REMY - The Other Side [new album release]

For April 11th there are scheduled three new album releases on my Deserted Island Music label:

- Mäläskä - First Day of Spring
- REMY - The Other Side
- Space Art - Entrevues

I have already spotlighted two of these albums on this blog the last couple of days.
And now concluding with my own new release: "The Other Side".

Pre-order your copy from www.desertedislandmusic.nl




REMY - The Other Side
Deserted Island Music | DIM-010 | CD and digital download | Release date: April 11th, 2020

“The Other Side” is about the other side of each story, everything we don’t know, and all those things we will never be able to imagine or understand.

TRACKLIST
1. A Different View
2. Everything is Distraction
3. The Perfect Dream
4. Lost in Reality  

THE ALBUM
 This most conceptual project to date by renowned Dutch musician of electronic music REMY (Remy Stroomer, 1979) reflects the composer's curiosity about our existence, presence and perception here on this place and at this time, and everything attached to it.

The Other Side consists of four extensive music pieces.
For the musical direction, Remy slightly refers to the kind of music from the beginning of his career, more than 20 years ago. Partially winking to the Berlin School of electronic music, but also including plenty of elements that make REMY’s unique musical style recognisable: stretched out, repetitive and story-telling pieces, evolving sequencer-patterns, and subtle details and layering.

The overture, A Different View, is about thinking different and opposite from the mainstream. Approaching things from another point of view leads to new or different insights.
The second track imagines a point of view which human being is never capable to imagine. We are constantly focussing on the things we know from experience, and all things we have been told and educated. What if Everything is Distraction from the real essence? If there is any.
The Perfect Dream questions how dreams and reality are connected to eachother. A dream so perfect that it could be reality. Or is it reality? With musical and conceptual winks to Klaus Schulze's 1986 album Dreams, which has always been one of the main inspirations for REMY’s music.
The concluding epos Lost in Reality is trying to find a way through a world of dreams and reality. Quietly putting things into perspective, while trying not to lose it from insanity.



COLLABORATIONS
The Other Side includes a number of interesting collaborations, which resulted into this dynamic project.

Bas Broekhuis (photo 1), Joost Verhagen and Judith Wesselius (photo 2), Nausikaä de Blaauw (photo 3).

The album's second track, Everything is Distraction, features drums and percussion by Bas Broekhuis (Broekhuis, Keller & Schönwälder).

For the project's finale, Joost Verhagen converted the project’s subject into text, and Judith Wesselius created the vocal structure. Both Grey Lotus vocalists make the second part of the 23 minute final epos Lost in Reality complete, trying to find a connection between dream and reality.
While Judith relativates tranquillizing, the narrating Joost becomes insane near the end.

Photographer Nausikaä de Blaauw did various photo sessions using a mirror to visualize The Other Side. Each of the selected photos is linked to one of the album’s titles.

THE COMPOSER
Remy Stroomer is born on October 9th, 1979 in Haarlem, The Netherlands. Although Remy tries to let hear his own things and following his own intuition on his musical journey, Klaus Schulze is often mentioned in comparison to Remy's musical style.

At the end of 1999, Remy's debuts with the self-released Exhibition of Dreams. The Art of Imagination is released nearly a year later. With this album Remy wins a Schwingungen award. In the years after Remy releases various albums and performs in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.
2011's i-Dentity marks a new era, with the establishment of Remy's Deserted Island Music label, on which his latest albums are being released.

Remy collaborated with a large number of established musicians, including Ron Boots, Eric van der Heijden, Harold van der Heijden, Bill Fox, Gert Emmens, Eric Wøllo, Francis Rimbert, Synth.nl, Thomas Betzler, Moonbooter, My Breath My Music, Wolfram Spyra, Mario Schönwälder,
Bas Broekhuis, David Wright and Space Art.

New studio album 2019

While my ambient side-project "Planet of the Arps" is still smoking from its recent release, the production of my upcoming studio album also nears completion. It will be the first REMY album since 2016's "Fears".

The mixes of two of the four tracks are already finished. For the other two tracks some exciting additions have recently been recorded. These tracks are currently undergoing the process of being mixed.

Although the entire album will consist of electronic music, the final album track contains vocals by two lovely singers, known from their involvement into Haarlem post-rock formation Grey Lotus:
Joost Verhagen wrote the text to second part of the 22 minutes track, and Judith Wesselius arranged the structure of the lyrics. Their appearance on the finale part of the track is a mix of singing and spoken word, resulting into a bizarre trip.

Last weekend, for the remaining energetic sequencing track there have been recorded additional drums and percussion by Bas Broekhuis.
The recorded parts are a real blast.

Within a few weeks these tracks should have been mixed. I am really excited for the final results.

In addition to the musical part, Nausikaä de Blaauw made a wonderful photo series, representing the album's art concept I have had in mind.

Within the coming weeks there will be revealed more details about the album, its concept, featured collaborations, and more.

For now, there is no release date scheduled yet, but I am aiming for the end of 2019.

Mäläskä live at Pletterij and Patronaat

Mäläskä @ Pletterij (Photo by Albert Laanbroek).

Last week we experienced some really great vibes during our Mäläskä concerts.
The inspiring artistic collaboration of some lovely fellow-musicians resulted into an exciting output which we could never have predicted. And that is exactly what I like so much about Mäläskä!
Both evenings were a real blast sharing our musical journey with a lot of you. And it felt good to receive so much positive response.

Monday we kicked off with our full show at the Pletterij. In first instance intended as try-out for our performance at the Patronaat the day after, but as we had the whole evening, we also planned to do a full session for a second part.
The try-out part was Mäläskä featuring Tristan 'Lama Waaien' on bass guitar. This also was the line-up we intended for the Patronaat.

After having finished our threesome of 40 minutes, a break followed.
For the session, also Bas Broekhuis (percussion) and Joost Verhagen (vocals) joined us on stage.
We played around 35 minutes, and took another short break before doing an encore of 10 minutes.
I can try to describe the performances' content, but why not watching the entire (live streamed) concert yourself?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsfPRsScNY

Mäläskä @ Patronaat (Photo by Nausikaä de Blaauw).

Tuesday we entered the stage at the Patronaat. Performing half an hour as support for the main act, Acid Mothers Temple.
The approach was slightly different, as we now really had to stop playing at the 30 minutes mark, instead of playing and seeing where it should end. Besides, we wanted to anticipate musically on the main act. Which was another challenge.
After the fruitful collaboration at the Pletterij, we decided to also invite Joost Verhagen for this gig.
For both evenings Petter prepared some different loops. None of the musicians heard these loops in advance, so we had to fully rely on the moment.
And to be honest, I think it worked out quite well on both evenings.

This Patronaat gig was also filmed. The material is being edited right now, so this will soon be shared with you too!

Many thanks to everyone at the Pletterij and Patronaat, crew, musicians, Acid Mothers Temple, and indeed everyone who attended the concerts and was part of the experience.

Coming time we are planning to bring more Mäläskä to you. So stay tuned!
If you have suggestions for us to perform, don't hesitate to share it with us.