Next Concert of Pianosalon Christophori...

... this thursday in Berlin, Zellestr. 12, 8:30 pm. Two pianists playing tango (Piazolla & others) and Debussy. What is Pianosalon Christophori? See below!
tataratam

berlin: End of this week - Jacques Palminger meets Cote d'Ivoire

Since 1960 you have to say "Cote d'Ivoire", the west african state officially dislikes translations as Ivory Coast or Elfenbeinküste since it became independent just 50 Years ago. Here you will find a small radio piece (german) on the events around the ivorien declaration of independence.

Abidjan is the capital of the Cote d'Ivoire (even if president Felix Houphouet-Boigny officially declared his small home village capital, where he had had built a 2nd St. Peter's Basilica and huge highways which remained completely empty ever since). The main road for nightlife in Abidjan is the Rue Princesse, home of Ivorien urban music styles as "Zouglou" and "Coupé Décalé" ("cut & rearrange")
Therefore Rue princesse is also the name of a German-Ivorien-Festival, that starts this thursday with movies, theater, performance, fashion shows etc. And of course with concerts featuring Chicks on Speed, Shaggy Sharoof, Erobique and Gadoukou le Star with promising programme titles as "Weißenscheiß" and "Gruß an die Weltbank" ("Eloge to World Bank", "Shit of Whites"), Hamburgs enfant terrible Jacques Palminger almost certainly holds responsible for.

Die Klavier-Kleopatra

A praise of side thoughts during concerts of serious music

Don't force your attention if it is not ready!

It is a hard piece of work to follow a complex music composition over its entire length of 20, 40 or more minutes. This holds true especially for classical music. You will need to train your abilities in concentration, if you want to consciously experience all the musical ideas brought to you, while you listen to a piano sonata. Since I did not manage to listen to a lot of classical or other long form music recently, I had a difficult time following, when I visited the Pianosalon Christophori last friday. Especially since the sounds resonating in the rooms of the music school of Friedrichshain were capricious sonatas of Robert Schumann. Now the question is, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer while clenching on to the musical happenings, or to let loose and even encourage your mind to drift away to other realms... Would that be OK?

Short side thought:

Why music school of Friedrichshain? Neurologist Christoph Schreiber runs a Piano Repair Shop in his spare time, where he holds weekly concerts with extraordinary musisicians performing on restored historic pianos (covered already on broia and in Der Tagesspiegel) Since the repair shop had to move out for the second time within just a few months, the concerts now temporarily take place in the state run music school of Friedrichshain, Zellestrasse 12.

 

Alas! Of course it is OK! It is up to you, what you think about during a concert, as long as you remain quiet. And the Pianosalon Christophori concerts really invite you to drift away. Of course you will have  to listen to long forms, to train your concentration. Anyway, it is fine let your thoughts drift once in a while.

Maria Myscheva, performer of the night, stages herself as something like the Kleopatra of Piano (Klavier-Kleopatra) - an aesthetic experience which is a bit distracting even if you are focussed on the music. So my first side thought that evening had been: is that one of the reasons why she won prizes? She played stunningly well, especially the sonata No.2. Still if you take a look at today's classical record releases, you might think piano or violin competitions must somehow include erotic parameters in their judgement.

The second half of the concert I was thinking over the gentleman of around 60 who was impressed by me opening his bottle of beer with another one. He never had seen that before. You may take this as a sign, that the audience was not the crowd you usually spend your evenings with. But you may also think about the fact, that at the Pianosalon Christophori you can drink beer while listening to classical music, even if you have to open the bottles yourself. Instead of boring you with my other side thoughts that night I conclude:

Dear Reader,

in summary please keep in mind, that for around 15 € you have the opportunity to join this delicate Piano Salon Concert almost every week. Even in the soulless surroundings of a state music school, you can not only witness but be part of an intimate musical experience as well as – if you are not too much taken away by the music - the small stories to the side

tataratam

Frere-Jones on Arcade Fire and record deals

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2010/08/16/100816on_audio_frerejones
(thank you Frieda)

The Color That Your Eyes Changed With The Color Of Your Hair

Found on Tiny Mix Tapes

Hassle Hound am Nachmittag

Soft, ja geradezu mellow. Richtig schön und richtig schön verspult. Genau das richtige für einen trüben Nachmittag
http://www.myspace.com/hhound

Die Antwoord - South African Synthie-Trash-Tech

http://www.dieantwoord.com/ - watch the interview under "videos" - it's fucking zef!
Until they release their album, the player will only play the instrumentals

Now you can check youtube or enjoy their rapping in Berlin this Friday (20th) @ Magnet Club (in Munich tomorrow already @Crux)

Or - if you are located in Berlin - you go for the highest contrast, which I equally recommend.

tatarataaam

DeLorean Discoveries

on Tiny Mix Tapes webzine:

The past seven years have seen an explosion in both music and music journalism. Everyone now races for a daily fix of the new at a pace that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago. At its best, paradigms are shifting and power is moving into the hands of the many. At its worst, music culture is now more disposable than ever, with people fixated on the Next Big Thing like a pack of hyenas closing in on wounded prey. Tabloid times these certainly are, and not even our beloved tunes have escaped.

We here at The DeLorean have only one way to respond: bah, humbug! There's no need to rush our way through record after record on an hourly basis. It's okay to take days, months, and even years to absorb a band's work. Music doesn't need to be consumed like a fashionable commodity operating on a 12-month buying cycle. The latest is rarely the greatest, and the old do not have to make way for the new.

So, why don't you take some time out of your day, make a cup of tea, and sit back to ponder our DeLorean Discoveries: a collection of great records from the past that we happened to stumble upon in 2007. We hope you enjoy.

-Charles Ubaghs, DeLorean editor

Lieblingsband of the day - Evils That Never Came

Fuck the background, listen to the music!

OK, some more about this latest discovery (for first contact see below)...
ETNC aka Evils That Never Came are great! Apparently they have not given away a lot more about themselves apart from two free-to-download studio albums (first one is streamed online).
Information is given on a need-to-know basis!
On blogs (and elsewhere) they can only guess who ETNC are and where they are coming from. Nothing on the website nor on discogs.com. In my messy brain some synapses drew parallels to the singer and the songwriting of "Of Montreal". Apparently my synapses have been wrong. This sparse info I found on ETNC's facebook site:

tataratam

Founded 2003

Bio

Evils That Never Came (sometimes abbreviated as ETNC or ETN'C) is an American indie rock band. The band formed in Koreatown, Los Angeles, California in 2002. Led by frontman and co-founder Aaron Peterson (born Aaron Peterson), the band has released one studio albums, one EP, and zero live albums while going through numerous line-up changes and controversies since its formation.

Evils That Never Came's mid-to-late 2K2s and early 2K10s years have been described by individuals in the music industry as the period in which "they brought forth a hedonistic rebelliousness and revived the punk attitude-driven yallcore scene."

Evils That Never Came

Well if that isn't one direct advertisment.







Find out, whether the kiddos are right - via this free stream & download. I find the album refreshing.






Stumbled upon it on the very interesting online music magazine Tiny Mix Tapes.
Spread the joy!

stream: Electro-Mix by Team Randalism

Nice!
This mix is something for you
- if you like masculine electro (or you might call it chav electro even)
- if your ears do not mind heavy beats with occasional excursions in queer rhythms and sound
- if you don't know about all that, but if you like Soulwax or Digitalism
tataratam

stream: Chancha - Otherworldly Cumbia

Who says good songwriting, the intimacy of a latin guitar and electronic rhythm do not go well together? -
I have been disappointed lots of times when I thought I discovered somebody who could mix electronics and songwriting. To combine the two areas without having one dominate the other is the ultimate discipline in modern popular composition. Cancha Via Circuito's music has a touch of nujazz and sample based beats music. It reminds me on the global thinking "Up Bustle & Out". Although they were travelling sound collectors from Bristol, while Chancha really comes from latin america - which you can tell from the music. And sometimes, Chancha Via Circuito even surpass the state of dance music or repetitive meditations and create original compositions. It doesn't feel difficult and that is what makes it so freshhhhhhh... Enjoy!
tataratam

berlin: Fr August 6th - Puschen-Fest

Puschen celebrates it's 10th birthday @ Festsaal Kreuzberg (see here for details) this friday.

Headliner is the wonderful Tune-Yards, you missed earlier this year!!!