it.

December 12th

Dan Cole – Journalist, Germany

💿 ‘Tamam’ by Kara Delik

These unlikely heroes of the Berlin underground scene came together to form a band that borders between classic krautrock, Turkish psych and new-wave. Fuzzy oud? Check. Pysch sound? Check. Upbeat and wild? Double check. No-one else there sounds quite like it, which makes pigeon-holing this creative, forward-thinking, international act deeply impossible. That’s when you know you’re onto a good thing.

December 11th

Svaneborg Kardyb – Band, Denmark

🎵 Gustaf Ljunggren and Skúli SverrissonCodimar

9 years ago, before we started our duo, we had a joint musical epiphany at a workshop with Gustaf Ljunggren. For a whole week he unfolded his unique approach to playing music. The power of collectiveness, uncompromised awareness for each other in the band, joyful playfulness, any idea is good enough to be pursued etc. Effortlessly, he made all these complicated subjects seem simple and durable and it laid the foundation to what later on became Svaneborg Kardyb.

This year, he finally released one of the compositions that we played at the workshop, Codimar, on the record Floreana, and we think that it perfectly captures that magical week we had with him.

December 10th

James Hendicott – Journalist, Ireland

🍽️ Irish Cream Liquor

Ireland is famous for its Cream Liquor, but did you know you can make it at home, and it’s just as good? Mix whiskey, cream and condensed milk in roughly equal measures, add a splash of vanilla extract, plus a small amount each of instant coffee and chocolate syrup. It’s like the store bought version, apart from with that fresh cream taste. Merry Christmas!

December 9th

Ivana Jelaca – InMusic Festival, Croatia

📽️ ‘Another Round’ (Druk) by Thomas Vinterberg

Druk gives a new perspective on a usually frowned upon social custom, and opens up a view into our relationship with our intimate thoughts, freedom and addictive behaviours. Its thought provoking and melancholic yet warm and uplifting, prefect for the winter blues accompanied with a glass of your favorite drink.

December 8th

Fo Sho – Band, Ukraine

🍽️ Ukrainian Borscht

Albums, videos, artworks, books, movies… A lot of things has hooked us this year, from the highly anticipated Queen Beyoncé album ‘Renaissance’, to our ‘U CRY NOW’ music video, which is based on a true story and real footage from our country and our city at the moment, from which we and our fellow citizens have suffered and are suffering to this day because of Russian aggression and an absolutely idiotic war that Russia started against our country – Ukraine.

Regarding artworks : an absolutely amazing work of art, that you can endlessly discover, is the Young Thug ‘Punk’ album cover. We are mesmerised by its beauty. If you’re more in the mood to read, we always return to the book of wisdom, the book that the Jewish people can explore till the end of their existence because they always find new meanings in different dimensions: the ‘Torah’. 
And if we talk about food, then for us the basis is Borscht, an Ukrainian red vegetable soup. It will warm you and fill you with health, and we can never forget about spicy national Ethiopian dish Injera consisting of flatbread and various spicy sauces, which is eaten with hands. By the way, this year these dishes have gained the status of a special trend and CNN’s choice for uniqueness and healthy filling. Don’t thank us, with love, FO SHO.

December 7th

François Audigier – Europavox, France

💿 ‘This Shame Should Not Be Mine’ by GGGOLDDD

Here is an album that followed me for a big part of this year ! The theme of ‘This Shame Should Not Be Mine’  is obviously harsh : Mileva Eva, the singer of this dutch post-electronic metal band, talks about the rape she suffered when she was 19. Beyond this subject, this fifth album is a true work of art of originality, with amazing and powerful songs.

The band has been invited by Roadburn Festival to play the entire record, which can be called a concept-album. This performance has been recorded, and is included in the double-vinyl version of the album. A beautiful object that will impress under any xmas tree !

December 6th

Mischa Blanos – Artist, Romania

🗺️ Rosia Montana

While visiting Romania’s mountain side between my concerts this summer, I ended up staying a couple of nights at Rosia Montana, booking an Airbnb house. The owner asked me if I could give a concert the next day for their community. I simply love this kind of situation when people are welcoming with open arms and I can share with them a part of my musical journey.

Rosia Montana is the largest gold mine from Europe and after so many protests in the major cities of Romania, the local community managed to stop the Canadian corporation Gabriel Resources taking its project further. The project involved the resettlement and relocation of 1800 people, the controversial cyanide leaching method. Basically 38 percent of Rosia Montana commune area was to be affected.

I want to send all my love to the people that were fighting for so many years for this situation.

December 5th

Hannes Cistota – WUK, Austria

🖼️ ‘Skinty Fia’ album artwork by Fontaines D.C.

Skinty Fia, which loosely translates to “the damnation of the deer.” It’s an old Irish swear, derived from the immense Irish elk that went extinct when their antlers grew so large they could no longer hold up their own heads, and those who could, became entangled in the trees. Perhaps an apt metaphor for the big-headedness of humanity. But mostly this cover reminds me of the Twin Peaks quote: “Owls are not what they seem”.

December 4th

Maro Angelopoulou – Journalist, Greece

🖼️ ‘Balsame‘ album artwork by Xinobi

Balsam owes its name to the biblical Balm of Gilead and it’s defined as an aromatic substance flowing from various plants. It also means relief or confort. And this is probably what the Portuguese graphic designer Bráulio Amado had in mind when he was creating the cover of Xinobi’s latest album, Balsame.  It’s full of people, unique and diverse, and full of colours, illustrating our world – full of differences. It is radiating freedom and an intense kinetic energy. Just beautiful!

December 3rd

Pongo – Artist, Portugal

🗺️ The northern lights of Tromsø

During the Norway tour that I did this year, I went to Oslo, Tromsø, Bergen and Molde. And in Tromsø I had the chance, totally out of the blue and out of luck, to see the aurora boreal, very green and shiny up in the sky, right before I had to go into soundcheck. It was an amazing experience and this city has a very magical vibration, I totally recommend visiting. Incredible hospitality. Best time to see it is during the winter season, around xmas !

December 2nd

Clémence Meunier – Europavox, France

💿 ‘Hello Future Me’ by Emilie Zoé

What a difficult task to pick one and only one album to sum up this year. There was Just Mustard’s sophomore Heart Under, a stoner and shoegaze adventure that showcases a delicate voice and not so delicate guitars and electronic elements. There was also Deki Alem’s debut EP, Among Heads, in which the Swedish duo of twin brothers sounds like Sleaford Mods was raving in a drum’n’bass party. A heart, a head… That’s important, but I’ll finally pick the belly : in Hello Future Me, Emilie Zoé spills her guts, addressing messages to the woman she’ll be in a few years, joining the family of poignant singers-songwriters rocking some guitars, as Cat Power ou PJ Harvey – nice heritage. Don’t miss “Volcan” played live, it’s a game changer.

December 1st

Anna Erhard – Singer & Composer, Switzerland

📖 ‘On Connection’ by Kae Tempest

One of my favourite books of the last two years is Kae Tempest’s ‘On Connection’. I read it during lockdown and it was a great comfort to me, I underlined every second phrase. They talk about how a concert or any performance can level the room and make it possible for unlike people to instantly connect with each other. We should make sure that conditions improve for many of these moments to keep happening in the future. ‘Connection is the feeling of landing in the present tense’ they say, and that’s where I want to be.