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.

Mixes for "Fears" finished

Mixes for my upcoming studio album "Fears" are finished! Last week I did the final touches on each of the tracks. Within the coming days all music will be listened carefully to. If there are no issues, Wouter Bessels will start the mastering. In the meanwhile I can finish the artwork and prepare the promotional stuff.

By the way: have you already pre-ordered "Fears" from www.desertedislandmusic.nl? First 50 orders will get a free strictly limited and numbered bonus disc, containing never before released music.
There are still copies left, so don't wait too long.
 

"Fears" ready for pre-ordering

As from now, the new REMY solo album "Fears" can be pre-ordered from www.desertedislandmusic.nl.

This pre-order offers you to get the album at latest 1 day before the official release date of October 29th. But, there also is something exclusive for the first people who buy the album.

Everyone who orders the cd, gets a strictly limited and individually numbered cd-r (only 50 copies available), which will be included for free with your order.
Everyone who orders the download (MP3 or FLAC), receives the cd-r's exclusive content in the same format as you have ordered the album. However, the download version is not individually numbered.
This bonus material consists of never before released music.

Pre-ordering is available until October 28th, 2016, or until stock lasts. So don't wait too long ordering your copy!
Eventually remaining physical copies after the pre-order period will be available for the first customers.

And yes, currently there are no direct sound clips, and no artwork. But, I hope you have a little more patience. Things will be revealed within the coming days and weeks. So stay tuned!

Remastered REMY albums update + free download

Today another two remastered REMY albums have been released, and are available from the www.desertedislandmusic.nl webshop: 

"This Is Not The End" and "This Is Not The End bonus".

Both titles have been released on cd in 2008.
These were my first albums mastered by Wouter Bessels. Who since then took care of the masters for my releases, as well as the current remaster series.

It is nice to rediscover my own music during this remaster process. In most of the cases I don't listen to my music for months, or sometimes even years, as soon as it has been released.
In most of the cases I am already involved into new projects at the time of a publication. And why should I listen back and analyze over and over when it's already accomplished?
Anyhow, I was really delighted to hear my own music again after all this time. And especially with the fresh remastered sound, I got a lot of inspiration to create more new music in this vein.

For a limited time only the MP3's (including artwork) of "This Is Not The End bonus" can be downloaded for free.
Just visit www.desertedislandmusic.nl, add this title to your shopping cart and checkout. Within a couple of minutes you should get the download link into your mailbox.

The last remastered album ("Exhibition of Dreams revisited") will be available on September 16th. Then, October 7th, it's time for the fourth episode of the "Archives" series, and last, but not least, my new solo album "Fears" is scheduled for October 29th.

As you could have read in my recent blog posts, I am currently involved into the final mixing stages of my first solo album since 5 years. Did I already mention I am extremely excited to share this with you?

Recent and upcoming solo releases overview:
May 13: "Exhibition of Dreams" / "Exhibition of Dreams" (bonus)
June 3: "The Art of Imagination"
June 24: "DisConnected" / "Connected" / "DisConnected Sessions" (bonus)
July 15: "Different Shades of Dust" / "A-Live" (bonus)
August 5: "Sense" / "Sense" (bonus)
August 26: "This Is Not The End" / "This Is Not The End" (bonus)
September 16: "EoD"
October 7: "Archives 4"
October 29: "Fears"

Violin recording

Yesterday I did another recording session for my upcoming studio album, "Fears".
Largest part of the compositions have been established by using synthesizers and samples. Besides, I have also recorded some parts on guitar.

Two of the tracks needed to be upgraded in some way. So I recently recorded a grand piano for one of the pieces, to let it sound more organic and natural. And I had in mind to record violin for the other one. My sister Irene took care of this. Yesterday, we recorded several parts, which will be layered in the end.
I decided to include real violin to add a more organic and dramatic feel to the specific track.

Coming weeks I am going to use for the mixing and completion of this track. The remaining titles will be fine-tuned too.

With at least one month to fix this, everything should be ready in time for the release of "Fears" on October 29th.

I can't hardly wait to share the new REMY album with you very soon! Finally, after five years.

Grand piano recording

Recording the Yamaha S6.
Photo by Kees Wesselius.

Yesterday I recorded a grand piano for one of the pieces of my upcoming album "Fears".

The current version of the track already contained a sampled piano sound, which sounded fine. But I felt there had to be used a real piano sound for that little extra. For this, I got the opportunity to record a friend's wonderful Yamaha S6.
Coming days I am going to select and mix the recordings.

And then I also have to work on one other track of the album. A track with an orchestral focus, for which it would be great if there could also be featured real strings. To be continued.

There still is some work to do, but it's a good thing that the completion of the new album is really getting near.

2016 + new album

Happy New Year!
Hope you are having a wonderful and healthy 2016.
Indeed surrounded with a lot of great music.


A very large part of last year I dedicated to activities with and around Free Arts Lab. On which I will definitely spend a lot more hours in 2016. But more about this later.

New studio album
Last summer I also recorded the material for what will become my tenth* studio album. Actually my first new solo release since 2011's "i-Dentity".

* Despite the fact "i-Dentity" partially consists of live recordings, you might consider 2009's "EoD" as my last solo album. And if you don't count this re-interpretation from my debut album "Exhibition of Dreams" - so not 100% new material - as a new solo album, it must be guaranteed "This Is Not The End", from 2008.
So it took me somewhere in between 5 and 8 years to come up with a new long player.
I am excited to finally have something completely new to share with you, very soon!

In the past five years I worked on a couple of other projects with for example Synth.nl, My Breath My Music, Ron Boots, Planet of the Arps and Free Arts Lab, and did some performances. Also a concert registration, "The Great Church Trilogy", was released on cd in 2011, and download only compilations "Archives 1" and "Archives 2" saw the light in 2015. And then there are even some projects on which I have also been working in the background. Which might have been the main explanation of the fact that the announcement of a new solo album took so long.

Besides, there was a need to come up with something slightly different from my recent albums. This simply needed time.

About the upcoming release
The new project is called "Fears".

One of the emotions that intrigues me is 'fear'. Just like all other emotions, it is part of human life. And there are moments that emotions affect our lives more than we want.
The impact differing for each situation. Some emotions - and so fears too - can be controlled. Some can't.

You can fear losing someone dear, fear failing a test or losing your job, fear stupidity or power, or you can have a phobia for creepy crawling creatures. Fears might be there when you encounter certain confrontations or when you enter a plane.

With our activity on the internet and the power of various media, more negativity than ever is being spread. Sometimes creating a lot of unneccessary fears. Today, terrorism, racism, hate, attacks and war are getting much closer than we want and than we are used to, by means of for example the large amounts of refugees, confrontations with extremism. But also in mind comes the increasing extreme weather. Just to name a few. 

In the end we should keep in mind that - especially in current times - fears should never get the upper hand of our regular lives! And that is not always that easy.

Airplay
The first excerpts from the new album can already be heard during upcoming radio shows:

- January 10th: House of Prog, REMY-special and interview (recorded in September, last year) by Iris Hidding:
https://www.facebook.com/events/981384411920205/

- January 16th: The Hawke Chill Out Sessions @ Harborough FM, live interview by Terry Hawke:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1641507272770596/

More details about the album, artwork, release, etc. will follow within the coming months.
There has not been set a release date yet.