Electronic Circus / Space Art showcase

Saturday, September 22nd, the 5th edition of the Electronic Circus Festival in Gütersloh, Germany, took place.

One day earlier the Circus already started with a pre-dinner with the already arrived musicians and some visitors (approximately 40 people). Like last year it again was a very welcome start of a nice weekend.

After everyone finished meals, my wife Paulien, Michel van Osenbruggen (Synth.nl) and me, had another drink in a so called 'Biergarten'. Don't know why it was called like that, because they only had a pover choice of only two beers.

Saturday we moved towards Die Weberei in Gütersloh, where the festival took place.
On this day there were performing some fine acts, which the Electronic Circus crew described as 'the best line-up up til date'.
Paulien manned the Deserted Island Music stall for the album sales. Here it was also possible to listen excerpts from the album Synth.nl and me are currently working on.

Because I was also involved into the organisation of Dominique Perrier's "Space Art Tribute" album presentation and showcase, I unfortunately only managed to see a part of Ian Boddy and Erik Wollo's concert, which contained some great music! During the day Dominique Perrier gave some interviews, and I also did one with him for www.jeanmicheljarre.nl, which I will be putting online within the coming days.

After Gandalf's concert, it was time to get the last things prepared and doing the final soundcheck for the come-back of the legendary "Space Art".
Having released three albums in between 1977 and 1981, which sold 3 million copies worldwide, the follower-up "Space Art Tribute" was - finally - being released on the day of their first performance ever in Germany.
Although the album must be seen as a new "Space Art" album, the "Tribute" refers to the passing of half of the band's original setting, drummer Roger Rizzitelli, two years ago.

The time schedule of the band's performance (the showcase started at 23:30) seemed no problem for the present audience.
Dominique Perrier (synthesizers), Michel Valy (bass), Alain Pype (drums) and Lilli Lacombe (violin and synths) performed a couple of tracks from the new release, as well as two "oldies". After their 30-minute gig, the audience really went mad, and asked for an encore. And another one! Definitely a blasting performance!

Thanks a lot the Electronic Circus organisation and crew for another great event at Die Weberei. Already looking forward to the next edition again!

The next event will be the E-Live Festival at Theater De Enck in Oirschot, where Space Art will also be present to have their album presentation, as well as another showcase. Official announcement will follow very soon!

Neue Musik aus Zeit und Raum

Saturday September 15th
10:00 Arrival at the Zeiss Planetarium in Bochum, Germany.

Rehearsing

11:00-14:00 Setting up all equipment and sound-checking.
18:30-19:30 Organizing the table for cd-sales, and final sound-check for Bernd Scholl.
19:30 Doors open for the audience.
20:10-21:15 Concert Moonbooter (Bernd Scholl).

He did a very nice concert, presenting his newly released "Cosmophonica", consisting of some great and catchy tracks, mixed into a couple of longer parts.

21:20-:21:30 Final sound-check for my concert.

21:45-22:45 My concert.

Setup



I've chosen to perform my alter-ego project "Planet of the Arps". In the first place because in my opinion this 60-minute-track would suit perfectly with the space concept of the Planetarium. One of the other associations I've had with this project, are the "arps", or galaxies, as collected by Dr. Halton C. Arp, which were reflected into the visuals that could be seen during my part of the evening.

It was my first concert ever at a planetarium, so I have experienced past evening as a very special one.

The performance went very well, and I hope the 180+ audience had a great time too!

Because I was very concentrated, I missed most of the visuals during my performance... Very unfortunate, but I heard Klaus-Dieter Unger did a great job with the visuals.

22:45-23:10 Encore

Bernd Scholl and I prepared the tracks for the encore by means of remixing each other's tracks.

I have added tracks to Moonbooter's "Interstellar Sunset", and Bernd reworked my MMIX a.D.

Above these prepared mixes we did improvisations.

After the show, it was time for more cd-sales and chatting with people.
Continued by packing and loading all equipment into the car, and after this there was finally some time to relax a bit.

I have really had a tremendous time at the planetarium! It was great to see that quite a lot of people gathered to witness yesterday's concerts.
I would like to thank following people:

- Schallwende (Sylvia and Klaus) and Zeiss Planetarium Bochum for making this event possible.
- Klaus-Dieter Unger for his great job concerning the visuals during the evening.
- Bernd "Moonbooter" Scholl, for the pretty cooperation and collaboration.
- All people who where involved into (the organisation and participation of) yesterday evening.
- Paulien Bouw for her support, assistance and album sales.
- All of you who were present yesterday evening. Some of you especially came to see one or both of us, and in a couple of cases you travelled quite some distance. Some of you really had no idea what to expect and were not familiar at all with the things Bernd and I are doing. Anyway, I hope you were satisfied with the package we had to offer, yesterday evening.

Many thanks and see you soon!

Primitives

Yesterday I did another session with Synth.nl (Michel van Osenbruggen) in his Apollo Studio.
Actually there are no sensational details about past evening / night, but resumed: we listened, and we made notes and some adjustments. And it is very nice to know that we more or less still share the same ideas about the direction we want to go into with our project.

In the past weeks I recorded some additional tracks, which Michel integrated into the current mixes. I was very delighted to hear the results of the new versions he has made since our previous session, and it is great to hear the enormous progress the individual tracks have made since the start of our collaboration. When having listened to the tracks after eachother again, it became clear the album is getting shape more and more. Very welcome, because our intention is to create a complete album, and should not just be a collection of tracks.
 
In the meanwhile Michel also did a great job with the preparations of the artwork, and yesterday we also brainstormed about potential track titles. At this moment we have made a selection of nine tracks with a total duration of around 70 minutes, and for now we both agreed about the the album title: "Primitives".

In first instance we set the album release on October 27th, at the E-Live Festival in Oirschot. At this moment it is not yet 100% certain if we are really going to manage this, but we are definitely on the right track. More concrete information should be available by the end of this month, after we have had some more sessions.

Planet of the Arps @ Bochum Planetarium

Saturday September 15th I will be premiering a completely new ambient project, called "Planet of the Arps", at the Bochum Planetarium.
The piece is a work in progress from 2010, and has been 'perfected' since then.
It consists of music which doesn't entirely fit into the REMY-tradition, so I decided to give it another name.
There was no intention to do something that hasn't been done already, but I 'just' wanted to create a piece of ambient music in the style of for example the well-known "Dark Side of the Moog" series bij Klaus Schulze and Pete Namlook.

"Planet of the Arps" refers to the sci-fi movie Planet of the Apes, Arps (galaxies) as collected by Dr. Halton C. Arp, synthesizer manufacturer Arp, and the musical term 'arpeggio'.
I decided to specifically perform this piece on this special evening at the planetarium, because I think the project fits perfectly into these universal circumstances, accompanied by visuals from space.
Also performing this evening: Moonbooter.
At the end of the evening, we will do a session together.

Tickets and information: http://www.planetarium-bochum.de/de_DE/calendar/detail/10653524

Besides the performance of "Planet of the Arps" there is also been worked on a cd release of it, with the cooperation of a familiar name in the EM/ambient-scene. To be continued...

Project with "My Breath My Music"

Friday I am going to participate in a very special and challenging project.
In cooperation with "My Breath My Music" there is initiated a session together with some of the students of this establishment.
I have prepared some music, on which we will do improvisations. Really looking forward how things will work out!

The purpose of "My Breath My Music" is to offer people with severe physical disabilities a possibility to make music with for example self-developed electronic instruments.
The main target is people with a muscle desease.
Electronic wind instruments enable disabled people to play an instrument. It also is an effective way to practice the lungs, which is very important for the targetted group.

An especially developed instrument is the Magic Flute. Here is some information, taken from the manual:
The Magic Flute was originally designed as an adaptive musical instrument for people with little or no arm movement - with the goal of allowing people with a wide range of disabilities the ability to perform live electronic music that can be at the highest professional quality. It is also an exciting and rewarding way for people who have limited lung function to carry out Breathing Exercises that will never become tedious to them.
The Magic Flute is not only an instrument but also acts as the remote control for the Control Module (sip & puff).


Detailed information (in Dutch) about "My Breath My Music" and the magic flute can be found on: http://www.mybreathmymusic.com/

Dominique Perrier - Tribute to Space Art - showcases

Recently I have been in contact with C.Zen Prod about the upcoming project of Dominique Perrier (Jean Michel Jarre, Space Art, Stone Age).
In the first place we've agreed a distributional deal for his new album (due to September), to be released on cd and lp, and which will be available for shipping from http://www.desertedislandmusic.nl/, from September 22nd.
Secondly I was asked to have a look at the possibilities for any showcases and album presentations.
Thanks to the cooperations of the organisations of the Electronic Circus and E-Live Festivals, there are arranged some nice opportunities for the audience to get in contact with Dominique and his music.

Besides the already planned showcase in Spain in October, Dominique will also make his appearance at the following events:

Electronic Circus, September 22nd, 2012, Die Weberei, Gütersloh, Germany
www.electronic-circus.net
Dominique Perrier (keys), Michel Valy (bass) and Alain Pype (sound designer, drums) will perform a 30-minutes showcase, playing tracks from the new "Tribute to Space Art" album, as well as one or two "classic" Space Art tracks.
After the main act (Gandalf) has been finished, the musicians from France will be entering the stage (approx. 23:15). See the festival's website for all details.
During the day, the new album should be available at the Deserted Island Music stall, Dominique will do a signing session, and there will also be some interview sessions for present press*.

E-Live Festival, October 27th, 2012
www.e-live.nl
Dominique Perrier will be present during this day for an album presentation and signing session (at the Deserted Island Music stall), and interviews with press*. Announcement will follow shortly.

The promotional tour should end with a couple of (yet to be confirmed) showcases in France.

* If you are representing a magazine, weblog, radiostation, or are involved into any other related and dedicated business, you can already request an interview by sending me a private message. Invitations will be sent out soon.



Press information:

Dominique Perrier (keyboards) and Roger Rizzitelli (drums) are SPACE ART.
With 3 million albums sold and nominated for the Victoires de la Musique, you have very probably heard about this French group.
After the eponymous mythical 1977 record of which "Onyx" is the extracted title headlight, "Trip in the Centre Head" (1979) and "Play Back" (1980) followed. Then, a long silence. Tours, collaborations, film music and the foundation of another band, STONE AGE.

After the 2009 re-edit of "SPACE ART" and some single releases, Dominique starts to work on new compositions. In connection with the unexpected passing of Roger Rizzitelli, "Revised" was launched in 2010, containing Dominique's dedicated new track "Serenad".
In 2012 Dominique Perrier decides to release a new project: "Space Art Tribute".

Recorded at Ferber Studio in Paris, the 14 titles of this new album consists of new compositions.
Except "Asturias", which is a remix, arranged by Dominique Perrier. For this track several friends came to join the adventure: Laurent Faucheux (drums), Patrick Rondat (guitar), Michel Valy - faithful fellow member of STONE AGE (bass). Sonorities purely SPACE ART with two text interpreted by Janet Woollacott.

To note an exceptional participation of Jean Michel Jarre on one of the titles of the album.

Invited for showcases, Dominique Perrier, accompanied by Michel Valy (bass) and Alain Pype (sound designer and drums), launches an European promotional tour, which will start on September in Germany, then Spain and Netherlands in October, and end in France for several dates.

(press information by C.Zen Prod; adjusted by Remy Stroomer)

Another studio session with Synth.nl

Yesterday I did another very productive and satisfying studio session together with Synth.nl / Michel van Osenbruggen in his Apollo studio.
This time we started listening to all the material which should appear on our forthcoming collaboration album, while making critical notes for changes and adjustments for each of the tracks.
It's nice to find out that we agreed on most of these notes.

One of the tracks seemed not to fit into the whole concept, but we radically changed this one which resulted into a completely different track, which does fit into the project now!
For a large part we have in mind what to do with most of the tracks to get them sound like the way we want.
And we are still struggling with another track. This one still needs a lot of work, but Michel told me everything's gonna be all right, so I will rely on that!:-)

Another session should follow later this month, but for now we devided the tracks to work on seperately in the meanwhile.

At this right moment we have 10 tracks with a total length of 79 minutes to fill the album.
I assume the length will be slightly shortened during the editing process.
All in all the progress of the project is going very well, and although there is still a lot of work to do, we are still on schedule for the release of the album befire the end of the year.
I will keep you posted!