Music / Feature
Alvinos Zavlis on juggling jobs, his music career and his most personal album yet
Alvinos Zavlis’ new album, After Sex all Animals are Sad, is the result of a lot of hard work.
The Cyprus-born, Bristol-based artist has been DJ’ing since he was sixteen after getting the taste for music at a night club in his home country.
From then on, he started creating his own music and hasn’t stopped; After Sex all Animals are Sad sees the fifth album release from him.
is needed now More than ever
During the creation of the project, the independent producer worked as a chef at Pinkmans and as a music leader in Notivate, a charity that works with Bristol youth clubs to help young people discover music production and songwriting.
Following surgery in 2022 after a benign tumour was found in his stomach, the album is his most personal yet.
“My newest album is my best work so far. You can expect dark songs about love, regret, artistic fulfillment and loneliness,” he tells Bristol24/7.
“It is only my second album that features my vocals since I was mainly a producer prior to 2020. It also differs from my previous albums sonically since it combines the experimental sound design of my first few albums and the accessibility of my previous one.”
Alvinos juggled two jobs as well as recovering from surgery while working independently on this album; one that he says wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for such a challenging experience.
“Looking back at that period, I probably shouldn’t have taken on so many responsibilities, but that’s pretty much what the album ended up being about,” he tells us.
“Even if the healthy option is to take time off and recover, most of us can’t afford to do so and need to work despite our circumstances. Having to juggle a music career on top of that made things even more complicated and confusing. But again, without that challenging period, this album wouldn’t exist.”
Inspired by the likes of Burial, Portishead, Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin, and James Blake, Alvinos’ sound leans into the experimental and ambient tempo of electronic music.
Weaving a range of different genres, the one thread tying them together is the atmospheric melodies permeating every track.
“Although most of my songs explore different genres and styles, the one constant in all of them is dark atmospheric sounds, deep bass tones, hip-hop-inspired drum rhythms and an overall leftfield approach to structure and sound design,” Alvinos explains.
This one constant is what makes the album both cohesive and unexpected, the tracks are eerie and the vocals haunting, giving the album a steadfast texture while no track sounds the same.
It’s a credit to Alvinos’ craft that his back catalogue of work is both identifiable and constantly evolving.
January saw the artist drop his brand new single, Get to Know Me, featuring Foi55. What else does 2024 have in store for him?
“I’m currently producing songs for a few artists that I really admire and was trying to work with in 2023 but didn’t have the time. There’s definitely one release scheduled for February; it’s a song I produced for an amazing vocalist called Elif Onay.
“After that, there’ll be many more singles coming. I’ve also just released the cassette version of the album [After Sex all Animals are Sad] and some merch to go with it too.”
Main photo: Alvinos Zavlis
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