SUMMARY
FRONT COVER by Natalya Serkova
HOM
ENVERS
Living songs
Sweet violence
Castles in the air
F-111
Retrospective 12345678
NAU NUA APRIL 2012
Living songs
Sweet violence
Castles in the air
F-111
Retrospective 12345678
KRAFTWERK
Organic electronics
The German band
that defined electronic music in the mid-seventies reaching the top of the
charts in the UK with the song Das Model
/ The Model in 1981, although it was published in 1978 as part of the
classic Mensch-Maschine Die album,
was starred in a retrospective at the MoMA in New York. Titled Kraftwerk - Retrospective 12345678,
sound and visual works of the German band were explored chronologically. Each
event featured live full performance of one of their albums along with 3D
visualizations and giving additional tracks revisited from their catalog.
The group emerged
from the meeting of Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider as students of the
Conservatory of Düsseldorf in 1970. In the beginning their sound included sounds
like flutes, electronic organs, synthesizers and electric violins. Influenced
by German experimental music and art scene by the time, their sound grew over their
first three albums from an improvisation including many traditional instruments
such as bass, guitar and drums, but with the distortion of their sound, in two
discs, Kraftwerk (1970) and Kraftwerk 2 (1972) almost entirely
instrumental. But by 1973 the band started to incorporate drum machine in
concert eventually publishing the Ralf
und Florian album (1973), with increased prominence of synthesizers and the
introduction of the vocoder. In 1974 came the next step, the last of the band with
the producer Konrad "Conny" Plank. Titled Autobahn (1974) is a breakthrough in their sound drawing on the
Minimoog. The album was a commercial success with what they could invest in
their own studio.
At that time came
on the scene graphic artist Emil Schult, who gave a new look on the covers of
their albums and contributed lyrics in the songs. Thus there came the
international tours and a new album, Radio-Activity
(1975). Along with the new members Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür, the band undertook
a frenetic activity in which widened the horizons of electronic music in a time
when the punk scene emerged with overwhelming force. But the success of
Kraftwerk was an international fact and thanks to their pop tunes away from the
avant-garde instrumental tracks they created in their early works. In 1977 they
published Trans-Europe Express including
a sixteen-track sequencer. Their technological steps were on par with the
creative ones, definitely, electronic pop was installed in the minds of the
public. The Man-Machine (1978) was
released and the domain of the sequencer by Kraftwerk definitely arrived, even leading
it to improvisation, sequence by sequence or mixing them. An avant-garde album
without forgetting the melodies, including their great classic Das Model, which hit # 1 in the United
Kingdom three years later, curiously in promoting their next album, Computer World (1981).
The year 1983 would bring the single Tour
de France, including sounds of bicycle chains and bikers breathing. But the
crisis of the group came after minor drummer Ralf Hütter and Flür difficulties
with the rest of the band, finishing in his departure after the album Electric Cafe (1986). Then, the band
changed their members continuously but they recorder no new themes until the
album Tour de France Soundtracks (2003) was published and now we’re waiting for
the new album they are working. The man machine is still drawing a new palette
of sounds.
KRAFTWERK. RETROSPECTIVE 12345678. Click here
KRAFTWERK VIDEOS. Click here
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Photo courtesy of MoMA, Museum of Modern Arts of New York
All rights reserved
NAU NUA ABRIL 2012
SUMARIO
PORTADA obra de Natalya Serkova
HOM
ENVERS
Viviendo canciones
ESBÓS
Sanja Iveković
Sweet violence
Hans Haacke
Castles in the air
James Rosenquist
F-111
Kraftwerk
Retrospective 12345678
Sweet violence
Castles in the air
F-111
Retrospective 12345678
NAU NUA ABRIL 2012
SUMMARI
PORTADA obra de Natalya Serkova
HOM
ENVERS
Vivint cançons
ESBÓS
Sanja Iveković
Sweet violence
Hans Haacke
Castles in the air
James Rosenquist
F-111
Kraftwerk
Retrospective 12345678
Sweet violence
Castles in the air
F-111
Retrospective 12345678
OLGA ZOUBKOVA
Living songs
Olga Zoubkova is wonderful. She writes music and texts on Russian and English. Makes arrangements for her favorite musicians’ songs (her performance of Sting is sooo beautiful!) as well as plays together with famous bands and participate in different art projects. She left Russia and now lives in Germany where she works with one of the best sound recording companies. Recently Olya has signed contract for her new album release.
Whom do you consider to be the main teacher in your life?
Ooh I have had several great teachers and will have them all my life long. First of all, my Dad. He has taught me so many things ever since I was a little kid and he still does. All the things about music and life. He himself is an incredible example of a person living full, happy life because he does something he loves with his whole heart. That’s how I have learned to live and be happy through the thing I do.
Having been born in musicians’ family you’ve had no chances to walk away from music. But sometimes it happens that even talented and devoted parents give birth to kids whose interests are absolutely opposite to art. When did you understand that music is your way?
I understood it pretty early. My Mother was a wonderful jazz singer. My brother was a Siberian rock star and my Dad is a conductor of a children brass woodwind orchestra. This orchestra is 26 years old now, that’s two years younger than I am. When I was about three years old, my dad took me to the orchestral rehearsal and gave me a triangle. I still remember one of the first concerts; it was a youth center in my little town. I remember myself with that triangle, playing some terrible things. A very funny thing to remember.
It took some time to realize what music really was to me. I started to teach myself how to play guitar as I was 13 years old. My guitar became my best friend and she still is.
Whom did you share the stage with? What experience was the most unforgettable?
I’ve had a lot of great concert experiences. For example, our gigs with Brendan Perry, the wonderful voice of Dead Can Dance. We played in Moscow and St. Petersburg in April 2010. Or the tuvan world music festival Ustuu Huree in July 2010… was just awesome! I had a great load of smaller but none the less greater concerts with i.e. Artem Fadeev, who is now my favorite guitar player. We meet each other on the Internet as I was living in St. Petersburg. He came all the way from Moscow just to play with me. And we still do play together. It was a great pleasure to share one stage with Svetlana Surganova and her wonderful Orchestra. With my dear Vera Polozkova it was just as incredible pleasure. We made an amazing symbiosis of poetry and music, together with Artem Komissarov, a wonderful musician and manager. As a result of this very collaboration we have a DVD, which I am terribly proud of.
Some people have to beat a path to their dream work hardly in order to get success and acknowledgement. What was your way like?
I never struggled for success, and it is not really what I want to achieve. I always wanted just to make music. There are lots of other hobbies I like to spend time with, but nothing really has ever interested me that much as Music does. It remains my biggest love. Everything else comes and goes. If you do something with a big amount of devotion, at some point you get things happening. Sort of miracles that bring you to the right people at the right moment. The greater your devotion is, the more intense miracles happen. It is not like everything was wonderful and easy for me from the very first steps. I was making my way for years, too. I still do stumble and guess my way. Only it got a good bit easier and more pleasant.
How do you make your songs sound sincere both on a disc and during live concerts?
You gotta live the song while you perform it. I can’t really express it in any different way. When you live the song that you sing, it does not really matter where your microphone stands, in a studio or on a stage.
You write songs on Russian and English… How do you create them? And choose a “citizenship”?
I write songs for certain people. All of them are dedications and confessions. See, the person I wrote all the most recent things for is an American. What should I do? Of course I’d like to transfer my feelings to them in the most available to me form, which is music. The other thing is that I gotta do it using the language they would understand. And so it is, love defines my music’s citizenship. I don’t write a lot in Russian nowadays. I might do some songs in Russian, but a bit later.
You work so hard! Do you have time to sleep? What makes you feel full of energy?
Sleep is seriously overrated. I usually sleep less than 5 hours. And my awaking hours are far beyond any normal time. That’s what keeps me productive.
Is it easy to keep heart open?
Oh, absolutely. The easier I take it all, the easier it all is. Wonderful, isn’t it?
Definitely! What color are you now?I mean the color of your soul…
Outside I am always black. Don’t mistake me for a gothic though. Inside there are over sixty five million colors.
OLGA ZOUBKOVA videos here
OLGA ZOUBKOVA videos here
An interview by Anastasia Stolyarova. All rights reserved
Photo courtesy of Olga Zoubkova
Olga zoubkova website www.facebook.com/OlgaZeeOfficial
JAMES COLEMAN
Retrospective
.jpg)
All images by James Coleman. © James Coleman
James Coleman: Retrospectiva
Exhibition courtesy of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid
Exhibition courtesy of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)