Something Uplifting

These last two weeks have served up such a pile of bad news to everyone, it is time for something uplifting :
Check out this AMAZING percussion group from Persia , also known as Iran

…

Something funny to chase the Blues away
my favourite pop singer performing with the world’s favourite frog

Stay the course !
Everything will be alright
The Skipper

Now is a good time for CHANGE

Now is a great time to change the Music Industry. It is the right moment because the Credit crisis and the following panic have shown to everyone that the glorious system called Free Market Capitalism, as administered by the US to the rest of the world, is a mistake: It leads to uncontrolled acts of greed and irresponsibility.
The music industry is not the most important industry in the world.. it is only about entertainment, nothing more. When people lose their houses and have to sleep in their cars, the last thing they worry about is what music they want to listen to.
But the Music Industry and the deplorable state it is in, are a good reminder that what happened on Wall Street also happened on Main Street (I am beginning to sound like Obama here… ) - the man and the woman in the street were constantly being sold fake and worthless products that they never really asked for.
It started in the nineties, (and that is being quite generous) when greedy and evil people like this character here printed themselves million after million by selling fake and worthless products labeled “Boy Bands”.
In the following decade, different greedy characters came to the front, selling fake and worthless products labeled “Gangsta Rap” and more such rubbish.. no need to go on here, I believe everyone has MTV at home and the point is taken.
Now is a good time to question a lot of things.
A great time for all of us to question what fake and worthless rubbish the Western world ( actually the whole world) was being served over much too long.
A great time for the Music Industry to reflect whether they really want to go on selling fake and worthless products in this new century.

Back from BRAZIL pt I

I will skip all  the cliches that you can read at your local travel office, such as  “Amazing country / Beautiful beaches / Incredibly Friendly People  / Awesome Great Food “  and so on and on.  Not because they aren’t true, but because they are all true.

I would rather share some impressions to do with music and the general way of life as I perceived it in Brazil.

In Sao Paulo, we were invited to a party by some journalist friends of my dear tourist guide, Ana Paula. After some cold beers  - Brahma beer is easily in the top three worldwide so far as I can tell - we ventured onto the dance floor, a place that I normally avoid. This is because the last music style I really had fun dancing to was the funky stuff from “Earth Wind and Fire” in the last century.. unnecessary to say that I hate Rap music and I even more detest Techno. To my amazement, dancing to Samba music (the samba rock variation, not the carnival samba one) turned out to be very great fun!

The next day, we went to see some buildings by master architect Oscar Niemeyer, notably the “Oca” in the Ibirapuera Park. The Oca currently hosts an exhibition celebrating “50 Years of Bossa Nova” with an amazing multimedia show, featuring Tom Jobim and his colleagues on black and white film footage from the 60s, displayed on state-of-the-art holographic  screens that I haven’t seen before - you can walk around those large plastic sheets and the film is showing on the back side as well, without being mirrored the wrong way round!

I am always touched when I see children becoming aware and proud of something meaningful and beautiful.. I was especially touched when hundreds  of schoolchildren came in with their teachers to appreciate Brazil’s Bossa Nova revolution. A real brazilian moment .. sitting inside Niemeyer’s futuristic building with my brazilian guide, and the school children flocking around everywhere and Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Morais composing their hit songs on the hologram screen before us.

I also learned an important figure that day: “The Girl from Ipanema” is,  (after “Yesterday” by The Beatles) the second-most-played song in the world..!

- to be continued -

Erik,  (jet-lagged)

Off to Brazil!

Packing tomorrow , and off to Brazil on Saturday.

The dream of many years.. finally, I am going.

Expectations: Great music, landscapes & Atlantic beaches, at least one megacity (Sao Paulo) plus tons of inspiration.

Back September 9th.

- stay tuned -

What it’s all about

Some people are asking me “What is the new album about ?”

It is about Life,  it is also about Love, and it is all about Transformations.

Transformation refers to life & love alike - in a way that I was very unhappy for quite some time and therefore I could not write any music. Or rather, I did write music - but then I threw it away.

During the past year, my life has changed in almost all major aspects. I am a happy, healthy person again and as a consequence I could write music all day long if I had the time.

The transformations all go back to a life-changing event that took place on July 22 , 2006. I am not going into detail, but you can leave a comment below if you want to know more.. Or, you can follow this link here if you are curious.

The bottom line of the many personal consequences of that event is this: I know now that we are - all of us - immortal souls incarnating here for a purpose. The purpose is to make experiences, to gather understanding, and to raise our levels of consciousness. Whoever achieves these goals, can move on to the next level - he who doesn’t, is condemned to start over again.

Along these lines, I would like to share the lyrics to “A Distant Land” , one of the very personal songs on the new album.

VERSE
Navigating oceans
of space and time
Incarnating endlessly
across the galaxies

Memories awaken
of you and I
Veils are lifted one by one
Behind them, reality

CHORUS
I was yours and you were mine
in a distant land, a different time
I am yours and you are mine
our love hasn’t changed

I was yours and you were mine
in a distant land, a different time
now your dark egyptian eyes
are looking into mine

VERSE
Overcoming distance
at the speed of the light
shifting of dimensions
at the speed of thought

Intending one another
every day and night
attracting one another
into each other’s lives

* repeat CHORUS *

In this precious moment
the sun sets by the pyramids
in this eternal moment
I am yours and you are mine

By the gardens where we walked
the sun sets by the pyramids
now your dark egyptian eyes
are looking to the sea

and now your dark egyptian eyes
are longing for the sea.

Next recording session .. with female support

I have invited Vanessa Elle to join me at the upcoming recording session on July 26 and 27. She was recommended by Gabor Kristof, director of the ETM music academy in Geneva .

Check out some of her work here

http://www.myspace.com/vanessaelle

Back to the surface …

.. after three days locked up underground, recording at Axis Studios in Geneva.

Working with Pierre Bader, co-owner and sound engineer at Axis, is a highly concentrated pleasure. We know each other insisde out and managed to record 5 songs in three days, a new efficiency record.

There were two world premieres: Pierre made me record two verses in French (he swears they will love my pretty heavy accent ..!) - plus, I sang in “falsetto voice” for background vocals..

To summarize, it was great ! More soon.

- stay tuned -

Recording Week !

After a long recording hiatus, I am going to lock myself up in a recording studio for a week, starting this tuesday.

The goal is to record an entire album within a single week .. kind of ambitious, I know.

Wish me luck..

Erik

World Music continued

Check out this amazing example of World Music ..

Ofra Haza in 1988 !

- stay tuned -

World Music !! the next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing in music is already here and rapidly growing up.

I clearly remember the day when I first heard “Desert Rose” by Sting on the radio: the year was 1999, I was living in New York City and this song was the most incredible piece of music to hit my eardrums in many years.

I knew of course that John Mc Laughlin had been jamming with Ravi Shankar in Inda, I knew that rappers from Algeria were now doing their thing in Paris and so on .. but those seemed like fringe experiments compared to Sting’s take which was so new, refreshing and powerful.

I am very tempted to declare Desert Rose the “Official First Mainstream World Music Song”..

Here is a beautiful live version of Desert Rose

Anyone who is not totally asleep knows that the Internet is the biggest revolution in our lifetimes. Proof is that you are reading this now and probaby listening to music and watching video via your internet connection.

What better expression for the interconnected world that we are creating right now ? World Music is it !!

..and for World Music by the power of two….  click here:

Desert Rose featuring the stunning Aishwarya Rai

-stay tuned -

Erik