colleen

When I decided I would set up my studio at home again a couple of years ago, after 8 years of having a separate studio, I did not anticipate that the thing I would enjoy the most would be the ability to work late into the evening and at night. The more progress I made on the album, the more I spread the workload between afternoon and evening/night (to my cats’ utter dismay): it somehow just felt so right, making me reconnect with sensations I hadn’t felt since my early recordings in the 2000s.

I feel so fortunate that super talented photographer Luis Torroja has managed to capture the night atmosphere of my modest but beloved studio in such a brilliant way!!!

I’ve been a fan of voluntarily restricted setups since my 5th album Captain of None, as I find that fewer parametres actually widen my creativity, and this album is the most radical thing I’ve ever done: all the sounds you’ll hear were produced with only 6 pieces of gear (not counting my Soundcraft mixing desk and Scarlett soundcard), 5 of them analog (Elka Drummer One, Roland RE-201 Space Echo – both from Soundgas – , Moog Grandmother, MF-104M Analog Delay, MF-101 Lowpass Filter), 1 digital (Yamaha Reface YC, the main sound source on all songs, manipulated through the analog gear) + my voice. No digital plugin whatsoever was used. Digital intervention is purely and strictly restricted to a few edits (could count them on the fingers of my 2 hands) where takes needed to be joined (with the exception of vocals for which I did have to do a bit more “Frankensteining” due to being particularly nervous when recording these sessions).

Case in point, single “Gazing at Taurus – Santa Eulalia”: Yamaha Reface YC into Moog MF-104M Analog Delay, Elka Drummer One into Roland RE-201 Space Echo for a tiny bit of spring reverb. Vocals double-tracked with no FX.

You can preorder the album on the Thrill Jockey shop or on Bandcamp. As always thank you!

THANK YOU!!!

I can’t even begin to tell you how much my 7th album means to me, so I’ll just invite you to listen to the first single, read the lyrics below at the same time, and read the press release here or here.

The album is released on Thrill Jockey Records on May 21st 2021, and preorders already available .IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SHIPPING: my Bandcamp is run by Thrill Jockey who can only ship from the US on the Bandcamp platform. Please go to the THRILL JOCKEY SHOP TO CHOOSE SHIPPING FROM THE EU!

The single is also available on all streaming sites.

More about the album and that song on 5^th February.

Artwork by Andrés Gomez Servín.

“Time has been dripping through my bones
In slow droplets of sadness
And I wanted to see Taurus again
Just like last year
Spreading across and above the
Cathedral spire

Santa Eulalia

O sweet Pleiades
I’ll grab your sky
Make it my own
Blanket around my soul
To
Travel through the tunnel
Make it through the tunnel

Santa Eulalia”

This mix retrospective coupled with pics of my past live shows ends at the perfect moment: the future will soon be my present. What do I mean with this sentence, which kept cropping up in my mind yesterday? As with most of us, my life has been partially put on hold with Covid, but releasing my 7th album was on my mind long before Covid got here, and the thought that within less than 2 weeks the album will finally start its life at Thrill Jockey Records in spite of current circumstances fills me with deep gratitude and a sense of hope that this won’t last forever.

This last mix: October 2015, I had some bad news in my close family and was filled with worry and sadness, which is reflected in this mix, which takes its name from a beautiful 1960 Bengali film, “The cloud-capped star”, with an amazing soundtrack interspersed throughout this mix, with old favourites and an African ending.

That show, Moogfest, Durham, NC, 20th May 2017: my last show playing Captain of None live, the first in which I played an excerpt from the yet-to-be-released A flame my love, a frequency. Two days earlier, I was playing in San Diego: I had a blast birdwatching, was disappointed with the show, then spent the scariest hour of my life in an Uber on the way back to my hotel in Del Mar – literally *the* scariest hour of my life, worthy of a David Lynch film, in which I thought I would die – and I honestly think it’s a miracle I did get back to my hotel safely (I vowed to never to take an Uber again – hadn’t been my choice in the first place – and have stuck to this decision ever since). I spent 19th May trying to recover from the shock, wondering if I was even going to be able to perform. Thankfully, by 20th May, I pulled myself together enough to realize that this was indeed my last show performing my beloved album, and perhaps somehow this horrible adventure was there to prove a point about the fragility of life and how it could all be taken away suddenly and absurdly.

PLAYLIST

OST Mildred Pierce

Reuben Bell And The Casanovas – It’s Not That Easy

Nina Simone –  When I Was In My Prime

Bela Bartok – Rumanian Folk Dance

Jane And Barton – It’s A Fine Day

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 1

Denial – California Dreaming

Dark Day – The Metal Benders

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 2

Meredith Monk – Nota

Bob Lind – Black Night

Jackson C Frank – Just Like Anything

Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around To Die (Live At The Old Quarter)

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 3

Stina Nordenstam  – Clothe Yourself For The Wind

Dominique A – Nous Marchons Sous La Neige

Grouper – Disengaged – Vital

Greg Gives Peter Space – Electric Eel River

OST Stroszek

Stefan Lakatos/Moondog – Over The Mountain

Khassonka Dunun – Traditional Music From Mali 

Bena Kazembe Balitumpa – Kalimba & Kalumbu Songs, Northern Rhodesia

Lalle – The Fulani, Niger / Northern Bénin

Taireva – Zimbabwe, The Soul Of Mbira

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 4

OST Mildred Pierce

I distinctly remember daydreaming, in early 2017, “Wouldn’t it be great if one day a gear/instrument manufacturer decided to give me something?”. I was aware that it happened to other musicians, some of them operating more or less at my “level” in terms of exposure, but had no clue how this actually “worked”. Did they do something that I did not do?

Shortly after that, a short chain of events led me to getting in touch with Moog Music Inc, which led to my visit to their Soundlab in Asheville in November 2017 and the recording of a session which I subsequently released on my Bandcamp… I left Asheville with the grin of a 6-year-old: I had been given the 3 Moogerfoogers used for the session. Subsequently I was also gifted their Grandmother synth, which you’ll hear on my new album. In case you’re wondering, there is no obligation for me to use any of those instruments. In fact, this was a loooot of new gear by my minimalist standards, and since too much gear causes me anxiety and I tend to work best by restricting parameters, I only used the Grandma and the MF Low Pass Filter. But one thing is for sure: when you are gifted something of extremely high quality, there is a burning desire to honour that gift, which in turn pushes you to go beyond what you had planned to do (I had no plan to use a synth, but having been given the Grandmother, I just had to try it, and fell in love).

Fast forward to today, and this incredibly generous gift by Emilie Gillet, who runs one of the most respected and celebrated modular companies in the world, Mutable Instruments. Emilie not only sent me 5 modules (the 5th one is hidden on the right, because it hasn’t even been released yet!!!), but also set up the whole thing for me and even included patch cables… I am left speechless by this extra attention. And cannot wait to see how I can incorporate these jewels in a future setup.

More and more often I find myself thinking that yes, I make music on my own, but more than ever I feel surrounded by an amount of support, generosity and kindness which I couldn’t have imagined even in my wildest dreams.

When I was invited to submit a 100% vinyl mix for Vinyl Factory in 2015, I knew it’d be the perfect occasion “to go back over some favourites that I can connect to very specific periods of my life in terms of what I was listening to and where I was at in my own music-making. Some of them I discovered in the past few years, but I would like to tell you about five songs that are particularly relevant to the birth of my Colleen project back in the early 2000s.”

Read my musings on the following songs here at Vinyl Factory: Holger Czukay “Boat-Woman Song” which acts like a connecting thread throughout the mix, Wu-Tang Clan “Bells of War”, Autechre “Cipater”, Mulatu Astatke “Wubit”, Can “Vitamin C”.

Also, as you’ve probably noticed, this mix retrospective which is nearing its end also served as a live show retrospective of sorts. Here is my pedal setup in all its Captain of None glory with its 3 different sampling points.

Chain goes like this: Art Tube Preamp + Octabass EBS octaver + Boss Loopstation RC-30 + Line 6 DL4 + Moog MF-104 + Line 6 DL4. Sampling occurs on Loopstation (viola and voice) and the two DL4s, which are also used for delay. Art Tube preamp for treble viola da gamba, Octabass used for bass lines.

Holger Czukay – Boat-Woman-Song

Wu Tang Clan – Bells Of War

Autechre – Cipater

Holger Czukay – Boat-Woman-Song

Space Lady – Domine, Libra Nos /Showdown

Confetti – It’s Kind Of Funny

Family Fodder – Der Leiermann

The Fallout Club – The Beat Boys

Isolee – Beau Mot Plage

Reina De Cumbias – Conjunto Miramar

Can – Vitamin C

Holger Czukay – Boat-Woman-Song

Kaa Antelope – Rise Up Helicopter, Like A Bird

Mulatu Astatke – Wubit

Barong, A Balinese Musical Drama – Dance And Fight Of The Barong, Men’s Trance

Holger Czukay – Boat-Woman-Song