E-Live Festival / "Fears" released / Space Art

Yesterday my new album "Fears" was released at the E-Live Festival.

A sold out Theater De Enck in Oirschot again was transformed into a gathering of people with passion for electronic music. Ron Boots and his entire crew again did an excellent job with the organisation and smooth course of the day.
 

Loom.
Photo by Wouter Bessels.

The venue was fully packed, mainly because of the headlining Berliner formation Loom. The already legendary line-up consisting of Johannes Schmoelling, Jerome Froese and Robert Waters, established their status 5 years ago with their sublime debut concert at this same venue. Without doubt the best concert I ever witnessed during the existence of the festival, so these three musicians had all eyes and ears focussed on them.

Kicking off with a subtle very fine first hour, mainly consisting of new material, it really got loose two tracks before the end, with some hypnotic and energetic sequencing. Great stuff. Halfway there also was an emotional part dedicated to the in 2015 passed away Edgar Froese. Accompanied with nostalgic and historic video images. After this a break of half an hour followed.

Johannes Schmoelling playing grand piano.
Photo by Wouter Bessels.

The second part contained a pretty amount of classic Tangerine Dream songs, including one of my favourites, "Towards The Evening Star". This rocked! Johannes also performed wonderful versions of his "Kneeplay no.9" and Tangerine Dream's "Pergamon" on grand piano. Epic.

Compared with the 2011 gig, the focus was more on Loom's own material. Which was a daring move, but absolutely the best decision to show the band is definitely not a Tangerine Dream reincarnation or clone. Exposing the musician's individual talents and skills in a sublime way.

After the last track, Loom did an encore, and made an end to the second part after approximately 90 minutes.
Although this concert didn't have the overwhelming effect it had during their debut, Loom delivered an outstandig and solid show, without a dull moment.

On this day I also attended the second concert by Michael Brückner, Sammy David and Thomas Betzler in an upper room of De Enck. It contained some pleasant parts. Nice addition was the projected ecoline / oil blendings, which were manipulated in real-time.
Although I would have liked to, I unfortunately didn't manage to attend the other concerts.

And then, for me the main reason of being at this edition of E-Live was the release of my new cd "Fears". After months of working on the album it was finally the moment to share the new music with the world. Although "Fears" is my 10th studio album, it always is exciting to release something new.

I received many nice and positive reactions of people who already heard some of the tracks, and saw the artwork.

All of you who don't own "Fears" yet, check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev8o5kxGbFo

for excerpts. The album is available from www.desertedislandmusic.nl

Stefan Erbe interviews Dominique Perrier.
Photo by Paulien Bouw.

Around 19:00 Dominique Perrier arrived at the venue to present some new releases.
These releases will be added to the www.desertedislandmusic.nl webshop within the coming days.

He did a video interview with Stefan Erbe, which will be published soon.
After the festival we talked about future plans and concerts for 2017. Hope to have some exciting updates before the end of the year.

In the end, everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves on this wonderful day. Paulien (who took care of the sales) and I also had a great time, with nice people, dito conversations, fun and good music. Next stop will be the B-Wave Festival in Belgium.

Concerts with Mäläskä and My Breath My Music

Last weekend was a busy one.

Mäläskä @ Graauwe Hengst, Schiedam.
Photo by Paul Cummins.

Mäläskä @ De Graauwe Hengst, Schiedam
Saturday Petter and I did another concert with Mäläskä. This time at music cafe De Graauwe Hengst in Schiedam.
Setting up all gear around 21:00, we set in our first notes at approximately 22:30. Really no indication how many attended our gig, but most of the time the place was completely filled with people. Our ambient intro was followed with a rather 'hard' continuation of the first set, containing a lot of techno beats and sequencing. We improvised for something like an hour on what should probably have been our heaviest set until date.

After a short break, we came back with a shorter and somewhat more subtle second set. After approximately 50 minutes we finished our gig, slightly past 0:30. We have to listen back the recordings, but judging from our experience at that moment and the audience's response we were very satisfied with our output.

Thanks a lot to Hilly and Jan for the opportunity to perform in their nice music cafe, and everyone who attended our gig.

Then, it was time to get all equipment together, and drive to the hotel to have a relatively short sleep. The following morning I had to be present in Zoetermeer for the second stage appearance of the
weekend.

My Breath My Music In Concert @ Boerderij, Zoetermeer
Sunday, October 9th, it was time for My Breath My Music In Concert. A benefit concert-afternoon to collect money for the My Breath My Music establishment.

My Breath My Music concentrates on the development of adjusted instruments (like e.g. the Magic Flute). I already did a musical session (which we released on the cd "Sessions 2012") and concert with some of the establishment's members, and since then I am involved into their activities from time to time. It was an honour to receive My Breath My Music's invitation to join this wonderful event. Indeed I said yes to this. Even with the knowledge that it would take place on my birthday.

Around 10:30 my wife Paulien and I arrived at the venue. Strangely enough I had never been before on this really nice and atmospheric location.
Until 14:30 - the official start of the programme - we had all the time to setup, soundcheck, socialize and relax. The organisation and the venue's professional crew did a great job making everything happen flawlessly. The programme was scheduled to be finished at 17:30. The actual end was something like an hour later.

The venue offers space for approximately 750 people (standing places). Yesterday attracted around 350 visitors. Also including a relatively large amount of wheel chairs the place seemed to be filled for the largest part, and felt like a full-house.

A wide variety of musical acts made the program over-all interesting. While the main focus was to expose the musical skills of members of My Breath My Music, there were also involved a lot of supporting bands and artists. Participating musicians included ambassador of the establishment Candy Dulfer, The Bridge Band, DJ Storm, bagpipers, Big Band Enterprise, and many others.

Opening together with The Bridge Band, featuring Candy Dulfer.
Photo by Paulien Bouw.

The show started with a recorded video message by Steve Hackett, wishing all the best for the event. This was linked with the overture, which was the track "Prairie Angel", by the former Genesis member.
I started with some moody strings. Candy Dulfer set in with her saxophone. Then, the musicians of the Bridge Band accompanied. After this opening, we did a cover of Gavin DeGraw's "Sweeter". I played piano on this piece. Hereafter I left the stage.

Korneel, Remy and Christian after their performance.
Photo by Red Line Fotografie.

After a couple of great performances it was time for the 15-minute piece I wrote for this occasion. Featuring Korneel Oskam en Christian Gouweleeuw on Magic Flute and Elda Iyagbaye on drums.
I also made visuals which were displayed during our track. Although the piece might have been rather long for the average listener, we got a lot of positive response. The performance went quite well and the musicians did a great job!

As soon as we finished the track, Korneel, Christian and I got a nice and absolutely unexpected surprise: A wonderful award for our efforts for My Breath My Music.

MBMM Award.
Photo by Meeuwis Bouw.

The programme went on with more nice acts, and at a certain point the development of the Magic Flute 2.0 was announced. More and improved functionalities. Looking forward to the result of the final model.

Ruud van der Wel and everyone involved into this event did a tremendous job organising this wonderful initiative. Again, thanks a lot to Ruud for involving me into this benefit. Thanks to all musicians, all members of My Breath My Music. It was a pleasure to meet familiar faces, as well as meeting a lot of new people. Also many thanks to all helpful and friendly people at Cultuurpodium Boerderij. And, last but not least, everyone who attended this special concert afternoon.

So, that was my weekend!

Now again focussing on my upcoming album "Fears", which will see the light in less than 3 weeks...

With My Breath My Music ambassador Candy Dulfer.
Photo by Paulien Bouw.

Archives 4

The fourth release of my archives recordings is available. This edition features four studio tracks and an experimental improvisation, from 1999-2000.

Here are the details:

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 2” contains material from 1999 and 2000.


Tracklist:
1. Daydreaming (studio, 30-12-1999)
2. It's Time (studio, 16-1-2000)
3. Touch It (studio, 25-1-2000)
4. In The Cave (improvisation, 5-2-2000)
5. Simone (studio, 5-2-2000)

Here you can hear excerpts from each song:

"Archives 4" consists of mastered archives recordings and is 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 4" is exclusively available from www.desertedislandmusic.nl.