On Tuesday, 29th of January in Tel Aviv at the Deli:
at 8pm I will give a little lecture with some examples of my own music and share some of the stories behind them and the music and art that has inspired me personally and professionally. It might get interesting, especially if you wonder what my non-techno influences might be!
Starting 11pm I will play some records with dearest Anna and Sousanna of Pacotek, and I would be delighted to see my dear Tel Aviv friends there!!
… and what could be better than kicking off with a show with the godfather of House Music himself, the one and only, almighty Frankie Knuckles in our almost-hometown Tel Aviv, at the legendary Block?
Catch us there on January 24th, or at one of the other stations all across Asia and Australia, with our all-new show, better than ever. More details to be shared soon. We are excited.Very much so.
The content of this podcast was recorded at the closing concert of this year’s ℅ pop festival in Cologne / Germany, which took place in the St. Michael’s church in the center of the city. It’s split into two parts (there was a short intermission between the two), the first 27 minutes consist of a composition for electronics and string ensemble named “Egress”, the second part is based on the quieter parts of my last album, “Cancerboy”.
I met the dear people of Smoke Machine from Taipeh / Taiwan last May in the Metrowaves Festival in Beijing, and it’s always amazing to find new friends with a similar outlook on art and music. So I’d like to thank Josh and the crew for the opportunity to share my music in places that I haven’t had the chance to visit yet (but hope to do that soon!).
About Egress:
“Egress is a work for string ensemble and electronics composed and recorded by Glitterbug, consisting of four chapters – Vacuity, Span, Stagger and Appraise.
Continuing his notable cinematic approach and pushing it to its next level, Glitterbug unveils Egress as audible storytelling, similar to radio-play and audio drama scores, dealing with notions of escape, isolation, loss, mourning, and undefined fear.
The composition’s thirty minutes are desolate and bare. They narrate an idea of a final, irreversible departure, presenting a soundtrack travelling through vacuous territories and hollow drifts. It narrates a void of inhabitable space, documenting the emotionality of the sound of a world post society, of a future in an unknown and possibly hostile place.
Egress is formed by a reduced musical structure, built upon discerning tonal subtleties, suspended single notes, and harmonics going slowly atonal.”
About Cancerboy:
Glitterbug’s albums, releases and remixes (on respected labels such as Mule, Nowtown, Ghostly, Ki Records and many more) have long placed him in a musical and artistic category of his own. He is a timeless, skillful and daring producer, immune to hypes and seasonal sub-genre fashions. He has developed his own particular musical language that spans seamlessly between deep techno and abstract intimate compositions, always poignant with score-like textures.
His 3rd studio album, Cancerboy, is another milestone conjoining powerful musical expression with heavy content. Cancerboy is an intimate autobiographical journey investigating one of the major experiences that shaped his life, his childhood struggle with cancer. Cancerboy is a personal, private chronicle of battles won and struggles lost, a sound-log suspended in an in-between world.
Cancerboy is an album on the edge of consciousness. Faraway reverbs and analog roughness gain presence, and forward strides an unreserved sound; candid, direct and near. It’s music that allows itself to be angry and desperate, to battle and depart, to challenge and gall. Yet within all its darkness are driving, hopeful moments that shine bright – celebrating a deep love of life.
I am super excited and happy to be back in Beijing. Thanks Mumu and Markus of Metrowaves for having me! I will be playing live at the Metrowaves Stage @ Intro Festival and DJ at the Metrowaves after party @ Migas in Sanlitun, Beijing.
EDIT: The Intro Festival was moved to a different location- find more info here.
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me:con expands with its “metrowaves stage” at this years intro festival, china’s biggest annual festival for electronic dance music taking place in beijing on may 26 for its fourth edition.
artists from beijing, shanghai, hong kong, taipei and germany are gathering to share electronic music culture with the festival audience. the me:con 2012 convention will be wrapped by the “metrowaves night” at migas the evening,
from 10 pm until late – with:
glitterbug, cologne – germany | terry tu, beijing | mu xiahu, beijing | ocean lam, hong kong (humdrum) | wendy wenn , hong kong (small&tall) | kenneth c, taipei (smokemachine) | doggy, shanghai (master builder) | esa, shanghai (bangin! bangin!)
This was our last show before the pre-album-release break (Cancerboy is out May 7th, 2012, we’ll be back on stage in April!). Thanks to the lovely people at Glashaus Bayreuth, it was such a great pleasure to be on your stage. We could have not hoped for a nicer tour finale!! And also a very special mega thanks to the dear 24h Kollektiv people!
The set was recorded straight from my sub mixer, stereo out, into a small Tascam recorder, that’s it. No further editing or post production has been done to the file.
I have been neglecting this blog for quite a few months now, not necessarily because I wanted to, but more because the past few months have been so intense and draining that I barely had the time or energy to write.
Much has happened in the past half year, on many different levels. Some that are closer to me might have heard that my father died this April, which has been a challenge on many different levels. But that is a way too long and a tad too personal story to be shared at length on a blog…
So, besides my process of mourning and taking care for my father’s mess he has left behind (he was an artist and died suddenly, and left 1500sqm of studio space behind), I actually worked on A LOT of music. And since my music is what keeps me sane and going, I have been tangled in a strangely productive, yet very inverted and emotional production process. Bellow please read about a few of my projects that I either finished or that are still going to be released this year.
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I am very happy and very proud that I finished my third album, Cancerboy, which will be out on c.sides in February 2012. It actually is a techno album about the disease cancer, and yes, it is auto biographical. It’s a very dense and very personal album, and probably the most intense I have ever worked on so far. More info to be shared soon.
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Out since Monday, September 12th is the double CD compilation ‘Audible Approaches For A Better Place’ (visit the microsite here), which has fantastic new and exclusive works by beloved artists like Brandt Brauer Frick // Enas Massalha // Eliad Wagner // Christian Löffler // Khan // John Farah // Jasmina Maschina // Mads Brauer & Casper Clausen of Efterklang // Gold Panda and my humble self feat. the fantastic Israeli-Palestinian soprano Enas Massalha.
If you fancy to pick up a hard copy, it’s available internationally. You can also order it on Kompakt’s website or download it from iTunes, Juno, Zero Inch and alikes.
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Additionally, there is an EP of mine to still be released in 2011 on the Israeli label False Ind. It consists of a 4 part composition for strings and electronics and is titled “Egress”. It will come with remixes by dear friends and fellow artists The Sight Below, Tilman Erhorn and the man behind False Ind., Yair Etziony.
A few more words about the work:
Egressis a work for string ensemble and electronics composed and recorded by Glitterbug, consisting of four chapters – Vacuity, Span, Stagger and Appraise.
Continuing his notable cinematic approach and pushing it to its next level, Glitterbug unveils Egress as audible storytelling, similar to radio-play and audio drama scores, dealing with notions of escape, isolation, loss, mourning, and undefined fear.
The composition’s thirty minutes are desolate and bare. They narrate an idea of a final, irreversible departure, presenting a soundtrack travelling through vacuous territories and hollow drifts. It narrates a void of inhabitable space, documenting the emotionality of the sound of a world post society, of a future in an unknown and possibly hostile place.
Egress is formed by a reduced musical structure, built upon discerning tonal subtleties, suspended single notes, and harmonics going slowly atonal.
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Also out in November 2011 will be a remix I made for our dear friends over at Ki Records, for Biodub’s ‘Baracuda, taken off his album ‘Reisegefährte‘. And yeah, it’ll be out on wax!
Next on, I will be working on a split EP on Ki Records, with New York’s native Konroy . It’s super exciting to have to opportunity to work with such a great new talent! It’s gonna be a wonderful, deep and emotional EP, ‘nough said!
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Also still out this year, will be a track of mine that will be released on der friends Mark & Matt Thibideau’s Obsolete Components from Canada. The homework was to create an entire track solely recorded with only ONE analogue synth, and I chose one of my most favorites of all times: the Yamaha CS 15.
“Electric Lairs” is entirely based on the Yamaha CS15. No other sound sources have been used. Besides EQs on the channels, I only used some reverb, tape delay and a little bit of compression on the bass drum part. Also, I didn’t sequence it, all parts are played live and recorded and mixed in Logic… My CS15 also has a bit of a sad story, since it was previously owned by Christian Morgenstern, who suddenly died in 2003. A mutual friend, Falko Brocksieper, was asked by Christians parents to take apart and sell off his studio after he passed away, and Falko asked me if I would maybe like to have this very particular one. I took it and loved it ever since.
It has been very silent around these parts, and that is largely to some private matters I had to urgently deal with, and also due to the fact that I wanted to have my main focus on finalizing my next album (to be released later this year). I will soon write at length about a few things- but before I find a calm moment to do so, I wanted to announce 2 shows in Israel in the upcoming two weeks:
First up, is a live performance of Glitterbug & Ronni Shendar together with our dear friends of Pacotek and Jennifer Cardini on the 15th of July at the Ozen Bar, King George St. 48 in Tel Aviv. I will be mostly playing materials from the upcoming album!
On the 22nd of July, I will play another DJ set at a yet to be announced location, as well in Tel Aviv…
