Again, we would like to thank everybody that made this night possible: the Trouw in Amsterdam, 360 (aka Nuno dos Santos and Patrice Baeumel), our dear friends in Amsterdam,and, last not least, the fantastic audience!
Glitterbug & Ronni Shendar LIVE @ Trouw Amsterdam! from c.sides on Vimeo.
The worst period of them all has started: the waiting period. My next album is done and ready, printed and stocked and sent out to journalists and reviewers, and at the moment there is very little to do for me, other than waiting in suspense and curiosity to see what the rest of the world will think of this epic double album I have been working on for more than a year. There is a bunch of other really exciting projects I am involved in at the moment- I am writing a score for a film, working on a remix for my most favorite Danish band ever, play with my cats and endless other things- but the main project that did not let me breathe for such an intense period is done and settled. Strange feeling!
But amidst all this waiting, I finally have time to listen to music that is NOT my from next album or written by me, and to take a deep breath and to re-discover some parts of the world that were lost out of sight amidst the isolation that intensive production periods come with.
And in the past few days I rediscovered a few things that have been unbelievable influential in my life and in my artistic upbringing if i may call it that way, and that still love and admire whole-hardetly.
So let’s call this the beginning of a new blog series: discovery / rediscovery.
I would like to start with Meredith Monk. I first discovered her music on a CD in 1987, at the troubled aged of 15… and even though at the time I could not find the right words to describe why this music touched me so much, it did and I immediately started buying everything of hers I could find. Until today, some of her works make me cry. I am not sure if I can relate to her newer stuff all the much, but ‘DolmenMusic’, ‘Book of Days’ and ‘Turtle Dreams’ remain three of my most favorite records ever, besides the materials she released on Wergo.
A few days back, I randomly stumbled upon a documentary that Peter Greenaway did in 1983: it’s called “Four American Composers”, and the part on Meredith Monk can even be found on youtube, strange but thankfully true. I sadly never saw her performing live, but to see her talking about her work and to see excerpts of her performances strangely made me understand myself a little more, and why i could always connect to her work and music so much. Even though it does not do her work justice to watch it in shitty youtube quality, it might be really hard to get your hands on the VHS tapes of the original series, so- enjoy the movie! It’s incredible. And incredibly touching.
Wow. What a night. What an audience. What a club (the Trouw in Amsterdam). And 360 (aka Nuno dos Santos and Patrice Baeumel) are at least as fantastic. Great that the night was filmed (the pictures below are stills from the video footage). Excerpts of the video will be posted soon!
Not in our faintest dreams could we have hoped for a better night to premiere our new show.
Ronni Shendar made an amazing video for ‘Glare’, one of the tracks of Christian Löffler’s fantastic ‘Raise EP’. For more info, go to c.sides’ website…
Christian Löffler – ‘Glare’ (c.sides006) from c.sides on Vimeo.
Somebody was so kind to put more videos of that night online, that we keep in such good memory… it was our last show of the October/November 2009 performance tour, and we really ripped our hearts out that night. Audio quality is so so, but it’s amazing to have these snippets online. We had so much fun!!
Well, not the whole thing, but a few really great snippets. Note to myself: no more chewing gum on stage!!!
Glitterbug & Ronni Shendar from c.sides on Vimeo.
Resident Advisor today published a long long article about our performance tour in India last November. It’s in the features category, and here is the direct link…
If you want a PDF of the article, you can download it here.
We are so happy and excited to announce our gig at the legendary Trouw club, on February 6th, 2010.
We are playing with the fabulous 360 Dj team, consisting of the fantastic Patrice Bäumel and legendary Nuno dos Santos, two of the amazing Dutchies we were fortunate enough to meet in the past few months.
Also, many many thanks to wonderful Esther aka Estroe holding up the sign in the picture, and to the two bystanders, Johanna Mercker and Eva Maria! The picture was taken at the Trouw after the three’s gig in early January.
There is a loooong article (sorry, all in German, but for our dear English speakers: Resident Advisor will publish a long issue too) about our performance tour in India in the current issue (No. 139) of the German De:Bug magazine, and the PDF can be found here.
Thanks to Arno Raffeiner for joining us for the whole trip and writing all these articles, and thanks to Ronni Shendar who did not stop taking all these amazing pictures along the way!!
Happy 2010 everybody! And: as of today, there is no turning back- I just handed over the master CDs to the company handling the physical production. And i am very very VERY happy to announce that in just a few months, on the 17th of May to be exact, my next album will be released.
The title is ‘Privilege’, and this time it’s a double CD, consisting of 20 tracks and a total running time of 2 hours and 21 minutes. There will also be a double vinyl edition of the album. It comes with a stunningly beautiful, extensive booklet by Ronni Shendar, featuring photographs that she took during our joint performance tours in 2009.
I worked for more than a year on this album, and I am really proud (and relieved) that it’s finally done. ‘Privilege’ is a very serious album in many ways.
‘Privilege’ deals, in a very abstract way, with the fortune of living out a dream in a world that does not grant all people with the same opportunities. Over the last year I had the fortune to visit places around the globe in which I felt the obscene wealth of opportunities I have in life. It’s hard to bear that the majority of humanity will never have the chance to even dream of who and what they could have been. More will be said about it soon…
And now I wish I hadn’t have to wait for another four months for it to be out…