Ekos Quartet is a trip-hop band from Athens, Greece. For trip-hop is mostly a term to describe the atmosphere, it can be said that their music is down-tempo electronic, inside a dark, melancholic and tripping atmosphere that can sometimes take more funky/jazzy forms. The band took birth in 2005 by ForTune, The Ant, Stelx and Eski. It all started when ForTune gave some music experimentations on classical and hip-hop sounds to The Ant, and he immediately proposed him to form "something". After working together on music and lyrics during 2004, Stelx joined them as a guitarist in 2005. Not much later than that, the three of them found Eski, who had been working on trip-hop vocals by herself. They formed Ekos Quartet in November 2005, and recorded their first song, “Fortune’s lake”, in January 2006 and they performed live for the first time in the end of that year. During 2007, the band gave many live concerts and kept producing new tracks for their demo. This opportunity gave them the courage and the inspiration to start expanding their musical horizons, mixing downbeat, electronica, funk, hip-hop, jazz breaks, post rock/electronica, classical samples and ambient sounds, all based on a tripping background and mood, blending it with The Ant’s lyrics through his rap vocals (mostly) and Eski’s smoother ones. The result is a hazy mixture of many styles, which tends to be – and will hopefully become – a unique sound that defines their existence as a group of artists.

After recording and releasing their first four tracks in some compilations* in 2007, they decided to put this hazy mixture together and record their debut album. During 2008, they appeared as a quintet during some concerts, after the addition of Gee on bass, while Mandragora started helping the band on their live sound. They also completed the recordings of 13 songs in "Silicon" studio. S-fx and Ekos have mixed and produced their debut album, "In a dream full of charm", while Bob Katz did the mastering. Ekos Quartet had been working on this album until late 2008 (about to be released in December 2009). During 2009, they remixed Timewarp’s “Funky African heroes” as he remixed their “Some melancholic Jazz”, both songs were digitally released.

They have appeared in many live shows and festivals, their songs have been played by many radio stations, they have appeared for interviews on television and have been hosted in radio shows (interview and live performance), plus they have been interviewed and reviewed for magazines, music websites and free press newspapers. Recently they were selected for the shootings of “Tripping and Hoping” documentary as a basic band. The documentary is the first one that is exposing the signs of trip-hop in Greece. At the moment, Ekos Quartet are promoting their new album and are planning their first tour. Many live shows and new songs or remixes are on the way. Their aim is to achieve evolution, improvisation, experimentation and originality through their musical journey, during which they can express their emotions and talk about a world that can be more beautiful and charming, rather than controllable.

Ekos Quartet is a group of more than the four artists that created it, Gee is on the bass and Mandragora and S-fx are taking care of their recordings and the sound of their live shows. Leandros Katsouris is handling the design of their logos, posters and websites and also created the album cover, based on an idea that Ekos Quartet had. They are also trying to expand the squad with the addition of a drummer or a turntablist and a vj for live projections. In addition, they are working on their first video clip. The first chapter of the band’s history ended with the release of their debut album, titled “In a dream full of charm”, meaning that their first circle ended – mostly in their hearts – and they are looking forward to project that period, but also use it as the base of their musical evolution that will define the second chapter. This album is more like a fairytale, contains stories that take place in the city or closer to nature, stories that wonder and are not scared to cry, stories that talk about vanity or hope, stories that dream of the rainbow behind every pain...
*Their first release was the song “Free with you” in “Concealed Truth” compilation by Andrianos Papadeas (June 2007), a song that became popular in radio airplays and got remixed later on by V-Sag, but it’s a song surely not defining their style. They also released 4 tracks in the multi-ep part of the compilation "City Campers" a bit later. Both were released by “The sound of everything”.