glitterbug

As some of you might know, i am at the Dancity Festival in Foligno/ Italy. The first thing i noticed when i came in was that the Italians obviously used a picture of our beloved cat Pnina for some strange name tagging on kittens campaign in the airport:

Is it something about nameless cats not accepting borders? I have to work on my Italian i guess.

I am trying really hard to oppress the memory of the 2 hour car ride from the airport in Rome to Foligno… the scenery was (or better: would have been) breathtaking, sadly our driver had this strange desire to exceed the speed limits by at least 100 km/h. I was in the same car with some of the other artists that i would later on play with, the amazing Juju & Jordash and legendary Move D, and it was quite a bonding experience for all of us. Scared for life as Tracy Moffat would say…

But once we arrived, we met such wonderful and amazing and dedicated people that made us forget the car ride immediately. Thank you all in the Dancity organization for making this such a great festival experience for all of us!

Sadly, it was raining all day and evening, so the outdoors stage where us three were supposed to perform at was closed, and we had to move the performance to the indoors. And if that would have not been enough, Italians have no clue how to deal with rain in the summer, so there were less people in the audience as anticipated by the organizers. Such a pity, such a great line up! I hope that everybody that did not show up last night is banging their heads against the wall. Tonight is going to be amazing too, so i hope the crowd will come and that the weather will be a little nicer today. Look:

As always, i did not take many pictures of the venue or performances, i guess we were all pretty stressed about moving our equipment all the time… here is our poor little stage that drowned in the evil rain:

and the inside stage for the seated performances:

But this was our hotel garden:

and the scenic view from my roof top balcony (which even has a private Jahcoozi…):

While walking through this nice little town, we found a huge “Hello Kitty” store- and i totally need those suitcases:

Here is an example for a very special snack bar:

Activities took place all over the city, sometimes using locals as awkward decoration:

and yes, we also had a lot of coffee:

In case you are in the area, please swing by and say hello!!! It’s actually a pretty fabulous lineup the Dancity Festival has this year, just like in previous years… I am almost off to the airport, and couldn’t be more excited about it.

They also say really nice things about me… you can find the original post here.

“Till Rohmann, in arte Glitterbug, è stato sicuramente una delle rivelazioni del 2008. Il suo primo album “Supershelter” ha stupito davvero tutti. Un album di evidente impronta techno che riesce come per magia ad apparire delicato e morbido.

Glitterbug ha dato forma al suo originalissimo stile musicale mentre frequentava acid party illegali per poi continuare sulla scena techno sperimentale di Colonia degli anni 90, fortemente influenzato da una grande passione per la musica house gay, dalle sonorità della prima Chicago e della tarda Detroit. Combinando tutti questi mondi in un ritmo proprio, Glitterbug tentava di unire nuove idee, nozioni, contenuti ed emozioni in nuovi “aromi” mirando direttamente al cuore. Dal 2004 Glitterbug ha trascorso gran parte del suo tempo in Israele esibendosi con molti dj e contribuendo allo sviluppo della scena techno israeliana, grazie a scambi e ingaggi di artisti, e con lo stimato “c.sides festival for electronic music and critical media arts”, del quale sin dall’inizio nel 2004, è stato uno dei principali ideatori e curatori. Il genio di Glitterbug si è fatto notare su una marea di palchi in giro per il mondo e questa al Dancity Festival è la sua prima esibizione in Italia!”

We just got the confirmation: Ronni and I will be the opening show for the c/o pop festival this year, together with Moderat at the Gloria Theatre on the 12th of August 2009. More info coming soon.

My next EP, to be released late September, early October on c.sides, will be named ‘Dim Flares’, will have 4 brand new tracks on it and I think it’s quite a beauty. It’s very different from ‘Supershelter’- yet carrying some of the moods with it. But soon you will be able to hear for yourself!

Hurray! Hurray! Next Friday, Ronni and I will be going to Florence to the MUV Festival for the first presentation of our brand new live show. As mentioned before, we have been busy over the past few months re-constructing our joined A/V live performance, and next week will be the first public presentation.

And because it all sounds so nice in Italian, here is what the nice people from MUV are writing about our show:

“GLITTERBUG (DE) + RONNI SHENDAR (IL) live a/v
Glitterbug inizia a sviluppare il suo stile originale alla fine degli anni’80 durante parties illegali e continua sulla scena sperimentale techno di Colonia negli anni ’90, rimanendo sempre fortemente influenzato dal suo amore per la house-music, di Chicago e di Detroit. Il suo stile si caratterizza per la continua ricerca di nuove idee, contenuti ed emozioni scovate dentro nuove espressività che da sempre animano le sue produzioni. Dal 2004 il suo palco preferito diventa Israele, dove prima suona svariate volte e poi si dedica allo sviluppo della scena techno locale, attraverso lo scambio di artisti e il rinomato ‘c.sides che cura in collaborazione con Ronni Shendar. Quando non è in tour in Medio Oriente o bloccato nel suo studio a registrare, viene chiamato spesso ad esibirsi in USA e in Giappone. Negli ultimi 5 anni si è occupato principalmente del ‘c.sides oltre a prendere parte ad innumerevoli progetti: composizione di colonne sonore, esperienze alla radio, creazione di video e di installazioni, partecipazione ad infiniti eventi pubblici che lo hanno reso famoso in tutto il mondo.
Ronni Shendar, artista israeliana, fotografa e video-maker, porta una dimensione del tutto nuova alle live performance di Glitterbug. Ronni Shendar riesce a disegnare i concetti e le emozioni espresse nel glorioso album di Glitterbug, Supershelter, creando un ponte tra due diversi mezzi d’espressione. Le sue opere sono state presentate ed esposte in mostre e festival internazionali, tra cui il Festival di Cannes e nel museo ebreo di Francoforte. Attiva anche come curatrice, è stata finanziatrice e direttrice del rinomato ‘c.sides, festival israeliano di musica elettronica.”

First of all, sorry for not writing for such a long time… it’s been a rather calm period, at least from the outside, i have mostly been in the studio, working on new materials (there is a new EP on c.sides coming in September, and: a new album in the making too), and Ronni Shendar and I have been busy rehearsing and working on our brand new show, that we will start touring with next week.

So, I am about to leave our beautiful cozy studio and to start to mingle with the real world again. I am sure that there will be a lot of amazing stories to be shared… Next week, we will start in Italy with the MUV Festival in Firence (Florence), after that I am very excited to be playing at the Dancity Festival, and in July i will be in Berlin and Beijing… thats right, i get to play in China!

So, stay tuned via the dates/gigs page and watch out for many new interviews, articles, videos and photos from all these amazing places, that I will start posting shortly. I can’t wait!!