We’ll be playing in Athens on the 29-12-2012 (MMF), if the world’s end has not come !
We’re looking forward to it !
Musicians’ Diary
How do we play on stage ?
For quite a long time, we had the idea of playing with electro loops on stage, but we didn’t really want to hire an extra musician for that. I know for ages that many guitarists use loop pedals. I think these devices are suitable when you want to record and overdub guitar loops. But we wanted to be also able to launch drum loops, drones and samples.
I found out that the right solution for that was an amazing software called Ableton Live. This software enables one to set up full arrangements and to launch them on stage. But my problem was how can I use my hands to trigger on stage while playing guitar or oud…?
The answer was that I had to use my feet of course ! Which means that I need a kind of footswitch. MIDI footswich ? Not even a MIDI port on my cheap soundcard. USB footswitch? I found out that what I was looking for didn’t really exists ! Then I found this interesting link:
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=112242
That was the best solution ever ! To built my own USB footswitch myself using an old USB keyboard and the suitable footswitches. I found all the necessary components in a very in a rather fascinating area of Istanbul called Karaköy.
And I started to make it on my own…You can see the resulting system below :
We did several concerts with this system, and sometimes with hardly any sound-check. We must say that it works perfectly !
[ yann ]
All about our studio album + fan Pictures
You can’t wait any longer to buy it? Direct link to the shop >here<
If your not so much in a hurry, have first a look at this wonderful colours !
Yes, it’s real… Hear by yourself :
This first tune is called “tri martolod an oriant”, based on traditional tune and lyrics from Brittany, quite famous since the 70’s under the title “tri martolod yaouank” (3 young sailors, some facts and a translation >here<)
You liked it ?
Do you want to have it ? [we wished you’d think so !] go >here< (it will use PayPal), for 12€, and what do you get for that price ?
- 9 tracks to listen any time & anywhere you want
- in a nice packaging with nice colours and paintings
- the immediate download of all the tracks so that you don’t need to wait for the delivery to enjoy the music
- shipping included for any destination. [yes, any destination in the world !]
You’d prefer a digital only ?
Of course, it’s possible, one click >here<, price is 6€
- 9 tracks from the album in any format you want (mp3, flak) in high quality
- Nice single covers to give you a taste of every song and that will nicely be displayed on your player. (we created them all out of pictures from our travels, you can see them in this >galery<)
From iTunes ?
Head over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/astrakan-project/id690326852?ls=1
You want to know how it was made before you make up your mind ? Hear some more music maybe ? How about a little promo video ?
The sample track is the “mouezhiou“, based on a traditional dance from the Vannes’ area (South of Brittany).
Want to buy it now ?
Some happy faces from people enjoying our music…
Maybe, you can download some FREE tunes in the meantime :
Yep, 4 tunes recorded live, you can enter “zero” for the price and get them for immediate download, or name your price after you listened to them.
You want even more ? If not done yet, you can follow our thoughts during the recording on the blog section. Or connect…
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Our first sale ?
What ? Yes, of course the release will only be on the 30th. But, in the meantime we are testing the on-line BandCamp forms to order, together with the paypal system, checking how long it really takes us to get threw the all procedure, fixing the order notification, the automatic replies and so on. We are really new to this, so we really wanted to make sure ones the sales will be launched, we won’t have to come back to solve this kind of details. And ? So far it works perfectly !
Meanwhile, a little amount of albums have also been sent for promoting the album itself as well as to apply to some venues. This will also give us an idea about how long it really takes for one piece of CD to be shipped from Turkey to other countries.
Since we are into form and data-bases, we also got a nice on-line form to sign in for our newsletter. If you sign-in you get a free mp3 from Tri Martolod an Oriant, you’ll get updates on the project, but also to special releases, to work in progress tunes, to promos & more. We’re repeating it again, not more than once a month. Pour les francophones, la version sera un peu “rallongée” pour reprendre des news développées au fil du blog en anglais.
Last but not least, we decided to re-invest the benefit from our first sale into this artist. Sofia Talvik is Swedish, and she’s organizing herself her 2 years tour threw the US, called the Drivin’ & Dreaming tour. We were very impressed by her story that we discovered in this very interesting for CD Baby. And… of course we’d like to tour in the US !
That’s all for now, thank you for reading !
§ Simone
World Music Wednesday: Astrakan Project
We were very happy to read a review about our music on Incognito’s blog here :
World Music Wednesday: Astrakan Project.
(even if you already know about us, take a few minutes to have a look around this very interesting music blog, there’s quite a couple of unusual and non-main-stream musics to discover there )
Of course, it’s always nice when someone takes time to listen to us, and give feedback. But also, it answered many questions we always wonder about. “Is it a problem if people don’t understand our language ?” “Is our music interesting enough so that it can interest people outside our home country ?” “How do people feel about it ?”
Any thoughts about that ?
Clarinet in Kosovo
A bar ? A hotel ? Nope, this is the kind of places we search for live music in Kosovo. Along road M2 between Pristine and Ferizai, you may find many of them, they sometimes have a sign “live music”.
Here’s a very short video, the sound is terrific, but it shall give you an idea of the place.
The clarinettist is Rexhe Baba, when we first met in 2007, we were really impressed by his style, his freedom to ignore the rules… and his craziness !
Such places, as far as we know, are opened at night everyday, without entrance fee, drinks are more expensive than in standard cafes but still affordable. They hire a couple of singers, at least 2, sometimes up to 5 or 6, that will perform one after each other with the same band. The band can be very “cheap” and consist of a single synthesizer player, but we look for places with at least 3 or 4 musicians, although, synthesizer is the base.
On the video, you can see a bank note (50 Euros !!!) hold with the clarinet, it’s a way to request a particular song and to dedicate it to someone. The singer is holding the piece of paper with the message and will read it between two songs. Of course, more famous musicians/singers will get more requests. At the end of the evening, the money is then divided between everyone on stage.
On the Road(s)
We’ve been travelling back to Brittany during the last days, a great road-trip, a good and inspirational break before we jump back into the album – we have great hopes we can finish it and send it to the factory by mid-august.
In the meantime, here are some pics from our trip that we’re happy to share with you…
In Northern Greece, not very far from Kavala, we met an amazing lyra player.
We generally speaking love Lyras, Yann was really pleased to give it a try.
We also travelled threw Kosovo…
What’s this ? A live music place… of course we did some videos, give us a couple of days to pick up one and you’ll have an idea of the crazy sound from Kosovo.
We also searched for last CD’s releases in the Balkans, here is our favourite CD dealer from Priština’s market.
And also in Montenegro, here in the small town of Berane.
Thanks to her kindness we discovered Gusle, a traditional string instrument from Montenegro with a really amazing and deep sound. And… it’s a single string instrument! We’ll try to find some samples very soon.
What kind of music do you play ?
Such an usual question, and such a hard one to answer ! Like most of bands, we really would love to have a simple answer to that question. And somehow we’ll have to find it very soon if we want our album to get some exposure at the right places.
World music…
Generally, when talking about “world music”, what is referred to is some kind of western pop music with elements from culture from around the world.
But… we don’t really think we’re making pop music. When we work on a new song, we do compose a lot of new tunes, but they still have the structure, the scale, the style of some sung in Brittany for decades. So ?
Do we borrow elements from other traditions ? We do, for sure, not that we think “well, let’s give it a latin taste, it’s trendy”. It’s more about the fact that we do travel, meet other musicians, go to concerts here and there, and of course, we’ll get some influence.
Our roots are without any doubt for us in Central Brittany. But can we really say it’s traditional music from Brittany knowing that if you go there you’re very likely to hear a very different music from what we’re playing ? Isn’t traditional music what is recognised as such by a social group ? Would it mean we can’t claim our music to be “traditional music from central Brittany” despite of all the lyrics we’re using being from there ?
What kind of music do we play then ? We’ll try to come up with an answer !
Some links :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_music (English)
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Pour les francophones : c’est un peu compliqué à l’heure actuelle pour nous de faire tout le site en français, surtout le blog, du coup, la version française reprendra plus longuement quelques impressions et réflexions du blog… en français cette fois-ci.
. astrakan project . 