geography

Earth Variations – streaming everywhere

Pleased to announce that my new album Earth Variations is now available on all the major streaming services worldwide.

Links to the album on selected streaming platforms

I’m truly excited – and relieved – to finally have this album completely released and out in the world. It’s been years in the making, with unexpected detours and discoveries along the way.

I’m truly grateful to the brilliant artists and musicians who made this album possible: Viktoriia Vitrenko @viktoriiavitrenko on vocals and voice, Omar Harb @omarharbmusic on bass, Petteri Mäkiniemi @petterimakiniemi on Ginette, Nazim Bakour @nazimbakour on electric guitar, Em’kal Eyongakpa on field recordings. And to the brilliant Gregor Zemljic @gregor_zemljic_gz_mastering for mastering the album with such care.

Thank you also to the similarly brilliant Lee Clough @leeclough, whose original photograph (now obscured by my yellow haze) inspired both the visual and sonic direction of the album. And for her Indian riverscape tape recording that first set me off for unearthing these possible musical geographies (back in 2000!).

My gratitude and warmth also extend to everyone else whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet along this journey – there are simply too many of you to mention here 🙂 – as well as to the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR) and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike) for their invaluable support. Thank you.

Keep rocking X
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“Earth Variations explores the idea of music as an embodied and possible geography: a milieu, landscape, terrain, situation, condition, atmosphere. It is inspired by our unique, complex planet in a state of flux. Featuring contributions from soprano Viktoriia Vitrenko, bassist Omar Harb, Ginette player Petteri Mäkiniemi, guitarist Nazim Bakour, and sound artist Em’kal Eyongakpa, the music has been composed and recorded in London, Saarbrücken, Espoo, Douala and Paris between 2004 and 2023.”

Prince Claus Awards 2019 / New Geographies

Cover picture: Frank van Beek

Greetings from Amsterdam! My old hometown, where I haven’t been to for 22 years. I’m in town for the 2019 Prince Claus Awards for culture and development, as I had the honour of being one of the advisors for the jury this year. You can read more about the awards and the laureates here: https://princeclausfund.org/awards-laureates

As this decade is coming to an end, I became reflective on this rather transformative 10-year period I experienced – and put together a short Spotify playlist containing three pieces from each of the seven albums I made this decade. New Geographies 2010-2019

For this has truly been a decade of coming into being, journeying, discovering and developing new geographies, becoming: from escaping the noise of Berlin to the solitude of Helsinki in 2010, in order to focus on my debut album (which I’d been only dreaming of making in the previous decade while experimenting with wildly different sounds and lifestyles in London); through my subsequent travels and residencies in West and North Africa, Western and Southern Europe; through my further academic studies; through my public sound installations in Belgium, Germany, Finland, Italy and the US; through my subsequent six albums, which all explored the question of “what if…” (“what if this kind of cultural landscape existed”, “what if this was the most popular form of music, what kind of society would that suggest?” and so on); to this gathering of creative talents and minds in A’dam, where new possible geographies and becomings are being formed for the coming decade.

I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to all of you who have supported me during these 10 years, and all of you who have been listening. It really has meant the world to me. The next decade will start off with a brand new album and new journeys and discoveries after that. WARMTH X

ps. few random and blurry pictures from the last night.