glitterbug

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.

Here’s the full version of our piece:

Glitterbug feat Enas Massalha-The Sky Fell Silent by Glitterbug

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:

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.

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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.

I will be leaving to Austria tomorrow (April 23rd, 2011), playing at the Fluc Wanne with the very nice Klub Kariert people. That’s old news. But look at those cute posters and flyers!!

I usually don’t steal from other blogs, but in this specific case, I would like to point to a very exciting project that Ronni Shendar and I have been working on for the past few months, and that is slowly wrapping up. And why writing it all over again if somebody else already said it all, and even so beautifully?

The video bellow was created by Ronni Shendar, the soundtrack was made by me.

You can find the original post on Ronni’s blog here.

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“I created the video above for the HKW Lokal concert series at the Haus der Kulturn der Welt as part of the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST (Art of Living) initiative, in Berlin.

The 4-part concert series brings Berlin’s international music scene to set the climate change to music: From “Apocalypse Culture” to “Audible Approaches for a Better Place”, from Trucker Songs in the age of electric engines to “climate change” between human voice and computer-generated sounds.

Till Rohmann aka Glitterbug not only created the soundtrack for the video, but he and myself also curated the last event “Audible Approaches for a Better Place” – an evening of 10 performances of diverse artists who each created a new dedicated piece for this evening, all sharing one common goal of making a humble contribution to making this world better and more just through audible means.

You can read more about the project and its upcoming release on the c.sides Label in my previous post. Participants include: Mads Brauer and Casper Clausen (of Efterklang), Gold Panda, Khan (Oral), Jasmina Maschina, Christian Löffler, John Farah, Eliad Wagner, Enas Massalha and the joint project of Glitterbug & Enas Massalha, as well as some very special guests.

HKW Lokal Concert Series

7 April, 8pm
ELECTRIC TRUCKS & HYBRID HOT RODS
DM Bob & Speedy Jake 

Jimmy Trash & the Gunpowder Temple of Heaven 


28 April, 8pm
NATURE VS. MAN
9

September Collective feat. Chor der Kulturen der Welt


5 May 2011, 8pm
ANIMAL POLITICAL SONGS
Animal Cops

Lord Mouse and the Kalypso Katz

12 May 8 pm
AUDIBLE APPROACHES FOR A BETTER PLACE
Mini festival with 10 acts including:
Casper Clausen and Mads Brauer (of EFTERKLANG) feat. Karim Ghahwagi (visuals)
Christian Löffler
Eliad Wagner
Enas Massalha
Gold Panda
Glitterbug & Ronni Shendar feat. Enas Massalha
Jasmina Maschina
John Farah
Khan
and very special surprise guests (to be revealed in May)

It has been very quiet here lately, and I would like to apologize for that. The past two months have been insanely busy, not only with being in the studio, but also with all kinds of other projects, after December and parts of January saw heavy traveling and insane amounts of deadlines.

So, here are the latest news:

The upcoming months will bring quite a few new releases of my music. Funnily, it seems this will be the Glitterbug ambient spring… the next Mule Musiq ambient compilation “Enjoy the Silence Vol. 2″ will have a piece of mine. The release date is the 23rd of May. Very proud, very happy me!

Maybe even before, an EP of 4 abstract compositions (accompanied by a remix of Rafael Anton Irisarri aka The Sight Below) will be released on our good friend Yair Etziony’s label False Ind.

c.sides is also venturing off to new release-adventures. Coming up next is a 2xCD compilation under the beautiful title “Audible Approaches For A Better Place”, which is a series of mini-compositions (each 15 minutes long) which will be performed live by all participating artists in Berlin on the 12th of May, in the HKW (House of World Cultures). More info to be shared soon, but the release will see exclusive and eclectic works of our dear friends and favorite-ever artists like Efterklang, Christian Loeffler, Brandt Brauer Frick, Gold Panda, Khan Oral, Jasmina Maschina, Eliad Wagner, my humble Glitterbug self in a collaboration with Isralei-Palestinian opera singer Enas Massalha and visual genius Ronni Shendar, Enas Massalha solo, and John Farah. The idea for the evening and the CD-compilation came as both a response to the overwhelming issues of global and local injustices and a very naive and sincere belief that art in its essence is a political act and path to changing the world. It’s both cynical and self-humorous while totally genuine and heartfelt: To make something beautiful and thoughtful; to dedicate a little bit of our creative time to ponder about these things and to do this on stage with other artists and the audience.

Besides working on these bits and pieces, I am also in the advancing stages of composing and recording my next album, which will be released in the late fall. It’s gonna be- well, how shall I put it- quite serious auto-biographical techno. The title will be ‘Cancerboy’. More to be shared soon!

In addition, there are a few more things in the making, like probably two more dance-y EPs, a score for a movie, and some commissioned works. Never a dull moment!

As of performances, we decided to take a few weeks off to be able to wrap up our studio duties, before we will be touring again all of April, with a fully revised live show that already incorporates some of the new album materials. Some of the highlights include a show at Unsound New York on April 9th, maybe an installation at Boulder/CO’s Communikey Festival (TBC), shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles, a performance in Geneva’s famous Electron festival on April 21st and finalizing the April tour, a show in Vienna at Fluc on the 23rd of April.

After the utter traffic chaos in Germany and barely making it to our flight from Frankfurt airport, we made it to Mumbai on the 22nd of December in the wee hours of the night.

This city is still immense in all its extremes, its noisiness, its poverty and extreme differences. After our performance tour in India in 2009, I left the country with a feeling of despair- this time I am a little bit calmer, and feel that I was better prepared than last time. But it still is quite an overwhelming experience to be here. But more about that in a later post.

We arrived at our hotel on Tuesday 22nd at 5 in the morning, and already had to leave to soundcheck for the first show at 11am- enough to take a nap and to have a quick breakfast.

First up was a DJ gig at the Mood Indigo Festival at the IIT Mumbai, all the way in the north of the city. The venue looked like this:

The promoters got me a massive array of 16 speakers, but sadly no turntables first (I actully had to pull out a 12” to demonstrate that they don’t fit into a CD player!)… the technicians were trying really hard to help by surrounding the mixer:

I had to improvise a little until those arrived, and play a DJ set with one of those programs I usually use with vinyl control. But most importantly, the crowd seemed to not notice that parts of my equipment were simply not there, and a few minutes after the doors were opened, the place looked like this:

DJ culture here looks very different from where we come from. There is much more of a culture of requesting songs (it’s customary to even have a pile of sheets and a pen to write down wishes and to write who requested it, and to whom it should be dedicated):

(Sorry to the unknown person that gave this to me, I did not have any Hindi music to play!)

Sadly, we had to run off after playing for a bit longer than an hour and a half, since we had to go to soundcheck at the evening venue for our live show, the Blue Frog, where “The Tilt Festival” took place, where we were supposed to be the final show of the evening.

The night went really well! Strangely, the entire city has xmas decor all over, and the Blue Frog was no exception.

(This image was stolen from missmalini’s blog)

We were told that it became somewhat fashionable to celebrate Christmas… this is what they put up in front of our hotel:

The last thing I want to share in this post is a quite hilarious article that was published in the Hindustan Times. Funnily, the “quotes” from us are made up, nobody ever talked to us, and my music was now filed under a new category: “Glitter Music”. lol… but read for yourself! The original article can be found here.

Sounds of Cologne
by Sharin Bhatti

Visuals form an essential part of any live set that cuts across genres. Music producer and DJ Till Rohmann understands that. The German producer has found an apt accomplice in Israeli photographer and visual artist Ronni Shendar. They have created a unique outfit that plays music to visuals, and pairs the visuals with live music.

Rohmann adopted the name Glitterbug and created a new media art form that one could club to – ‘glitter music’. Mumbai will play host to Glitterbug and Shendar at the two-day music festival Tilt at Blue Frog, tonight.

“I developed my own sound in the ’80s when I would spin at underground parties. Cologne was open to new music and new sounds by the early ’90s, and that is when I discovered an audience that was receptive to a new art form – visual music. I didn’t want the same regular club music. I wanted to do something different,” says Rohmann, who met Shendar and found in her visual talent -something that he could spin live to.

“She had an eye for everything historical. That really interested me and we started working together,” says Rohmann, who spins to Shendar’s evocative visuals that include urban landscapes, nature, wildlife and abstract road travels.

During their time in India, Rohmann is certain that Shendar will document her travels through Mumbai. “We capture frames of every place we visit. Mumbai, I believe, is pictorially very rich. It would be interesting to make music to the cityscapes,” says Rohmann.

We feel very lucky and fortunate that we will have a little performance tour in Norway next month, with shows in Oslo, Bergen, and Tromsø if were are very lucky. The promoter of our Bergen show made the effort to create this little promotional video, and we are flattered… Thank you!!!

nabovarsel: glitterbug promo 1 from Jacob Lysgaard on Vimeo.

…and it’s soooo incredibly beautiful. Make sure to watch it in HD and full screen mode!!! It’s so totally worth it!!!

Glitterbug – Calcutta from Ronni Shendar on Vimeo.

… taken by Ronni Shendar:

And for our joint live shows, with Ronni in the frame:

Hurray! It’s done! After hours and hours of HTMLing (which i haven’t done in a while), I hereby proudly announce the new micro site for my upcoming album ‘Privilege’.

You can find the microsite under www.privilege.csides.net

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.