Artist
Benjamin Biolay (France)

"I'm not here to shock the bourgeois"

Benjamin Biolay has been known the past years for being a notorious bad boy, a person that speaks his mind and in doing so makes more enemies then friends, and a person with an ego as big as the moon. On the other hand he enriched the French music scene with some brilliant albums and is regarded by many as the heir of that other famous bad boy Serge Gainsbourg. With a new album in the shops French music magazine Les Inrock got the opportunity to ask mister Biolay some questions about the split with EMI, about his ongoing battle with fellow artists and about the new album, modestly called ‘La Superbe’. We could have written our own vision on this artist but it's much more interesting to let him tell it in his own words.

Why did EMI decide to separate from you?
Soon after the last album it became clear that  EMI had no special desire to extend my contract. They are in an industrial logic and I understand that I am not in their plans. I have not experienced it as a dismissal. My father was fired and I know what it’s like: it's terrible. I told myself that I would find another label, people around me reassured me . Finally, I found a certain freedom in this configuration, I had no pressure, no precise date for the mix, nothing. No record company to say: "Well, that's the single!" I worked in my corner and tried lots of stuff. With EMI, I made five albums under my own name plus the work i did for Henri Salvador, Keren Ann, Françoise Hardy - albums that have more market. They were good years, I have no regrets.

This year a good friend of yours Alain Bashung died, was that of influence on the new album?
He was on ‘Night shop’ which i wrote with him in mind. Bashung is maybe not a leading figure in French rock but he wrote great songs. With each album we listened to him, and we thought it was like the Talking Heads, and we understood that apart from him we were just Modern Talking (laughter). His debut is breathtaking. And then there was a man so kind and generous with young people. I spent entire afternoons with him ...

Do you feel like an artist monomaniac, bothered by only two or three things, including romance and sex?
I feel I am now. Perhaps because politics are so terrible that I need to concentrate on other things like daily intimate stuff ... There are contemporary artists who exhibit their poop, or Dash Snow, who died not long ago, that I loved, which send out newspaper clippings with his sperm. Everyone expresses his anger in his own way. I'm not there yet.

On the song Ton héritage you adress your child in a cruel retrospect to yourself, any autbiographical elements?
Under the pretext of writing something for my daughter, I just compiled the true image of what I am. I noticed that my father had much in common with me. This is the letter I would have liked him to have written to me. So, I chose a pretty cheesy song to go with this very raw text. Musically, it comes close to Michel Legrand or Francis Lai. If there was a song like that on a Miossec album, I would not feel he went far enough. Because it's me it’s much more risque (laughter).

You have the feeling of having something to prove against Miossec?
Miossec, Dominique A or Murat all too quickly went up into the pantheon of music.

Brandt Rhapsodie sounds like a  parody to the evil you spoke of in the media: the ‘kitchen sink drama’ French chanson, genre Bénabar?
Exactly. Jeanne Cherhal, who I really like, is there to reinforce this effect. Like me, she is catagorised in this "new French music" genre. We wrote this song together. There are shopping lists on her part, I am not yet able to write something like this: eggs, tampons, and so on. I was happy to do it, it (laughter). But yes, the idea was to mock the "new French song" in all its splendor.

Do you think your attitude in the media harms the image people have of you and therefore harms your popularity ?
Since my previous album, Trash Yeye I think so. This album would have gone platinum and sell 200 000 copies. Finally, it was 70 000, which is not bad for the period. But it's partly my fault too. I showed up at interviews and the only thing I could say was: "The French song makes me puke.". For me it was a political act somewhat necessary but it backfired in the end. I had an interview with Technikart, the guy handed me the questions, I ordered two more vodkas, stood up and left. I understand today that’s not the way to treat people.

Have you ever misused your bad boy image to get you noticed?
With the Technikart interview, yes. I find myself telling my shit in a double summer issue. Everyone reads it at the Francofolies de La Rochelle. But it's a bit like me too. Today, I love a guy like Booba (r: Senegalese born very provocative rap artist). I find the lyrics to his latest album one of the best he wrote till now. This machine rhymes, especially the internal rhymes. I love ‘Lunatic’ and ‘La lettre’. I think he has an influence on my last record, I have worked on the internal rhymes, it's something hip-hop.

You also started acting (Biolay a.o. starred in ‘Stella’, ‘C’est pour quand’), how’s that for a recording artist ?
Nice, there is no fear of the blank page, everything is already written, the costumes and haircut already selected. You're somebody's doll. I played enough to enjoy the doll.

You can read the interview in it’s entirety at Lesinrock.com. Or check our review of 'La superbe' or visit Biolay's page on europopmusic.eu...

o
Swedish singer Eva Dahlgren was discovered in 1978 by musician/producer Bruno Glenmark after appearing on the tv show 'Sveriges magasin' and her debut album 'Finns det nån som bryr sig om' was released the same year. It was released by Anders Glenmark, who would also produce many of Eva's following albums. Since the moment of her discovery, Eva worked very hard to achieve commercial success. In 1990 the single 'Ängeln i rummet' (‘Angel in the room’) from her album 'Fria världen 1989' became a huge success, partly because it was included on an album for Greenpeace (in an English version). It was a clear sign of what was to come. In 1991 she released ‘En blekt blondins hjärta’ (‘A bleached blonde heart’). This album sold 500,000 copies and gave her five Swedish Grammis in the categories Best Song, Artist of the Year, Best Album, Best Female Artist and Best Song-writer. The next year the album was also released in an English version. 1991 and 1992 were definitely Eva’s ‘big years’ and if you lived in Sweden and happened not to like her songs, you really had a problem; they were played continuously on the radio…

With hindsight the album is still on of the best Swedish pop albums ever. It contains a string of great tracks, up tempo, mid tempo and ballads. The production is modern yet almost timeless, which is quite an achievement considering that many of the albums from the early nineties suffer from outdate productions and arrangements (remember it was the era when house beats were all over the air…). And, first and foremost, there is Eva’s poetry. Eva Dahlgren definitely belongs to the Swedish female poetic artists.

The album starts very strong with the uplifting opening track ‘Jar är gud’ (‘I am god’):
“Who are you, a lost man's lie / who are you, a lost man's dream / a perpetual incitement long dream. / Feel the heat when I breathe and the kiss on your lips / Characteristic length in your heart, which may be the room of the entire world / Each soul is a god / I am god”

It is followed by the optimistic mid tempo track ‘Lev så’ (‘Live so’). Then the reflective love song ‘Kanske för minnenas skull’ (‘Perhaps for the sake of memories’). And if you think that all about love has already been written or sung, just read the following lines:
“See it's beautiful outside / snowflakes falling down, and die / It seems so easy that my words fall when I see you / I do not like you / And now, not a whisper, nor a word / Not even a seed in the frozen soil / Always this sadness of truth / Otherwise, why hesitate / Perhaps for the sake of memories / Perhaps for the sake of love / Perhaps for the kiss that never left my mouth”

‘Guldlock’ (‘Goldilocks’) is the next track, a very sober arranged ballad, just piano and sax. The lyrics are very reflective and almost ethereal:
“Did you see the world as new, as if you have never seen a grey day / Let all the beauty of my land be re-born with your words / As many a mile as I have travelled / … / I found love, happiness and peace / But in me there are still empty rooms”

‘Vem tänder stjärnorna’ (‘Who lights the stars’) is one of the successful singles from the album and is an inspiring love song:
“I have no belief in fate, the thought gives no rest / But who's turning winds, who makes me go where I have never gone before / Who lights the stars, as long as I look in your eyes / Who turns the winds / and turns my mind to where it has never reached”

‘Allting om igen’ (‘Everything over again’) is my personal favourite track of the album. It is a mysterious love song without actual lead vocals, more like a hymn, being chanted by a choir. The lyrics say it all:
“Love, child's play, all games, freedom / Fidelity, goodness, greatness, so hot / There is only you, for me, there is you / Past, contemporary, always, free time / With you, for you, in you, in me / There is only you, for me, there is you / Falcon gaming, interaction, endgame, wrong / Everything has an end, castles and over again”

‘Kom och håll om mej’ (‘Come and hold me’) is a nice mid tempo song with sensual lyrics about a woman desperately wanting to be held, no matter what:
“Experience, yes I know, but tomorrow… so far away / Blame it on the curiosity, / She knows from the inside / One time, and the memory lives on / And one time, is still no time / Come and hold me”

‘Dunkla skyar’ (‘Dark clouds’) is an elegant, soft song at first hearing, but it has a militant text in which Eva calls to us to come and stand at her side in battle against injustice, abuse etc.:
“I accuse men, the selected fools / Come stand by my side / I accuse the knights, those who turn with the wind / Come stand by my side / Long since forgotten, born again, flame against the dark clouds / Country of pristine land, broken words, lost faith, mendacious is the pride”

‘Blå hjärtens blues’ (‘Blue hearts blues’) is a tragic story about a love lost long ago and the pain it still causes:
“Voices in the dark, from another time / insert the needle into the heart, pressed in black vinyl / She bleeds with me, I bleed for you / You bleed for someone else”

‘Gunga mej’ (‘Rock me’) is a happy and catchy song about two people in search of moving in one, shared rhythm. The closing track of the album is ‘Drömmarna och muren’ (‘Dreams and the wall’), a song about the fall of the iron curtain, an actual theme back in 1991.
“People tore down the wall and they sowed the seeds of the newborn earth / Words of love fall like branches from a tree, old heroes blushed / Young boys took in war where no one died / There was a war of words”

With 'En blekt blondins hjärta' Eva proved that she was able to write serious and poetic songs and have commercial appeal as well. It all comes together perfectly on this fantastic album, no wonder so many people were attracted to it. The album also marked the peak of the successful collaboration between Eva Dahlgren and Anders Glenmark, which had hitherto been going on for almost fifteen years.

The success that came with a bleached blonde's heart, however, became too much for Eva, who chose to withdraw from the spotlight the next few years. She made her come back in December 1993 giving a concert, accompanied by an orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. After this concert she recorded a new album together with Salonen. Salonen conducted the Stockholm symphonic orchestra, Anders Hillborg composed the classical music and Eva wrote poems to the music. The album was called 'Jag vill se min älskade komma frän det vilda' and was released in 1995. She won a Grammi for the album as Artist of the year.

The record, however, marked the beginning of Eva drifting further and further away from pop music. She turned to writing books and became more of a poet or artist than pop singer. In 1999 she released ‘Lai lai’, her first pop album since ‘En blekt blondins hjärta’. Since then, she released some albums with new song material, mostly in sober singer-songwriter style. The success of ‘En blekt blondins hjärta’ has artistically liberated Eva and has enabled her to write and record whatever she feels like.

Here is a clip from 'Vem tänder stjärnorna'...

Click here tot visit Eva's page on europopmusic.eu...

Udo
Mina (Italy)

Mina Anna Mazzini is definitely the most influential female singer in Italian pop Music. She started her career at the age of 19, this year exactly fifty years ago, with her first tv-appearance in 1959. Since then, she has recorded more than 1,000 songs, released over 100 albums, sold more than 75 million records and scored 70 singles in the Italian charts. She is the only Italian artist who reached the first place on the national album charts in five different decades. Up till now she continues to release new albums at least once a year with lots of commercial success.

Although Mina did had some international success, especially in Germany and Japan in the sixties, she remained an Italian phenomena. How can we understand this phenomena, which is obviously very closely related to Italian culture?

First of all, Italians apparently love public figures with lots of drama. They love dirty gossip, and they love to discuss it publicly. Just look at Berlusconi, for instance. Whatever incorrect acts the man does besides politics, the Italian people just seem to forgive him for it. It almost seems like these missteps make the public figure a human of flesh and blood in the eyes of the public and that is what they respect in the end.
Mina endured some public scandal at the beginning of her career. Back in 1963, she got pregnant by the married actor Corrada Pani, but she denied to admit this publicly. This caused her to be banned from the Italian tv and radio channels as her lifestyle did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois morals. Thanks to her remaining popularity and loyal following the ban was lifted after just two years, freeing the way for Mina to continue her musical career. (By the way, Massimiliano Pani was born on 18 April 1963 and he has become a composer, musician and producer himself. He has produced many of Mina’s albums that were released since the beginning of the eighties.)

Another important factor that Mina’s helps to understand Mina’s popularity is the fact that she was the first Italian woman that really embodied ‘girl power’ (long before they even invented the word). Coming out of the dark years of WW II, Italy was trying to redefine its identity. Having a long tradition of singing (opera, cazonetti, traditional folk songs etc.) popular music was a perfect medium for the young Italians to reinvent themselves. Since the start of the fifties, Italian music scene really boosted and many young artists surfaced (Modugno, Paoli, Tengo, Celentano etc.). The fact that Italian subculture became very visible in the USA (Frank Sinatra for instance) helped this development enormously. They created a new typical music style, that was very recognisable Italian: pop and rock songs with highly expressive, dramatic melodies. Every once in a while one of these Italian pop songs became international standards as well. And Mina was there, at the right time at the right place, as the first very successful female Italian singer. Soon she was joined by Ornella Vanoni, Iva Zannicchi and Milva, but none of them had such impressive impact on Italian pop culture. Mina’s girl power was expressed through her strong and vibrant personality and looks, her explicit sex appeal and her songs, often about dealing with subjects such as religion, smoking or sex. This caused the Italian broadcasting company RAI to try to prohibit her songs from broadcasting. This could not prevent Mina to become one of the most important role models for women in general and female emancipation in particular.

The third factor that contributed Mina’s musical status was that she took complete control of her career. At the end of the sixties, she founded her own independent record label PDU, with the help of her father. The first record to be released on this label was ‘Dedicato a mio padre’ (‘Dedicated to my father’). Furthermore, she proved to have great capacities for selecting songmaterial form the most crafted and talented composers, like Mogol and Lucio Battisti, Ennio Morricone, Domenico Modugno, Gino Paoli, Luigi Tengo, Fabrizio De André, Roccardo Cocciante, Astor Piazzola, Adriano Celentano etc. This way, Mina recorded some of the most popular songs in Italian pop music history: ’Il Cielo in una stanza’, ‘Grande grande grande’ (well known in Shirley Bassey’s cover version ‘Never never never’), ‘Parole parole’, a duet with Alberto Lupo (also known in the version of Dalida and Alain Delon that was released a year later), ‘E penso à te’, ‘E poi…’, ‘L’importante è finire’, ‘Questione di feeling’ (with Cocciante), and in later years songs like ‘Succhiando l'uva’ by Zucchero Fornaciari. The way Mina took complete control over her career reminds us of how Madonna would manage her businesses some decades later…

The final factor is that Mina carefully created her diva status with all the necessary mysticism that surrounds her. After her rock ‘n roll period in the fifties and sixties, a lighter musical period followed in the seventies with pop, folk and jazz influences. Her success continued but began to take its toll. Mina got very tired of always being in the public eye. She decided that things would have to change seriously. She had already left Italy for Lugano, Switserland (where she has been living up to this day). Here she also started her own recording studio, where she could work completely independent from anyone else. She also decided that she would completely disappear from public life. After her life tour in 1978 she never performed for public again. She never gave interviews and she avoids photographs being published. Even the artwork of her albums never reveals real images of Mina; only after extensive photoshop treatment Mina authorizes the artistic images for her albums art work. The art work is often created by the Mauro Balletti (photography, art direction) and Stefano Anselmo (styling, make up, trics).

The image of the artist has become the artist. The image - or rather: the brand - Mina has been separated from the actual person. This enables her to live her live in reclusion, yet she can create and release her great works of art at an impressive speed.

With her unique timbre and powerful four octave voice she still sings her dramatic love stories. Due to her impressive voice and expressive face and gestures when performing, Mina was nicknamed the Tiger of Cremona. For five decades this tiger has been a constant and dominant factor on the Italian music scene, and there is no stopping her yet. This year she already released two new albums, ‘Sulla tua bocca lo diro’ and just this November the grand ‘Facile’.

Here is an incredible clip with Mina performing 'E poi...' live in 1974:

Click here to visit Mina's page on europopmusic.eu...

lice
Bijelo Dugme (Former Yugoslavia)
Bitanga i princeza (The brute and the princess) (1979) - ♪♪♪♪♪

In the seventies Bijelo Dugme from Bosnia/Herzegovina was considered the flagship of Yugoslavian progressive rock. With three albums selling extremely well and their popularity surpassing anyone’s expectations when a free concert in Belgrade in 1977 attracted an enormous crowd. It was at this time that main composer Goran Bregovic was called to serve in the army (as keyboard player Vlado Pravdić already was in) and drummer Ipe Ivandić was arrested for the possesion of hashish and centessenced to three years in prison. Meanwhile singer Zeljko Bebek released a first solo album. Obviously not the best feeding ground for a new album.

Suprisingly the band picked up their trail in 1978 when they started recording their fourth album in Sarajevo. Added with a new drummer Điđijem Jankelić and with the returned Vlado Pravdić they would record ‘Bintanga I Princeza’. An album now considered by many as the band key-album and the one that marked the best elements between their seventies prog period and eighties new-wave period. It could also be considered a first rough sketch of Bregovic’s musical masterplan. Adding openly orchestral arrangements and folkloristic rhythms the album gives a preview of things to come much later when Bregovic starts recording with international stars like Sezen Aksu, Kayah or George Dalares. He already experimented with this on his first solo album in 1976 but the seven and a half minute ‘Sve će to mila moja prekriti ruzmarin, snjegovi i šaš’ closing the album is an upscale to what he did before.

For the orchestral arrangement Ranko Rihtman was contacted who shared a common past with Pravdić as member of rock formation Indexi. To the surprise of English producer Neil Harris (who didn’t think to highly of non-English rock) an entire orchestra including a choir was set up to record the haunting plea for world peace. After five minutes of symphonic excellence Bebek breaks down in the dramatic conclusion:
“Where? Show me! / Where? Sad destiny, if not for love, what is the world going to be? / As a rose? Two funny sheep? Or sleep? / In vain, in vain, everything is against us”.
Sad to say that ten years later the peace in Yugoslavia would indeed be in vain as the republic violently falls apart. Afterwards Harris persuaded Bregovic to mix the album at the Abbey Road Studios for the perfect mix.

Although less symphonic the rest of the album also is a treat to anyone enjoying good music. From rock-opener ‘Bitanga and Princess’ to the emotional love ballad ‘Kad zaboraviš juli’ (‘When you forget July’) also recorded with the orchestra, to the reggae styled ‘Na zadnjem sjedištu moga auta' ('On the backseat of my car'). It was this song and ' Ala je glupo zaboravit' njen broj' that caused some problems with the censors. The first due to it's erotic content, the second due to the line:
"All this will, my dear, be covered with rosemary, snows and sedge / And Christ was a bastard of misery ".
The church wasn’t to pleased with what they considered blasphemy and had it changed into"And he was a bastard of misery." A second censor problem came when the first coverdesign by Dragan S. Stefanovic was considered vulgar (the image showed a female foot kicking in a male groin) and had to be replaced by a cover by the standard Jugoton designers. August 16, 1979 the album was finally released being a immediate huge succes in the Yugoslavian countries and selling multi-platinum.

Click here to visit Bijelo Dugme's and Bregovic' page on europopmusic.eu...

Udo
Kayah (Poland)

Often when we tell people in Holland about our trips through Poland, we meet a lot of prejudice about this country. “Isn’t it very cold?” Aren’t all building ugly and grey?” Can one eat decently over there?” Probably a lot of West-European people still have the TV images in mind of the strikes in Gdansk in the beginning of the eighties. It is a pity (for them!) that they remained completely ignorant regarding what exciting country Poland actually is. The most beautiful nature parks in Europe, a lot of wildlife, interesting history and buildings (castles, palaces etc.). Poland is also a country with a very troubled history; history has not been very kind to the Polish people…

It is maybe one of the reasons why the Polish people have a wide musical tradition. It might have been a way of dealing with their collective sorrow and suffering. Since the fall of the iron country, the country is on of Europe’s up and coming economies. Lucky for us music fans, this also goes for the music scene. Poland has produced many interesting pop and jazz artists. On of the most successful ones is female singer Kayah (short for Katarzyna Szczot), our ‘artist of this month’.

Kayah has released a string of very successful albums, both commercially and artistically. ‘Kamien’ (‘Stone’) in 1996, ‘Zebra’ in 1997, ‘Kayah & Bregovic’ in 1999, ‘Jaka Ja Kayah’ in 2000, ‘Stereotyp’ in 2003, ‘The best and the rest’ in 2005 and ‘MTV Unplugged’ in 2007. And just recently she released her latest album, ‘Skała’ (‘Rock’). All  these albums went at least gold status in Poland, most of them went platinum.

Kayah writes most of the music and lyrics of her songs. Her music is very much rooted in Anglo-American music styles: jazz, soul and r&b. The most remarkable thing about Kayah is that she combines them very organically with traditional and modern Polish music, creating a very unique sound that I can only describe as ‘ice-queen soul’. She avoids falling into the obvious trap of simply copying American and English soul music, no, she blends these influences into something completely new. Apart from her unique musical style, Kayah has the perfect voice to match it. Her dark, sultry voice enables her to express the complete range of human emotions. She can sing an intimate soft ballad as well as go wild on one of her funky-disco tracks. This years release, ‘Skała’, is a showcase of the singing quality of the now more mature singer.

Click here to visit Kayah's on europopmusic.eu...

Watch Kayah in action with Goran Bregovic...

Udo

Mister Prikkebeen
and
Sister Ursula (1858)

Alice
Rob de Nijs (Netherlands)
In de uren van de middag (In the hours of the afternoon) (1973) - ♪♪♪♪♪

After being the absolute teen-idol in the sixties with his band The Lords, Rob de Nijs came down hard when the band split in 1965 and musically he was already outdated at the age of 22. While the Sergeant Peppers and Electric Ladyland’s hit the scene Rob’s rock ‘n roll moves were suddenly considered very tame. For work he joined the circus Boltini and started performing at the clubs of his then father-in-law Jan Hesseling. In 1969 he got a part in the children’s TV show ‘Oebele’ and the musical ‘Salvation’. He also takes up a part in the TV show ‘Kunt u mij de weg naar Hamelen vertellen?’ (‘Can you show me the way to Hamelin?’), loosely based on the 15th century German folktale ‘The pied piper of Hamelin’. It’s here that he met songwriter Lennaert Nijgh who had much success with singer Boudewijn de Groot at the time. The duo offer De Nijs to write material for him leading to a full album. Of course De Nijs excepts.

Nijgh (together with his sister Astrid) and De Groot started writing material that would fit Rob’s role in the then very popular ‘Hamelen’ TV show. Dutch / European folk-tales and persona are worked into lyrics and fitted into modern styled orchestral pop-arrangements. Teaser single ‘Jan Klaassen de trompeter’ was for that matter exemplary for the album.

The song tells the folk tale of 17th century trumpeter Jan Claesen who served in the army of prince Frederik Hendrik. Jan was married to Katrijn Pieters and lived in the Amsterdam area called the Jordaan. They made their living (next to trumpeting) with a puppet show based on the Italian Puchenel figure. Obviously they weren't very rich hence the refrain of the song: "He had no money / he was no hero / he didn't like the battle / but he was a trumpeteer in heart and soul". In Holland such puppetshows are still common under the names of the original puppeteers and even made their mark in Anglo-American culture where they are called ‘Punch and Judy’. The song was a minor hit record but didn’t stop the release of the album ‘In de uren van de middag’.

More folk figures make their appearance on the album. ‘Dag zuster Ursula’ (‘Goodbye sister Ursula’) is inspired by the first Dutch cartoon story ‘Travels and adventures of Mister Prikkebeen’ (1858). The character Prikkebeen has been used before by Nijgh/De Groot in their hit ‘Meester Prikkebeen’ of 1968. And now returns in a letter to his sister with the message: “I’m going to America / It’s the true god right country / I write you this myself / your beloved Prikkebeen”. The song became a huge hit, peaking at the third place in the charts.

Another character on the album is ‘Malle Babbe’ (‘Silly Babbe’) written around the ‘witch’ of the city of Haarlem (the city where Nijgh lived). The sad tale goes that ‘Malle Babbe’ was a 17th century retarded woman and a notorious drunk, roaming the streets and being misused by the local men for their entertainment. Babbe was immortalized by Dutch painter Frans Hals in 1642 when he painted her during his stay at the local workers-home. He painted her with an owl sitting on her shoulder refering to the Dutch saying ‘as drunk as an owl’. The painting is currently hanging in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. A statue made by sculpture Kees Verkade of Babbe was placed in Haarlem in 1978. More female folklore drama is told in the song about 17th century Amsterdam maid ‘Maria’ who is forced to prostitute her body for the local baron: “He shows her the money and unzips his pants / she lets him with his staring eyes and rough body / he can have his way while she stares at the wallpaper”.

More European folklore comes along in the song ‘Leonardo’ which tells the tale about Leonardo da Vinci attempting to create a flying machine and being scorned by the public for being a wizard. ‘Meisje in Engeland’ (‘Girl in England’) is a rather mysterious tale about a girl from Ambleside at Englands largest lake ‘Windermere’. Although less known then Loch Ness the lake has its fair share of folk-tales and even inspired the makers of the computer-game ‘Tekken’ to set the action around the lake.

In the end the album was a failure and never charted. The lush orchestral arrangements (played by the Metropole Orchestra) and the Dutch lyrics were maybe to much for the Dutch public. Over time however songs like ‘Malle Babbe’, ‘Jan Klaassen’ and ‘Ursula’ found their way into the collective consciousness of the Netherlands and are now considered huge classics. Rob de Nijs still performs the songs from the album with much success. A classic Dutch pop-album that has to grow on you.

Click here to link directly to Rob's page.

Udo
Imants Kalniņš (Latvia)

Travelling the Baltic States the influence of the Russification that was applied by the Soviet regime for more then forty years is notable everywhere. Also in the music scene. During the Soviet period, artists and writers were kept under surveillance and their work was heavily censored. This was done largely through state sponsorship. Artists who were approved by the state were given superior accommodation and the state purchased their work. There were also artists that tried to find mazes in the Soviet regulation and were able to keep local culture alive.

In musical terms the Latvian traditional music originates in the Daina. A mix of music and poetry telling stories about local mythology and legendary Latvian heroes. No wonder the Soviet rule wasn’t to keen on these nationalistic songs. With this in mind the work of composer Imants Kalniņš is undeniable of great importance. Born in 1941 he was brought up under Soviet rule. Still he was interested in the old Latvian daina’s and mixed them in his classical work. This did not go down to well. To make things even worse he became interested in rock ‘n roll in sixties and founded the first Latvian pop-band 2xBBM. After a short-lived succesfull start the local officials banned the band just a year after their first appearance.

Probably pretty pissed off Kalniņš started to work on a project that would be released as ‘symfony 4’ in 1972. The project was no classical work but is in fact the first progressive rock album in Latvia history. Inspired by illegal music like Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ and Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ Kalniņš mixed rock and Latvia folklore with classical music. To make things even worse he incorporated poetry from American beat poet Kelly Cherry (who was his lover at the time) for the final movement. Still with all these obvious attempts to irritate the Soviet officials the symphony was allowed to be released if Cherry’s poem would be left off. Although it looks like a minor step for some the relevance of this work for Latvian people must have been huge. Note that a copy of the album is even on display at the Riga Occupation Museum as a symbol of the Latvian culture being cherished in the seventies.

Unstoppable Kalniņš kept composing, writing for other rock groups and organizing folklore festivals throughout the seventies. Finally in the eighties some hope arose when Gorbachev's glasnost policy allowed more freedom of speech in the Soviet Union than ever before. Latvia's independence movement started with small demonstrations for independence and human rights in 1986. The breaking point came in summer 1988 when a strong resurgence of Latvian national identity had started. Tautas Fronte was one of the key organizations in this and Kalniņš was one of their prominent members. Allowed to join the elections in 1991 the party became the governing party quickly to call out independence. Of course the Soviet Union tried to oppose this and quickly send a tank battalion to set things straight. In Riga unarmed people built barricades and spent days and nights guarding them, singing Latvian songs (which must have been some of Kalniņš compositions) . Because of this the independence movement is now known as "the Singing Revolution".  After the independence music culture started to develop again and also Kalniņš started recording again with a regular output until this day. His role was and is still regarded highly by the Latvian people.

Click here to visit Imants Kalniņš page on europopmusic.eu...

Listen to the second movement

Udo

Alice
Renata Przemyk (Poland)
Unikat (2006) - ♪♪♪♪♪

In 2002, after ten years of being a recording artist and after the success of her album ‘Balladyna’ Renata Przemyk was ready for a change. Known for her rebellious albums, shrilling voice and rock-styled music Renata wanted to create something new. In 2004 and 2005 she started writing together with her steady musical partner poet Anna Saranieckiej. The duo came up with a large amount of ideas that were narrowed down to twelve new compositions. Soon it became clear that this would turn out to be a very personal album for the girls dealing with emotions and internal dualism. This asked for a different approach then her previous albums and together with producer Maciej Werk Renata selected an almost acoustic band to meet her in the fall of 2005 in the Spot Studio’s in Krakow. Key instrument was the acoustic guitar added with drums and strings, bass, accordion, piano, and some electronic components. Released in march 2006 ‘Unikat’ (Unique) was indeed a different album. As dark as her previous albums the tone was much less aggressive. The lyrics however were more fatalistic then ever before telling stories of the ironic distance people have to each other and the world. But more personal the lyrics tell about relationships going terribly wrong, about people staying together without actually knowing why or having forgotten what brought them together in the first place. The opening song ‘Zona’ can be considered exemplary for what’s to come:

“What planets are the brightest /can be seen from Earth only in the dark night / I wonder, do they need the glow / only once in a million years / Our souls are close but forgot each other / maybe one of us will restore their memory”

The references to an icy cold relationship continue on ‘Gites’ and ‘Lullaby’ and get really sour on the title track: “Stumble over the threshold / I remain silent, you are silent / These are the rules of the game”. Later she sings: “"Let sorrow live under our roof / I liked it, because if you leave it / I am not staying here all alone”. The battle becomes extra bitter on ‘Finito’ when a haunting piano and a cynical children choir accompany Renata’s sinister conclusion that :”Repaying the debt of earlier days absorbs me / With a smile I confess that I loved only myself”. Even the closing track ‘Wiem’ (I know) doesn’t offer any solace when Renata sings: “I know how difficult it is to understand / we still do not know how to go away / not more than one step at least, to break away”. On the track well known classical composer Maciej Pawłowski joins in on piano. The album ends in an instrumental version of ‘Unikat’ where Przemyk’s accordion silently wails.

Renata’s fear that the new musical approach would scare away fans was luckily unnecessary. Comments on her fan pages give ‘Unikat’ high ratings but people also state that the album is so intense that they can only listen to it in the privacy of their own home. For Renata ‘Unikat’ is up until now the last album she made. She took on a career as a stage actress currently performing the role of Meksykanki in ‘A streetcar named desire’. This summer she was awarded a life time achievement award by the London Music Academy. It is our sincere hope she will find the time for a new album in the future and share more inner demons with us.

Click here to link directly to Renata's page

Watch 'Zona'