New REMY, Mäläskä and Space Art albums

I am delighted to announce three brand new releases! These new titles will be available on April 11th.

To start with, a new REMY 'solo' album, "The Other Side", was in first instance scheduled for the end of last year. But due to the "Exhibition of Dreams" 20th anniversary celebration, this release was postponed until April 11th.
The four extensive album tracks contain some elements from the traditional electronic music, but also touch the borders of my musical interests.

With artistic collaborations by Bas Broekhuis, Judith Wesslius, Joost Verhagen, and Nausikaä de Blaauw.

For what I had in mind, this would have been the only release for early 2020. But then, during the end of 2019, plans slightly changed.

The last weekend of last year's November, Petter and I - accompanied with lots of equipment - locked ourselves into a house on the other side of the country, to create and record new Mäläskä stuff. The final day, Bas Broekhuis joined us during sessions. Read about it here.
The weeks that followed, we made a selection from the 11 hours of music that was recorded.
"First Day of Spring", is described as 'classical electronic music of the future' by one of the very early listeners.

And then, also late 2019, I was contacted by Dominique Perrier related to a brand new Space Art album. Inititally to be released as limited edition LP.
The result is new music, which is for the largest part in line with the band's early music from the 70s.
"Entrevues" is a valuable collaboration with Tommy Rizzitelli on drums, who perfectly succeeded in maintaining his father's legacy.
While the first part of the album consists of typical old-school Space Art style, some never before released tracks have also been added to the album's tracklist.


Coming days I will dedicate blog items to these individual albums.

For now, you can pre-order the new REMY, Mäläskä and Space Art albums from www.desertedislandmusic.nl.

Space Art

Marc, Dominique and Lilli checking the JD800.

It's only two weeks to go until the E-Day Festival in Oirschot!
There will be a great line-up containing a wide variety of electronic music acts, including Moonbooter, Arcane, Pyramaxx and Space Art.

After five years, legendary French synthesizer formation Space Art returns to Theater De Enck in Oirschot.
Where the band first entered this stage in 2012 as part of their promotional tour, it's now time for a full headlining concert.
This year, Space Art celebrates the 40th anniversary of their first record from 1977. While we speak, there is being worked on a new album, and the band prepares for a world tour.

Lilli, Dominique (in mirror) and Marc
rehearsing.

Since the last series of concerts the band's line-up has been slightly changed. This time co-founder Dominique Perrier (synthesizers) invited Lilli Lacombe (keys, violin, vocals) and  Marco Hazon (drums) on stage.

And I am extremely honoured since Dominique also asked me to be part of Space Art too.

End December 2016, I visited Dominique, and we talked about Space Art concerts for 2017. Of which the first is going to take place during the E-Day Festival on April 29th. Last week we have been rehearsing for this upcoming electronic music event.

Dominique and Patrick having
a technical discussion.

It's a real pleasure to make music together with such a talented group of musicians. Looking forward so much to perform this project on stage!

If you haven't obtained your ticket yet for the E-Day Festival, don't wait too long buying your ticket, and support the festival and performing artists.

Tickets and details: www.e-live.nl

Archives 1

Tomorrow I will be present again with Deserted Island Music at the annual E-Day Festival in Theater De Enck Oirschot.

In first instance to sell my physical albums (I also have available some discounted products; just drop by if you are at the festival too), but also to promote my new digital download release "Archives 1", which will be released on this same day.

Here are details about the "Archives 1" release:

Since the early 90s, Remy registered an uncountable amount of compositions, improvisations, try-outs, sketches, studies and performances.
Remy always felt the need to release a lot of this material, but with such a huge variety of recordings, it was never possible to release everthing.
During the selection process for the released REMY-albums, a lot of music was rejected. Simply because these tracks didn't fit into the concept or feeling of the specific release.
A large amount of unfinished tracks, sketches, etc. will definitely never be released. And there also is enough stuff that is absolutely not good enough by means of technique and recording.
But through “Archives” there is this possibility to publish and share a lot of these recordings. Recordings that otherwise would never have seen the light.
Besides the fact that “Archives” offers music that could never be heard before, it gives the perfect insight into Remy's musical and artistic world, as well as it might also help to understand the direction Remy's music evolved into.
“Archives 1” contains material from 2004 until 2006.


Tracklist:
1. To The Sea (studio, 20-12-2005) 9'11
2. Sleep Music (improvisation, 1-7-2006) 15'00
3. Silent Hill (improvisation, 20-1-2004) 20'09
4. Turn Of The Tides (concert, 8-4-2006) 25'11

Here you can hear excerpts from each song:

"Archives 1" consists of mastered archives recordings and will be available as 320 kbps MP3 and 16 bit / 44,1 kHz FLAC. The accompanied artwork contains the necessary background information on each of the tracks, as well as some photos from the period of the specific music pieces.

The digital download only release "Archives 1" coincides with the launch of the renewed Deserted Island Music website/webshop: www.desertedislandmusic.nl.

Although there still have to be made some more adjustments, feel free to already let me know your opinion and experience with the site. Indeed as soon as it is online.

Groove New Year's Party

Last Sunday I participated on Groove New Year's Party, at Theatre De Enck in Oirschot. The same location as where the annual E-Day and E-Live festivals are being held.

 In 2012 I also joined a previous edition of Ron Boots' new year's concert, where a lot of Friends played along on the host's music, but this time the concept was slightly different.

The first part of the afternoon started around 13:30 and lasted approximately 75 minutes.
For this part Ron invited some Friends to join him on stage. Besides the usual suspects (and members from the band Morpheusz), Eric (keys and flute) and Harold van der Heijden (drums) and Frank Dorittke (guitar), there were introduced some fellow musicians from the electronic music scene. Bas Broekhuis on percussion, and on keys: René Splinter, Martin Peters, René de Bakker, Jeffrey Haster, and me.

At the beginning all where introduced one by one to enter the stage. Jeffrey starting with the first effects, joined by the others as soon as they entered the stage.

Ron Boots took care of the main mix, so he didn't play along with us during the first set.
This first part consisted of 100% improvisation. Actually Ron prepared a track to improvise on, but he decided to offer room for all other musicians to do their thing in the first place. Martin, Jeffrey and I also prepared some sequences / arpeggios, on which everyone could improvise. This was the core of the first part of the afternoon session, which didn't leave time for Ron's track.
The session was a challenge, because we never played together in this combination.

From time to time it was hard for myself to judge what this first part of the show sounded like. There were moments that I couldn't hear myself very clear, which resulted into some out of key chords and notes (but it could easily be that this wasn't noticed by the audience). And sometimes it took quite some effort to hear who was playing what. Simply too much to hear. Not unexpected when keeping in mind the large amount of musicians (10!) on stage.
The first half was concluded with a new track by René Splinter and Eric van der Heijden, dedicated to special guest and 'mother of the EM-scene' Sylvia Sommerfeld.

Then a break followed. People also had the opportunity to buy cd's from the various present musicians.

The second part of the afternoon was done by Ron Boots, Eric and Harold van der Heijden and Frank Dorittke, who delivered an excellent and decent performance. Playing music from Morpheusz, Eric van der Heijden, and Ron Boots, including the respected opening track from his "Acoustic Shadows". And Frank Dorittke performed a great Pink Floyd collage.
After approximately 75 minutes, Ron once again invited all musicians on stage for an encore. For the second time everyone on stage improvised on the sequencer by Martin Peters.
I think this piece worked out fairly nice.
Here you can see an audience video recording (by Yolande).

After around 15 minutes of improvisation, Ron again named and thanked all individual musicians. All stepped forward on the stage. Except for Jeffrey, who played the last notes of the day.

It always is a pleasure and experience to create music with other people. And I totally agree with Ron Boots' conclusion: these kind of events should take place more often.
To gather various musicians with just one purpose: making music. And it would be a great thing to share the magic that is being created with as many listeners as possible. A successful concept that for example could already have been experienced in the past at the legendary Ricochet Gatherings.
Looking forward to the next occasion.

All used photos (except for the first one, which I shot myself, just seconds before we kicked off) were made by André Stooker. Here you can see the entire impression by André Stooker.

E-Day 2013, "PrimiTiveS", and more...

"PrimiTiveS" released
One week ago, "PrimiTiveS" - the album by Synth.nl and me - was released and presented at the E-Day Festival in Oirschot. The cd can be ordered from Groove Unlimited (www.groove.nl) or directly from me (www.desertedislandmusic.nl). Also MP3 and FLAC downloads are available from Groove Unlimited.

Information and soundclips: http://www.synth.nl/music/collaborations/primitives

Besides the 'casual' airplay and announcements, an extensive 2-hours "PrimiTiveS" special (including interview with Michel) was aired during April 7th edition of 'Sunday Synth' by Bruce Gall. And here are links to the first reviews:
- A Ultima Fronteira Radio (Roberto Vales)
- Sonic Immersion (Bert Strolenberg)
- Synth & Sequences (Sylvain Lupari)

Within the coming days the Ambient Visions website should also feature an extensive interview with Michel and me. And I hope to announce more reviews and media appearances very soon.

E-Day 2013
A couple of weeks ago it was very uncertain if the festival was going to take place (due to dissapointing ticket sales), but in the end about 200 people found their way to Theatre De Enck. Even more visitors than last year's edition.
Besides chatting a lot and promoting and selling my music, I've also attended some of the concerts. Strangely enough I am not always in the mood for electronic music at these kind of festivals, but this time I more or less was.


Synthex and Gert Emmens.

 One gig I was really looking forward to was the one by the 14-years young Synthex (aka Jeffrey Haster). He was accompanied on stage by Gert Emmens on drums and keys. According to his first appearance (which was the one I saw), I think the young boy from Eindhoven did an excellent job.
He was very conscious about every thing he did, and together with experienced colleague Gert Emmens, things worked out very smooth and natural. A pleasure to listen to.

I unfortunately missed the concert by Bernhard Woesteinrich, but did catch most of the TMA & Alien Nature gig. The kind of electronic music I really like. And very attractive to whitness due to a dynamic line-up: Torsten 'TMA' Abel and Alien Nature on synths, Martinson on guitar and Thomas Betzler on drums and percussion. Their show consisted of strong and intriguing themes. Great stuff!


René Splinter in action. (c) Phil Booth.

 Another concert where I was looking forward to very much, was the one by René Splinter.
The day in advance René phoned me somewhere in the evening, a little bit in panic, because his transport cancelled at the very last moment. Although completely not on the route, Paulien and I picked up a lot of his gear. Luckily René's concert could go on, and it definitely was the highlight of this year's edition of the festival. His 'old' as well as new material matched perfectly and his skilled keyboard-playing made the whole concert a pleasure to listen to from the beginning until the end. The excited audience also got two encores, to conclude with an excellent performance of "Palace of Dreams". René's variation of the famous Tangerine Dream piece - which was also performed on this same stage by its composer Johannes Schmoelling (as part of the legendary Loom concert) on grand piano, during E-Live 2011 - was at least as exciting as Johannes' version. Excellent!
For me this was the musical end of this - again - very nice day. Code Indigo headlined E-Day 2013, but at this point I've had heard enough music for the day.
Neil Fellowes gave me Code Indigo's new cd-release afterwards, so I am going to listen to this formation's new album very soon!
Instead of the concert I have had a very nice chat with Ruud Heij. Hereafter Paulien and I left direction Rotterdam, to drop René Splinter's equipment.


From the archives: early 1999.

And more...
Last Thursday I performed at an intimate "reunion" evening at my former high-school.
Kicking off the event with one of my solo electronic music pieces, and concluding the "classical, jazz and vocal" concerts (as it was announced) with a performance of an occasional formation (consisting of a singer, saxophone player, bass player, drummer, and me on keys) I've been part of in the end-90's.
We've actually only made music during festivities related to the school, but after our recent rehearsing studio sessions, we decided that it would be fun to eventually play together more often and write new material. Really looking forward to this very much! Besides this and an upcoming studio session with another band, I am working out plans for some exciting upcoming "solo" projects for the end of this year / early 2014.


With students of My Breath My Music.
Press photo (c) Paul Oomen.

 With about two months there will be released a musical session I did with physically disabled children from the establishment 'My Breath My Music'. End 2012 I've already wrote a blog item about this special and spontaneous session, but now it will also come to a cd publication.
De basis consists of some of my tracks on which the students improvise with the special developped Magic Flute wind controller.
The students were totally unfamiliar with my kind of music, and we had never played together before, but all of the four skilled children contributed to the very unique output, of which we find it of significant value to have a release of. Proceeds of the album sales will go to the establishment 'My Breath My Music'. More information on this upcoming release follows soon!

Schallwelle Awards & "PrimiTiveS" update

Dominique Perrier, Hans-Hermann Hess
and Michel van Osenbruggen at the
Schallwelle Preisverleihung.

Last Saturday I have been at the Schallwelle Preisverleihung at the Zeiss Planetarium in Bochum. This time not as one of the nominees. An advantage of this was that there were no nerves of having any chance to win a price myself. So time to relax and enjoy the ceremony and the nice concerts by Thomas Lemmer and Steve Baltes.
However, I was sort of involved, as the French formation Space Art was nominated into two categories where they could win an award. Their third mentioning was on the tenth position in the category 'Best Album International'. Unfortunately, Dominique Perrier and his fellow-musicians didn't receive one of the awards. However, congratulations to all 'winners' for each category:

Newcomer:
1. Nisus  2. Erren Fleissig Schoettler und Steffen 3. Vraigaist
Neuentdeckung:
1. Sankt Otten 2. Space Art 3. Akasha Project
Album International:
1. Glenn Main - Ripples 2. Nooten, Pieter - Surround us 3. Boddy, Ian & Erik Wøllo - Frontiers 4. VoLt - Circuits 5. Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder - Red 6. Morpheusz - Garden Gnomes & Goblins 7. Eno, Brian - Lux 8. Lamp - The Three Towers 9. Kebu - To Jupiter and Back 10. Space Art - Space Art Tribute
Album National: 1. Loom - Scored 2. Picture Palace music - Indulge the Passion 3. Brückner, Michael - 100 Million Miles Under the Stars 4. Schroyder, Steve & Alien Voices - Qigong Dancing 5. BatteryDead - Sands of Deception 6. Reckzeh, Uwe - Mirror Images 7. Schiller - Sonne 8. Sankt Otten - Sequencer Liebe 9. Moonbooter - Cosmophonica 10. Erbe, Stefan - Emotiondesign
Künstler International: 1. VoLt 2. Glenn Main 3. Boddy, Ian & Erik Wøllo 4. Space Art 5. van der Heijden, Erik 6. Boots, Ron 7. Kebu 8. Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder 9. Eno, Brian 10. Morpheusz
Künstler National: 1. Picture Palace music 2. Erbe, Stefan 3. Schiller 4. Matzumi 5. Sankt Otten 6. Kistenmacher, Bernd 7. Schulze, Klaus 8. Schroyder, Steve & Alien Voices 9. Rainbow Serpent 10. F.D.Project

This weekend also the masters for "PrimiTiveS" (the forthcoming collaboration album by Synth.nl (Michel van Osenbruggen) and me) have been finished. Thanks a lot to Wouter Bessels, who did a great job with this! Yesterday these masters have been sent to the factory, so all we can do at this stage is to concentrate on the promotion and related issues. You can already expect the first airplay within the coming days.
In the meanwhile Michel is also working on a 3D-animation preview of the album to present at the E-Day Festival (which will go on luckily (see my previous post)), on April 6th. Hopefully this is ready in time.
While I am working on my artists website www.exhibitionofdreams.com (which should finally be online at the beginning of April), you can already listen to excerpts from the forthcoming "PrimiTiveS" album on my label's website: www.desertedislandmusic.nl.

"PrimiTiveS" final stage

"PrimiTiveS"
Last weekend Michel van Osenbruggen (aka Synth.nl) and I completed the final mixes from our forthcoming "PrimiTiveS" album release. It was a very exhausting part of the process, only listening very focussed to every detail, and trying to trace any kind of unwanted clicks or errors which might eventually appear. After last Monday's final listening check there can be concluded that everything sounds excellent.
In the meanwhile Wouter Bessels started his mastering and post-productional activities.
Exactly one month to go for the release and presentation at the E-Day Festival in Oirschot. Really looking forward to it. Hope to see you there!

Here is a render of the artwork, created by Michel:

To give you an impression what the album sounds like, there will be uploaded some excerpts on my websites within the coming days.

For all of you who have a Facebook account, and haven't yet seen photos of our previous sessions in the Apollo Studio, check out Michel's photo album.

And... the album can already be pre-ordered from Groove Unlimited.

2013

The first update of 2013! While last year my musical output was mainly noticeable by means of the concerts I did, this year I am also planning some other concrete activities.

While working on the video montage of the Great Church performance I did last year with Ron Boots, I am also in the final phase of the production process of the "Primitives" album with Synth.nl.
This weekend we will work together again on the mixes and discuss the mastering process, which will be done by Wouter Bessels.
Currently we are perfectly on schedule for our release at E-Day, on April 6th, so I am really excited for the final result of 1,5 years of work. The album will be released by Groove Unlimited (www.groove.nl).

Another issue I have been involved into lately was quitting my activities at my own established label AKH Records. My compagnion continues the label on his own.
Detailed information about this will follow soon, as there still have to be arranged some formal things.
Now I can finally focus on my Deserted Island Music label, which I started in 2011.

Furthermore I am near completion of my artist website www.exhibitionofdreams.com, which should be online early February.

Like last year, I will again be involved into activities by the French formation "Space Art".
In continuation of their succesful and well-acclaimed 2012 European promotional tour, Dominique Perrier and his band prepare a complete concert concept to perform later this year. I hope to reveal more information soon.
With the intensive touring of last year, as well as the new album release, Space Art have been nominated for the German Schallwelle Awards (in the categories "Best Artist International" and "Best Album International").
And how nice: I am also nominated in the category "Best Artist International".
Everyone can vote once, and voting is still possible until the end of this month: http://voting.schallwelle-preis.de/

Remy & Synth.nl - Primitives

First of all I would like to take the opportunity to wish all of you a great Christmas and all the best - in good health - for another fascinating musical year to come, 2013.

Yesterday, Michel van Osenbruggen and I worked on the artwork and album credits of our collaboration album "Primitives". Michel really did an excellent job creating the 3D artwork. Here you can see the cover:

With the - finally - set release date of April 6th, 2013 (at the E-Day Festival in Oirschot), we will have a couple of more weeks for the final mixing, editing and mastering.
It's nice to know that our project is nearing completion, since we did our first recordings back in August 2011.

The album will be released by Groove Unlimited (www.groove.nl). Stay tuned for pre-order information, tracklisting and soundclips.