Our first (almost) White Christmas is over. The house is very quiet, and it does feel like the whole anticipation and excitement leading up to today have toned down a bit, leaving a trail of newspaper wrapping (elves have become environmentally conscious, it seems) and a laundry basket full of new folded clothes (Santa somehow got the memo about this being our first winter). The kids have been at home since Christmas Eve, and they will be until after New Years Day, and I know it’s only been like 2 days, but trust me, time is relative from the point of view of a 5 and 3 year-old. You know how the different dream layers multiply actual sleep time in Inception? Try 2 kids by yourself at Christmas.

But this is also the best Christmas I’ve had in a long while, in many ways. For starters, I’ve managed to completely avoid crowded places, and the decoration downtown is quite elegant and subdued. Sure, there was that mad rush to get some ingredients for our dinner at the supermarket yesterday, but even that was more civilised than I had feared. It really felt like everyone just wanted to get home as quickly as possible and get on with their merrymaking, so why ruin your day being unpleasant while you wait in line?
The CBC is also a partly to thank here. I listen to a lot of Radio 2 when I’m at home, and their festive programming has been practically flawless, a mix of yuletide classics and carols with some jazz favourites and modern covers, and very little of the fluffy, cloying shopping mall stuff. I don’t feel as bad about our lack of season-related albums in our collection now!

In any case, catering to children can be a fun challenge for special meals. You can’t go overboard with the sinful stuff, but at the same time you feel you ought to get out of the usual routine of kid-proof meals. In most cases, it’s a matter of presentation, and I can guarantee you that your kids can eat any greens as long as they look fun. In this case, polenta Christmas trees, kale hills, crumpet and smoked salmon snowman, mushroom forest, green pea ornaments and snowflakes, and sour cream snow. A little advance preparation helps…

Being alone with two kids at Christmas also helped me shed any cynicism I might have against festivities in general. Well, it is not a religious celebration for us, but that doesn’t mean that Christmas shouldn’t be about kindness and warmth and generosity, and the whole materialistic aspect is enough to turn anyone into Scrooge. But the way the kids see it, it’s more about keeping that Santa Claus magic alive, in a rather innocent and genuine way. How can I shatter their illusions and give them the jaded adult spiel on consumerism and objectification of this and that when they are still out of this system? To them it’s just about leaving a cookie for Santa, waking up in the morning and taking me downstairs to show how many presents he brought overnight. Nothing electronic or fancy this year, and mostly clothes, and true, honest happiness.

And this, to me, is priceless.

I was looking at some pictures I took over the past 2 months. I can’t believe it’s already been that long, and at the same time, it still feels like I’ve just landed here. The city is huge, I’m not sure I’ve even scraped the surface, and even though there are plenty of bars and clubs for gigs, I am still taking my bearings. It’s somewhat the opposite in Singapore: after a while you tend to know just about everyone in the scene, which is a good thing for familiarity. The downside of course is its limitation: there are only so many people you can play your music to, and so many times, in so many places, before it becomes redundant. So in a way, this is a new challenge, starting afresh with a new perspective in a completely different part of the world. I suppose the only way is up if you look at it this way.

A couple of weeks ago we wanted to go to the Beaches, but the regular bus route that goes from Main to Queen was interrupted because of the Marathon. So we had to cover the remaining stops on foot, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As I was walking I noticed a plaque outside a pretty cottage with blue accents, one of those houses you can’t help but try to mentally picture as your own. On the plaque it said that Glenn Gould used to live there.

It’s always strange to visit a place of significant importance. This is the pianist who inspired a whole generation to take up Bach, who revolutionised studio recording techniques and radio programs, an utterly idiosyncratic genius who did not imitate anybody, and whom no one could possibly replicate. And this was his house.

You have to appreciate the irony that I discovered the house of a man whose recordings have been sent to Space by the NASA thanks to an interrupted bus service…

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[Custom clearance being what it is, there won't be any sample this week either... but you'll have two fabulous versions in the video section below. Fingers crossed for next week, or the week after...]

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I don’t have particularly bad memories of my teenage years. Sure, I was awkward, clueless and hopelessly idealistic, but I can’t look back and say ‘wow, I really hated the first half of the 90s’. In fact, I was a lot less cynical and blase, and if anything, a lot less self-conscious than the person I am now. Which is why I still like to listen to Rachmaninoff.

As a composer, Rachmaninoff started out as a child of his time and ended up being completely anachronistic by the time he reached his maturity. While the turn of the Century announced new ideas in tonality and harmony, Rachmaninoff clearly remained anchored in the late-Romantic tradition, which led many critics and theorists of the time to dismiss him as a footnote to Tchaikovsky’s fin de siecle bombast. But while the allegation could hold on a superficial level, there is much more to Rachmaninoff’s music than this simplistic assumption.

I used to ask my students to give me a definition of what they thought was Romantic music, which would – more often than not – lead to a list of the top 10 cliches most commonly associated with that word: candlelight dinner, roses, Kenny G and Clayderman, you get the idea…
I can’t honestly blame them, because that was the unfortunate fate that befell the genre after its great composers died. Interest had shifted towards modernity, abstraction and experimentation, and, to a certain extent, clinging onto the old tropes of torturous soul-searching and exacerbated emotions was seen as reactionary. Good music, as Adorno would have it, was the stuff of intellectual challenges and higher-order thinking, the true art form through which one attains true consciousness. The rest, the easy stuff, was just bad, and untrue.
But that’s missing an obvious truth about Rachmaninoff. Sure, there is a strong Romantic undercurrent, a certain propensity to the facile, but on a close hearing, his piano concertos owe as much to Bach and Beethoven as they do to Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff was a preternaturally gifted pianist, and he had absorbed a variety of styles, including the art of counterpoint and a Classical sense of balance and structure. Listen to the first movements of both concertos and you can clearly distinguish these elements: phrases are used and reintroduced with variations, overturned according to the harmonic principles dictated by the Baroque composers. The typically lyrical adagios of the second movements show a certain romantic effusiveness, but they still remain self-contained around a central theme. And the third movements synthesize this amalgamation with a clarity few other Romantic composers had.

Rachmaninoff did not possess that self-consciousness that his contemporaries had. He did not scorn melody or feelings just because they were too obvious or literal. His music was devoid of sarcasm or cynicism. He still believed in the beauty of form and the universality of the musical language. After his exile from Russia in 1917, he composed less and less and focused instead on his career as a performer. But the two piano concertos eventually became the staples of any reputable pianist and world-class orchestra.

I guess we all want to feel like teenagers sometimes.

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Piano concerto n.2 is probably my favourite, for its unabashed late-romanticism, and its total lack of irony and self-consciousness. From the opening block chords to the thunderous cadenza to the obviously overused second movement, the effusiveness level is cranked up to 11 here…
And yet, it all works, and if you listen closely it owes a lot more to Baroque contrapuntal technique and Classical balance than its Romantic sheen would let us believe. Great pianists possess a clarity of thought which lets us appreciate Rachmaninoff’s intention (as you would hear from one of his own recordings) that are completely lost among the throngs of late-romantic wannabes and emo pianists (Matt Bellamy, I’m looking at you).

The version below was recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy under the direction of Andre Previn, and it is one of the absolute best, in sound, clarity and technical prowess.

1st movement

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2nd movement

(also known as the all by myself movement…)

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3rd movement

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Piano concerto n.3 is a bit of a pianist’s calling card, and Rachmaninoff clearly intended it so. The stories behind it are the stuff of musical lore, and Rachmaninoff even acknowledged that the great Horowitz could play it better than he ever would. But again, technical difficulties aside, the concerto works best as a synthesis of the past 300 years of Western music, while remaining deeply Russian at heart.

Horowitz made what most musicologists consider the definitive recording, once in 1930 and another time in 1941. A consummate late-romantic, he truly championed Rachmaninoff’s music, making it one of the staples of his repertoire after the composer’s death in 1943.
Martha Argerich channels the same effortlessness and superhuman ability to see past the keyboard’s obstacles in order to reach the essence of the music. Her live version with Riccardo Chailly is formidable.

1st movement

(also known as the difficult one)

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2nd movement

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3rd movement

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I never really know how to answer when people ask me where I’m from. There are memories of many places, houses and people that make up a rather disparate idea of what home really is for me. Leaving Sicily for France when I was 4 meant that I kept an idealized version of the place I was born, and it also meant that I grew up French, culturally speaking. Studying in London and falling in love in Providence brought me closer to an Anglo-saxon worldview, which I still find the most affinities with. Starting a family in Singapore taught me to overcome cultural differences and shed involuntary prejudices regarding Asian traditions, for which I am thankful.

So where’s home?

Of all places, I think I’m attached to my grandmother’s apartment most. This is the one house we still have, after all our relocations and real estate considerations. It hasn’t changed much: still the same furniture, the seaside area has been relatively spared from aggressive speculation, and all my grandfather’s instruments are still in perfect working condition. Every time I land in Palermo and we drive the 20 minute trip back I have this childlike sense of anticipation: I’ll open the front door and I’ll find my old collection of Mickey Mouse comic books, my toy cars, the Crumar organ and the miked-up folk guitar. And the smell. The apartment has a smell of seabreeze and clean linen that is forever etched in my olfactory memory. I don’t get to visit Sicily as often as I’d like to, but I know exactly what I’ll find every time I do. And that’s comforting.

My parents have been living near Turin since 1999. This is not where we come from, but it is home nonetheless. I love spending time with my brother and sister, and the time we spend together is precious. The village where we live is very quiet, and there isn’t much to do really. I’m not sure I could live here, but it’s a perfect place to take a break and get away from the stress of it all. It’s rather rural, too, and on a clear night you can see a lot more stars than you ever would in the city. The kids love it, in a way I suppose I must have loved Nonna’s Capaci apartment.

Of course, there was Singapore. You can’t just ignore 7 years of your life, being a father twice, starting a musical project and making friends through it. I’ve been meaning to write more about it since we’ve left, and I will once I settle down. But it wasn’t home, and wouldn’t have been for a few fundamental reasons. There is absolutely no bitterness in this, and in fact, I will cherish many memories from Asia, but no, it was not a place I could have really called home, as much as I tried.

So what now?

The new house looks great. It needs a bit of cleaning and refurbishing/furnishing, but we’re starting afresh. There is a park just across the road, and neighbors with kids of as many ethnic groups as you could think of.
I think we’re off to a good start.

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These pictures were taken around my parents’ place, at Lake Viverone, and in Genova.

Errol asked me if I wanted to come down and hang out with Mike and Jared from Lymbyc Systym the night before the show. He wasn’t sure he could spend some time with them with all the commitments you find yourself submerged with when you’re trying to run a show for 3 different bands, So I was happy to play the artist liaison for the evening! In the end, it was still the four of us, and after a few beers we took the brother to Little India.
It was as though we had met before. I definitely had a feeling of deja-vu with Mike and Jared. They reminded me of some of the musician friends I had when we used to live in Providence. The type of people you can just start a conversation with, and you know it will just bounce off and evolve and morph into completely different topics. Case in point: veganism, Zen retreats, vintage keyboards and hoomecooked Italian food.
I find it very reassuring that musicians can reach a certain level of success, open for some of the most lauded current bands, and still remain totally unfazed about the whole media circus or the need to be in every hipster’s good books. More than anything, I think it just sums up the proverbial lesson: keep doing what you love, and something good will come out of it. Which were pretty much our parting words for the night!

The gig at Homeclub was great. Maybe it was because I knew it was going to be my last in Singapore, but it felt liberating. Playing by yourself and looping your own sounds can be daunting at times, and if you make a mistake there is no simple way to rectify it smoothly, which happens on occasion. But all loops were looped exactly when they needed to, the balance was just right, and it felt good to say goodbye with some songs that some in the audience have grown familiar with.

I did play a new cover, and that’s what you can hear in this blog. “Hunted by a freak” is one of my favourite tracks by Mogwai, and I only played it once before on the grand piano. This version is closer to the original I suppose, and at the same time it shows the direction some of my new tracks are taking.
I just realised how much I love playing and recording covers. Maybe I should start a record club too? hmm…

Lymbyc Systym were up next. And it’s amazing how full the keyboards/drums setup can sound. Plug a Rhodes and a Clavinet into a Vox and Ampeg, and you’ve got your walls of guitars and pounding basses at your fingertips. The Microkorg is just the icing on the cake.
Their brand of instrumental music is unmistakably American, in a Keith Jarrett kind of way. The sense of openness in their melodies, the interplay between the Rhodes and the drumming: never overdoing it, but never minimalistic either. This is why I’ve come to like North American bands more than their European counterparts. There is no false sense of irony, no existentialist angst looming every four bars. The music is honest, simple and beautiful. And ultimately, it stays with you much longer.

LITE were many things, but above all, they were precise. And as much as Lymbyc Systym could be the perfect soundtrack to a roadtrip in Arizona, LITE feels like walking down Shibuya or crossing platforms in Shinjuku. Their musicianship is incredible, from the odd-time signatures to the sudden outbursts of guitars and motorik bass. You know the feeling you have when your CD is skipping and you find it oddly fascinating? LITE can do that, live.
The crowd clearly came for them, too. And it was great to finally see a lot of reaction from the audience. This is something I never really got used to here, so for once seeing people loosening up and pushing towards the front was refreshing.

We hung out some more after the show, and Mike told me more about his adventures touring in small Italian towns and drumming for other bands. He also seemed to be quite amused by the fact that the kids are into music, and I could see the parallels between Luca and Dante and the Bell brothers. Luca and Mike, the older brothers, are both more extroverted and generally louder, and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy their stories. Dante and Jared are more mellow, and that’s why the dynamics work: it’s all in the balance.

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Mike summed up his musical philosophy this way: you’ve gotta play every show like it’s your last, or like a 6-year-old would. But with more control.
I couldn’t agree more. And as Luca and Dante grow up in a more receptive place for kids to play, experiment, fail and pick themselves up again, I’ll make sure to remind them.

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There will be more posts before I leave, but I really want to thank Errol and Lesley for believing in music, and making things happen.
Live band photos courtesy of Thomas Tan. Truly a devoted music lover and an amazing photographer.

Click on the song to listen
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I read something quite disconcerting this morning on Repubblica
A monthly magazine, usually more prone to featuring the hot chick of the month in bikini or (preferably for its predominantly male readership) topless and beyond, is going to feature a cover showing Roberto Saviano at the morgue, complete with toe tag. According to the magazine, this photoshopped image represents what Saviano’s enemies wish could happen, and the list features not only the most notable Camorra bosses but also prominent government figures and influential bishops with ties to corrupt industrialists and the like.

I’m not sure this is the way to go, even if you’re trying to make a point. Saviano is a courageous man who is forced to live under constant protection, for the simple fact of exposing the way of the Neapolitan syndicates and how they control the whole region, and beyond. For this, which he considers his duty to inform, Saviano is a wanted man, unable to go get a coffee by himself, meet his fans casually, let alone have a relationship. He is a wanted man, but he is not a dead man. And neither does he want to be.

If you have ever seen him on TV, giving a speech, reading from his book or from other courageous journalists whom he admires, you’d be hard pressed to think of someone who feels more alive than him.

A few months ago, I started this track, in honour of him. And unlike the monthly magazine, it is not a fake eulogy, or a shock tactic to draw attention. It’s just my humble appreciation of a man who believes in something bigger than him, in a time when we are all too easily looking the other way. It takes more than courage to write like he does. It makes me sad, angry and ashamed to see how other journalists and TV personalities from Silvio Berlusconi’s channels are branding him an opportunist and, for lack of better words, a “media whore”. How can you look yourself in the mirror? Would you also insult Anna Politkovskaya’s death by the same token?
“Saviano”, this track in progress, features samples taken from a talk show. I am not including them here, because, well, I don’t own them yet! But if you do understand Italian, These snippets make a lot more sense than the instrumental version you have here. I hope you like it though.

Coraggio, Roberto.

This is definitely a period of transition.

We are two months away from our big move to Toronto, and as much as we want to believe there are still 8 weeks left to departure, the number of errands and chores is staggering: preemptive healthchecks, various visa applications, and other logistical details which remind me just how great J is at those things, and how I probably should learn a little from her…
The destination sure looks promising, the journey less so. I know we are going to be very happy in Canada, for us and for the kids, but with each passing week, I also realise how much I will miss the friends I’ve made in the past seven years. I started amberhaze here, and although the internet makes geography almost irrelevant to a certain extent, you just can’t scrap three years that easily and uproot everything without a tinge of wistfulness.

Three years. I was recording my first EP when Dante was born, and he just turned three last weekend. Having children has been both the scariest and most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me: they give you a reason to fight for what you stand for, look at the bright side and believe that you can make a difference. And that’s a scary thought.

The responsibility is unlike anything else I’ve experienced, and no career or job prospects could ever come close to what is at stake in seeing your kids grow, form personalities of their own, laugh, play and think for themselves. Sometimes I wonder what other parents here must think of us, the way we choose to raise our children, and there again, I realise that Toronto would probably be a better fit for all of us. And Luca and Dante especially.

Errol and Lesley got married (again!) last week, and they finally threw their Rollopoloosley, which is going to be a tough act to follow for any couple who will want to throw an unusual wedding party. Fort Canning, amazing bands, fireworks, bouncy castle… how can you compete?!?
Errol had a little surprise in mind for Lesley. The fact that we managed to keep it a secret until the evening itself is a little miracle! We prepared a cover of Pressure Suit by Aqualung, which is very special to the two of them, and Errol practiced on my “karaoke” version anytime he would be on his own…which means a lot of singing stuck in traffic I suppose!
We got on stage and no one had an idea of what was going to happen, and Errol had the lyrics written on a piece of paper. Taking into account the overall state of inebriation I’d say we did ok. But mostly, I was honored to be a part of something so sweet, romantic and heartfelt as this little secret surprise song.

The party is probably one of the many we will have before we leave. And as much as this is a period of transition, these friendships are our Constant.

Another thing that I remember seeing when I was growing up: armed police and soldiers walking the streets in certain parts of Palermo. After the mafia blew up Falcone and Borsellino in the most elaborate bombing in recent Sicilian memory, the government dispatched extra troops and put blockades and check points all over downtown for most of the 1990s. Politicians and notables drive armored cars. There are areas you had better avoid. And yet, I love Sicily, I love Palermo, I feel really safe walking the streets there actually, and I will always feel this dichotomy about my own home: how can it be so beautiful and warm and welcoming, and at the same time, how can there be so much lawlessness?
So when we are greeted at Starbucks by a guard carrying a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun, I don’t find the sight totally unfamiliar. What I find unfamiliar though, is the fact that he smiles, opens the door for us, closes it and smiles again. In fact, there is a lot of smiling around us, for no reason in particular, and if you’ve lived in Singapore for a little too long, you realise that a bit more smiling here wouldn’t hurt…

There are things that remind me of Singapore of course. Walk on Ayala Avenue past the Triangle or Greenbelt Parks and you could be in the CBD. The malls carry the same brands, in a comforting, globalised kind of way. The tapas and wine bars would not be out of place in Bangkok, Bali or Shanghai in the way they display a common idea of casual Western dining. But globalisation considerations aside, there is an obvious affinity to the West in Manila (and, I suppose, the rest of the Philippines). Whether it is wholeheartedly accepted and embraced by everyone is another matter.
I am definitely not much of a believer, and I was raised in a partially Adventist household, but I can’t deny the cultural impact that Catholic rituals have had on me as an Italian: the seasonal feasts, the colourful processions, the superstitious fascination with the occult…Though I have yet to find a shopping mall in Italy that stops all activity in order to accommodate Mass in the premises on a busy Saturday afternoon…

And on a Saturday evening at Magnet High Street, A* FEST ends. It’s a pity we only managed to fly for my own shows, because the lineup was different for each of the four nights. Tonight I go first, and The Standards are closing the festival, with the usual panache that characterises their sets.
In between are 3 local bands. Musical O are my other favourite discovery of this trip, a sound that sits between Death Cab and a more instrumental, almost post-rock, aesthetic. Their songs take unexpected twists and turns, and nothing sounds formulaic.
Up Dharma Down are becoming heavyweights in the regional indie circuit, and you can easily understand why when you see them live. The rhythm section is a mix of looped beats and incredibly tight drum fills, the guitarist is relentlessly inventive, and Armi’s vocals are just mesmerising.
The Dorques are Joff’s band. Think of it as a kaleidoscope. Songs are sung in English, spoken-word Japanese, and French. If you ever need something to get you through a particularly dreary Monday morning, try The Dorques. You’ll feel better.

And the festival is over. Some bands go their separate ways, we promise to see each other again on a stage in the region, and truth be said, I would love to come back. Or I would love to go visit the Bottlesmoker boys in Bandung too. But for the rest of the night, we are still curious about this fascinating city.
Alice drives a few of us to Cubao X, in Quezon City. The area was known as a shoe manufacture center, and it is now a central point for the underground and alternative scene in Manila. We reach just past closing time, slightly after 3 AM. Not that it would deter anyone from hanging out some more! Paolo and Alice seem to know everyone, and people we’ve never met come and talk to us, show us around, explain how the place works and what you can find in its many little shops.
We meet Chino and Laurie again, and we exchange albums. The sense of community and belonging is something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I Think Errol feels this way too. And there is absolutely no pretense, no false air of coolness.

It’s the break of dawn. People are already getting on with their day-to-day business. I don’t feel like sleeping, but we have a plane to catch in a few hours. Strange how 48 hours can matter sometimes. I honestly don’t know when I’ll come back to this part of the world, and under what circumstances, but I know for sure that of all the places i’ve been to in South East Asia, these 48 hours in Manila will remain special.

The first thing I noticed about Manila was the traffic. And much to my expectations, traffic was intense. Not unlike Bangkok actually, but I had the feeling that there was a lot more movement going on at any given time. It feels like everybody is converging on the same impetus, and it seems also that there really is only one massive highway cutting across the Metro Manila megalopolis. Most main streets branch out of it, or at least that’s what googlemaps showed me. But in fact, as much as there is a lot to be said about the road congestion and the actual state of streets and highways, I felt almost at home there, considering that traffic is really not that much better in Sicily and I will always have the memory of my dad overtaking in the middle of two lanes, swearing, burning red lights when needed and what have you. You stop thinking that going from point A to point B is an exact science but rather something almost artistic.
It’s just a matter of knowing when to go and knowing when to give way, and it almost magically sorts itself out. To be perfectly honest, I am more nervous on the road here in Singapore, where drivers display the kind of aggressiveness that comes out of hours of frustration and pent up anger being stuck in a cubicle or pushing paper. And you really can’t blame it on the infrastructure here. It’s all about the people, once again.

So the people, precisely. I had to pass up the first edition of A*FEST last year because of a conflicting schedule with (real) work, but I wanted to make sure to accept Joff’s invitation this time. Joff runs Kindassault, an indie label and gig organising outfit, pretty much like my own KittyWu family here in Singapore. His cousin Paolo helps out for the festival, and writeups and overall MC duties, which he usually does by wearing a luchador mask. A self-professed cultural studies geek, I learn that he is the founder of a Facebook geekfight group. And when he picks us up at the hotel with a big Mercedes van and we load the gear at the back and start talking, I have this odd sense of familiarity: I am reminded of the small clubs I used to go to all the time, back in Lyon, or in London. I remember the friends I lost touch with after years of moving around, the same people with whom you know you could just pick up from where you’d left if you’d see them again at a gig.

And I think this is how Errol feels too. When we get to SaGuijo for the Friday night set of shows, half the people there already know him and remember him from last year. Keith, one of the “official” photographers who took some amazing shots of I am David Sparkle during the first A* FEST, Alice, who hands out handwritten questions to each of the bands for new-slang, a beautifully-written, beautifully-laid-out website about music, musings of all sorts and insights on everyday Filipino life. It feels like I’ve met them all before, and even though we all grew up in very different places, there is a connection that goes beyond boundaries and social constructs.

We quickly check that everything sounds all right and enjoy the bands for the night.
Bottlesmoker, an electronic duo from Bandung, are just so refreshing and irresistible. Their rig consists of a keleidoscope of musical toys, bells and circuit-bent contraptions. They create melodies that are as easy to remember as they are hard to get out of your head.
Sleepwalk Circus totally took me by surprise, and this is what i love about festivals. Their sound was reminiscent of Silversun Pickups in a way, only with more ambient leaning at times and an almost post-rock aesthetic on some guitar textures.
The Standards worked the crowd to a frenzy, and it’s not hard to see why: as a frontman, Matt would not be out of place among the iconic figures of Britpop. There is little you can do against a barrage of arpeggiated moog lines and post-punk guitar riffs, really. And we all got to dance.
Closing the evening at 2 AM after such a livewire act would have felt like a comedown, but i don’t think anyone expected me to up the ante. And that’s the beauty of a place like SaGuijo: the crowd is there for the music, for the bands and for a good time. We are all sharing a moment together. And when that happens, the feeling is magical.

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For more pictures: click here

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Funny how time works. Last week was mostly spent at the Recital Studio from morning until late evening, Monday through Thursday, setting up, rehearsing, improving, changing, improvising, performing, tearing down and packing up. And now that this show is over, it somehow feels like the whole process was a long-forgotten dream, a distant memory. Maybe it’s the nature of the music and the visuals, maybe it’s because you invest a lot into a project for months and then it’s gone…
But it was a great experience, and working with Darren has been an eye-opener. I’ve always treasured the friendships I make through music, and I can only hope something else with him will crystallize in the future. Of course, there are things we wish we had had more time to work on, but you have to know when to let go at some point, and give something to the audience.

“Returning home” was the last piece we added to the show, literally one day before the premiere. Darren wanted something dark, with a sense of foreboding, but also a hint at new beginnings. The piece goes towards the end, and the visuals at that point take us through a quick montage of the boy’s previous experiences, dreams and nightmares. That sort of ‘life flashing before your eyes’ moment.
So I tried to work with that, and at a subconscious level I must have had NIN’s “beside you in time” at the back of my mind, because the way Reznor places that song just before “right where it belongs” seems to fit that hopeless/hopeful dichotomy.
Clearly, the visuals add a lot to the dynamics of the piece, and if you watched the show, I hope you enjoyed that part. I think that’s what I liked the most.

Still, that is over.

What now?

I owe the Lard Brothers a remix, which I hope to finish in the next 2 weeks. It’s going to be released later in the year, along with other remixes of their songs by other friends and musicians in the local scene. That should be fun.
We have 2 dates in Manila! I’ve heard a lot of good things about gigging in the Philippines, and I’m looking forward to meeting friends there.
And in the slightly longer term, I suppose I have started working on the second album. I really want it to sound different, and this seems to be the natural direction the new stuff is taking, so we’ll see where it goes…

So I guess 2010 hasn’t treated me too badly yet…

Don’t miss next week’s special “the boy who sees with stones” EP!! it’s all happening right here…