Thunderblender - Economically, it was very difficult before the pandemic, and now it’s a real crisis. But if you ask what would like to do in my life, making this music and performing it, would be the answer

Ter introductie van de formative Thunderblender citeren we even uit de biografie op de website van JazzLab: ‘’Thunderblender speelt vernuftige, moderne jazz vol emotie en contrasten. Ze bewegen voortdurend tussen orde en tumult, vrijheid en strakheid, tussen heftige grooves en fragiele intimiteit.’’
De band werd opgericht door Sam Comerford, opgegroeid in Dublin, ontmoet hij tijdens zijn studie in Brussel Hendrik Lasure die perfect aanvoelt welke richting Sam wil uitgaan. In een later stadium leerde hij Jens Bouttery kennen, die hij zag optreden. En zo was de band compleet. Het talentvolle trio brengt zijn debuut uit ‘Stillorgan’. We hadden hierover een fijn gesprek met Sam  Comerford in een gezellige café nabij Brussel Zuid. Naast de nieuwe plaat hadden we het ook over het verleden, de moeilijke situatie nu voor vele muzikanten, en de toekomst.

You could look it up, but as we’re a bit lazy - how did the idea of ​​"Thunderblender" come about? The style of music you bring is described as "Avant-garde jazz”. Is this correct, what does this mean?
I founded the band when I was studying at the Flemish Conservatory in Brussels. I had been playing in different groups playing original music for many years, such as Aerie, and I wanted to start my own project. I wanted to write music that had many layers, that could be improvised in a different way every time. I was looking for open minded musicians who could improvise in an honest way, and I met Hendrik at the KCB. When I called Jens to play the music, I didn’t know him at all. I had seen him play a gig at a small café in Brussels, the Chat Pitre, and I was really amazed. That's how it all started.

The music style you bring is called jazz, but it is not classic jazz, but jazz nonetheless. Sounds complicated, but what is jazz actually in your eyes?
What jazz that is a big question, and I don’t feel that qualified to answer! I think it begins with American art music, especially African-American music. I certainly love and was heavily influenced by musicians like Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and Lennie Tristano. It's the spirit of exploration and freedom in this music that draws me to it. Is what I do jazz? I'm not sure, but it certainly feels connected to that tradition.

Is it also true if you can play jazz you can play anything, that’s a little bit my opinion
Well, playing jazz requires a strong musical and technical foundation. Today, a lot of people go to study jazz in a conservatory to have that foundation, and then go on to make music in a different style. But this doesn’t mean that by studying jazz you know how to play a different kind of music. Every kind of music is expressing something unique in its own way.

Your debut will actually be released on September 11, but in 2017 there was already an EP "Last Minute Panic" How were the reactions to this EP. Has that release opened doors?
Yes, we had good reviews, and it helped us to play in Belgium, around the country, at festivals, and even tour Ireland. But it was a raw live recording, made on one of our first gigs! The new album is more of a complete statement. We had grown so much as a band from playing together, and I wrote a lot of new music. It was recorded live in the same room, in Koen Gisen’s studio, La Patrie, and his production really made the album what it is.

The title of the debut ‘Stillorgan’ refers to the suburb of Dublin where band leader Sam Comerford grew up, I read in an article by our colleague from Luminous Dash. Tell us a bit more about it
Stillorgan is the place where I spent my teenage years. It’s a suburb of South Dublin, there’s not much going on there. The title isn’t really about the place, it’s more about where I come from, my experiences there, and the people I love who live there.

I have only listened to the disc twice, it seems to me not even enough, I get the feeling that there are many things that I have not yet discovered, after a second listen you suddenly hear sounds that you have not heard before. Was this approach consciously chosen?
I guess that’s a result of the process. It’s the way I make music. The details come from the process. It was all recorded live, and a lot of the music is very improvised. We made edits later, sometimes combining takes of different improvisations. In the recording and mixing, a large part was done in an analogue way. I hope the result is a very organic sounding record.

I especially like that endless experimenting and improvising, creating a kind of ordered chaos in my head. Magnificent! What is your opinion about this?
I'm happy you enjoyed it. When I was writing the music I tried to make the composed parts sound unpredictable, loose and improvised, and often when we improvise it ends up sounding more composed than the writing.

It is also a very varied disc, not a single song on the previous one. Sometimes modest, often the reins are released. The question here too, what is your opinion on that? Was such an approach consciously chosen and why?
Everything comes from the compositions. I try and do service to the music, and give it what it needs. Some compositions are meant to be improvised in a frantic way. Some demand a gentle, reserved approach, often even without improvisation.

It is also wonderful how you (especially percussion and piano) want to take your own path, which is perfectly complemented by the saxophone sound, so that a line is still strong. For that you have to feel and complement each other perfectly, otherwise things will go wrong. Is this statement correct?
Yes, it's true! A lot of the music I write for Thunderblender has three or four different voices at the same time. The idea is that we can choose to play some, all, or none of the written parts, so that the composition is different every time it's played. It's really about melody – I am a saxophone player! Even the bass parts are meant to be heard as melodies.

To wrap up on my personal opinions on this disc, (the review will follow later) what are your own personal expectations?
I think once you make a record and release it in the world, it has its own life, and people can make their own conclusions. I can only hope people will listen to it and feel something.
In September and October we're going to do a release tour. I can't wait to play live again! The release tour will be a double bill with Kreis, organised by Jazzlab. Kreis play beautiful delicate chamber jazz, with accordion, double bass and reeds.(https://www.jazzlab.be/seizoen-2020-2021/double-bill-kreis-thunderblender/) We also have a gig on October 3^rd in CC Strombeek, double bill with Ansatz Der Maschine. (link), and a gig at the Jazzycolors festival in Paris, at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in November.

Let's also agree on these special times in which we live. How have you as a musician, band, but also as a person dealt with this corona crisis?
It’s been a difficult time. I've been making a living only from performing for the past ten years. I've lost all my income, have luckily gotten some support, but it's not going to last, and it's not enough. As a person it's also been a difficult time, but one full of great personal growth.

It's kind of a standard question that I'm asking everyone these days. How do you think culture and music will survive this crisis?
I think it’s going to be a very difficult era. Already before Covid, the right wing politics have been working on dismantling everything cultural – see the State of the Arts campaign. We need music and art, but I'm afraid many people are going to have to stop, many institutions will risk closing.

What are the further plans, will there be performances (possibly corona proof)?
After the tour, we have to wait and see how we can organize international gigs with the pandemic situation. Personally, I'm going to dive into a project based around traditional Irish music and the saxophone.

Besides Thunderblender, you are also working on other projects. How can this be combined? Because some of those projects are also very active now. However?

I'm playing in a lot of bands –you just have to be very organized with your time, my calendar can get very confusing! Artistically, each band has a different repertoire, and a different way of approaching music. I try to have no preconceived ideas about what the music needs, and be as honest as possible with my playing.

What are the band's ambitions (beyond world dominance, of course)?
If I could compose and play music for Thunderblender full time and make a living from it, I would be very happy!

Would you be willing, if you could make a lot of money with that, to make music just for the money? If that makes you world famous, but also denies your roots?
Whether I make very commercial or very abstract music, I always try to bring an honest approach to it. So I guess the answer is, I would do it in an honest way? I don't know! With Thunderblender, it should be pretty clear that money is not the primary motivation.

Thanks for this nice conversation.  If there is anything more you want to tell our readers, go ahead
Thank you Erik!

Gigs: 15-10 De Casino, Sint-Niklaas ; 21-10 Trix, Antwerpen; ...

Pics homepag @Sophie Saporosi

Nicolas Michaux - Democracy can only function if people are aware of what’s going on and willing to participate in the political process

Nicolas Michaux is a singer-songwriter and music producer. Born and bred in Belgium he now divides his time between Brussels, and the Danish island of Samso, where he writes and records. Michaux released the critically acclaimed debut album “A La Vie A La Mort” in 2016. His second album “Amour Colère” will be out now on September 25. We had a nice conversation with Nicolas about the past, the new release of course, and the future. But also about corona and how the world is changing.. Or how it should be.

Nicolas, you've been in the music business for a while, because our readers (and I too) are quite curious. How did it all start?
Yes that’s true. I started a first band when I was still a teenager around 2004. The band was called Eté 67. We were all from Liège and used to play a lot in the area at the time. It was fun to be on the road with my mates and very instructive to be involved at such a young age with the music business, the studios, the tours etc... That period in the band really allowed me to learn my trade.  Then the band split and after a small break I started my solo career in 2014 with the releases of my first two singles : ‘Nouveau Depart ‘and ‘A la vie à la mort. ‘

What are the heights and any depths to date?
I don’t know really. I don’t envision things exactly that way. I mean I try to focus on my work and try to do It honestly with a high level of commitment and concentration. But You can only put your best efforts ; you can’t command the consequences and this trade demands a lot of distance from the fruits of action. I mean you never know when something is going to be a success or not, there are so many parameters. I’ve enjoyed great times in my career but paradoxically It was not linked to such things as commercial success etc... The discovery is what’s the more thrilling for me. To unveil a song or even just a beautiful musical part is always a source of great joy.

You divided, according to I read your time between Denmark and Brussels? Your songs are partly in English and French? A very international road that you walk. Have you consciously chosen this approach? And why?
That’s right. I live partly in Brussels where I’m part of Capitane Records and partly on the island of Samsø where my girlfriend and our daughter reside. I don’t know If I chose all this consciously. I don’t think we choose that much in life. And certainly not who we fall in love with. But It’s true that in a way I orientated my pace without paying too much attention to frontiers and boundaries. I’ve always craved this kind of freedom from inherited determinisms. I mean living abroad a great part of the year and being in a relation with someone from another culture surely brought me a bit of distance from my natural environment and comfort zone. It makes you think with a little bit more relativity maybe. It brings to mind that things can be different from what you’re used to and that very few things are really natural ; most of them being socially and culturally constructed.

‘His music stands at the crossroads of different traditions: the great era of the French "chanson", the American songwriters, the Brit rock of the 60s, and the early new wave.’ I read the press release. How would you prefer to describe your music yourself?
It’s always a difficult question. I’m not at ease with musical genres and I always find It hard to categorize things ; especially my own music. And I think my music and my lyrics are made of all those things I can’t describe in real life.  But we could say my music sits somewhere between Indie Rock and Indie Pop and is influenced by the sound of the sixties and seventies. 

Which artists are your biggest source of inspiration and why?
You have the great american songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams, Lou Reed, Townes Van Zandt… because they’re all so cool and they just wrote all these amazing songs.
Then you have the early rock from the fifties and the sixties : The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who, Pink Floyd,… Rock is the music who triggered me to play when I was a teenager and I keep an instinctive and very powerful love for It.  And then you have the French tradition with singers like Léo Ferré, Barbara, Charles Trenet, Serge Gainsbourg, Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Jeanne Moreau…  For me, these artists have always been around. It’s the music my parents used to listen to at home.  But I also love things like the CBGB scene, the highlife from ghana and Its area, the Congolese rumba, Moondog, the clash, the Ethiopian jazz, the country-blues, the beach boys…. ; my tastes are very eclectic as long as I feel that the artists had something to say and were somehow part of what greil marcus once called the “invisible republic”. 

You released your debut in 2016, what were the reactions and has it opened certain - let's say - doors?
It did indeed. The album was mainly in French and it was released on a French label called Tôt ou tard. It got really good reviews in many newspapers and magazines. We toured extensively after the release giving more than one hundred shows in Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Germany and even a few in China.

I have to admit I haven't listened to the latest album 'Amour Colére' yet. What can I expect? Give me a reason why I should buy this record?
Go for It then, give it a try, you’ll tell me. I’m not a good advertiser.

Does the title have a specific meaning, it is about love of course .. tell a little bit more about it?
Yeah. The title translates as “Love Anger”. But one friend of mine uses the expression in French as an equivalent to “make-up sex”. That’s how I found the title.  More seriously, in these recent years I’ve caught myself in between those two feelings of Love and Anger. And then I thought that what was true for me was maybe true for many people. When I’m in a city, I always tend to walk the streets as much as I can and I can see that the streets are filled with love and anger exactly as my heart is.

What are your personal expectations regarding this disc?
I’m not sure about that. I’m already thinking about the next one and about other projects we have with the label and I learnt not to expect too much from things I don’t control.  But still, I would be very pleased If people were listening to It for what It is. I mean I’m conscious that It’s a “difficult” and pretty “dark” record and I know I’m sometimes hard to categorize and sum up because of my multiple origins and influences and the bilingualism of my works. I wanted to give people the whole picture and not to limit myself for whatever reason. I wanted the record to speak for me and It does. I’m proud of It, no doubt. ;-)

We are still living in a corona crisis, which will not disappear this year, how do you deal with that as a person, musician and composer?
Obviously, Coronavirus sucks for so many reasons. But I try to see the predicament we’re In as an alarm and an encouragement to really change things.  We’re running to big disasters If we just keep on acting like bastards who don’t respect nature and other species. Coronavirus is an ecological issue, like the forest fires around the globes, the loss of biodiversity, the sea pollution and so forth...  The world is about to go up in flames and before the Corona I had the impression that most of people didn’t care and did prefer kill off their brains instead of  being involved in the political process. But now things are evolving and I have the feeling people want the power back. I think that’s good because that’s what democracy is about. It’s not about just turning in at the polling station. Democracy can only function If people are aware of what’s going on and willing to participate in the political process.

Have plans fallen into disrepair? Which?
Yeah, some gigs were postponed some others were just cancelled.  But we decided to focus on production and writing. As a label and a work collective Capitane Records now have Its own studio and an office in an old house in the middle of a park in southeast Brussels. And that’s great to know we have that and that we can focus on our work there. If shows can be set up, we’ll be pleased to play the gigs. If not, we will produce and record music for the next months.  Under The reefs Orchestra and Turner Cody are both on Capitane Records and are working on new music As a music producer I’m involved in these ventures as well. 

In these times a lot of questions are about that corona, this question I actually ask everyone involved. But how do you personally think the culture, which has been particularly hard hit, will survive this crisis?
Yeah culture is hard hit that’s true. But many other sectors are hard hit as well. Generally speaking, the word is getting more and more in egalitarian and disrespectful towards mother earth’s needs. I personally think that capitalism, as It unfolded the past decades, is a dangerous threat for humanity and earth alike. But like I said, at least now, It’s pretty obvious that the ruling class in leading us to the catastrophe. So things might finally change for the better If only we’re able to take back the wheel and drive in an other direction.  On October 7, Capitane Records and the FACIR set up a lecture by french sociologist Bernard Friot who is an historian of the social security and who advocates to turn progressively our back from capitalism by extending the social security to new sectors of activity among which housing, food, press, culture etc…  Its theory includes the establishment of a “salary for life” that would be considered as an unconditional human right.

What are the further plans, will the new release also be presented live?
Yes despite of Corona, we’ll play at Les Nuits Botanique on Octobre 1 in Brussels for a special Capitane Records label night featuring Under The Reefs Orchestra, Great Mountain Fire and myself. It’s sold out.  The same bill will play Trefpunt in Ghent on November 13^th. It’s not sold out. ;-) 

I there also something like an end goal?
I’m not sure I get your question. An end goal to what ?  To change the world for the better with love, legitimate anger and music maybe ?  What else ?

Thanks for this nice conversation, unfortunately I could not do this face to face due to unforeseen circumstances, but I hope to meet you live at one of your gigs soon. Are there any gigs set for the fall and so on? feel free to put below. Big thanks!
Thank you  Met plezier !! 

Tijdens de lockdown trokken Bert Ostyn en Toon Vlerick van Absynthe Minded zich enkele dagen terug in een hut in het midden van de natuur om er de EP ‘The Birdsong Sessions’ op te nemen.  De locatie van de opnames sprak zodanig tot de verbeelding dat ze nu de hoes van de EP siert.
‘The Birdsong Sessions’ is een mooie mix van twee klassiekers (“Envoi” uit 2009, “My Heroics Pt 1” uit 2005), een minder bekend ‘oud’ nummer (“Echo Chamber” uit 2017) en drie nieuwe nummers uit het eerder dit jaar uitgebrachte album ‘Riddle Of The Sphinx’ (“Mixing The Medicine”, “Easy” en de titeltrack).
Alle tracks zijn uitgekleed tot Ostyn’s stem, Vlerick’s akoestische gitaar en heel zuinig wat percussie. Het is mooi hoe deze songs ook zonder hun jasje van loungy, jazzy elaborated pop helemaal overeind blijven. Ostyn en Vlerick moeten eens vaker afspreken in hun vogelhuisje. En dan zeker wat opname-apparatuur meenemen.
Het enige jammere is dit slechts een EP is. Met nog één of twee extra nummer(s), een welgemikte cover had gekund, was dit meteen een full album.

Op basis van haar EP ‘Mutiny’ en de concerten die we al van haar zagen hebben we Usi ES eerder al referenties naar Kate Bush, PJ Harvey en Björk opgekleefd. Daar blijven we volmondig bij na het horen van de nieuwe mysterieuze en meeslepende single “Darwin”, maar we merken ook een zekere evolutie. De gelaagdheid in haar synth-driven urban dreampop is groter of toch meer aanwezig. Het brave heeft plaatsgemaakt voor iets meer branie en het klinkt ook net iets zwoeler. Ze neemt meer risico’s, vast nadat ze vertrouwen tankte uit de vele positieve reacties op ‘Mutiny’ en haar concerten. Tegelijk blijft er nog wat groeimarge. Nog niet al het ‘brave’ werd overboord gegooid.