Hear hear: the third edition of Birds of Paradise coming up!
// Read moreBirds of Paradise presents the Dutch premiere of José Gonzalez' latest project A Tiger in Paradise.
// Read moreAfter the already announced concert in the Stevenskerk Nijmegen (15. July), our own festival production with LUWTEN x B.O.X is also booked on September 15 in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
// Read moreHow beautiful they were: our Birds of Paradise 2023! This is for those who were there or wanted to be there...
Talk Jlin: on Sunday, March 19, 7:30 PM, American producer Jlin will talk to Remy Alexander about her music
// Read moreToday we are launching the first full Artist Room 2023.
// Read moreDue to a date conflict, Son Lux had to adjust its March tour.
// Read morePlease welcome a new flock of birds for our second installment!
// Read moreNomen est omen: in fact our Mees Joachim is the only permanent resident of the Birds of Paradise nest.
// Read moreLooking back at out very first edition, we can proudly say that during these five days of sonic enchantment, these birds dared to fly and leave the comfort of the nest.
// Read moreWelcome to the mechanic, wondrous universe of Actress, where analog meets digital, and orchestrated meets improvised and coincidental.
// Read moreActress feat. MILYMA, It’s hard to pin down Darren Cunningham: every move the musician makes as Actress is a completely unexpected one. Whether he changes timbre and colour completely, or reaches heights of a satellite in just a whim: the Briton always proves to be prolific in delivering innovative sonical work.
// Read moreFrom 9.-13. March five Birds of Paradise will land in TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht. At Birds of Paradise Festival, five renowned multi-disciplinary artists are offered a residency for one day. During their residency, they get a free pass for creating exclusive, tailor-made performances, start new collaborations and curate an extensive context programme: both off and online. Expect blends of genres and disciplines, profound musical and theatrical experiences at the verge of indie pop, EDM and contemporary classical music.
// Read moreThe shell is broken, the beak is open. Hungry for new experiences, fresh tastes and flights to unfamiliar territories: the birds are ready to fly out. Unknown colours, aesthetically pleasing combinations and new ways of singing: these features make our Birds of Paradise unique. Expect genre and discipline fluidity, exclusive one-off performances and in-depth music experiences: both live and online.
// Read moreBirds of Paradise is a 4 day festival, annually taking place in Utrecht (TivoliVredenburg) and Antwerp (De Singel) in which indie pop, electronic and contemporary classical music blend. Internationally, a vibrant scene of genre bending composers, singer-songwriters, electronic artists, ‘classical musicians’ emerges. Birds of Paradise provides a platform for these artists who get their inspiration on the verge of undiscovered artistic territories, genres and disciplines.
At Birds of Paradise festival, five renowned multi-disciplinary artists are offered a residency for one day. Each day is dedicated to one particular musical innovator: a Bird of Paradise, so to speak. During their residency, they get a free pass for creating exclusive, tailor-made performances, start new collaborations and curate an extensive context programme: both off and online. Their very own musical skills, unique style and connection to socially urgent topics form the basis of the context programme, which will offer audiences the stories behind the works and many in-depth experiences.
Music Miners is het educatieprogramma van Birds of Paradise. In Music Miners maken leerlingen kennis met verschillende nieuwe genres, presentaties van muziek en een ‘andere’ manier om naar muziek te luisteren. In het programma ontdekken leerlingen als ‘miners’ (muziekdelvers) vernieuwende muziek door een reeks korte concerten op ongebruikelijke plekken in de concertzaal te beleven. Aansluitend volgt een workshop. Het ontwikkelde educatiemateriaal is geschikt voor bovenbouwleerlingen in de richtingen vmbo-T, havo, vwo en gymnasium. Het materiaal is zo ontworpen dat het bestaat uit een receptief, actief en reflectief onderdeel en kan in overleg aangepast worden aan een specifieke doelgroep of groepsgrootte.
Music Miners sluit aan bij de vakken CKV en Muziek. We hanteren maximale leerlingenaantallen in verband met de intimiteit van de concerten en benodigde focus tijdens de workshops. Tijdens de concerten is er ruimte voor uitwisseling tussen leerling en artiest.
Music Miners is in verschillende settings beschikbaar. Keuze en planning van artiesten in overleg met programmamanager Remy Alexander: educatie@birdsofparadisefestival.nl
For all questions, comments, suggestions and (constructive) comments: info@birdsofparadisefestival.nl
Communication, marcom: dave@birdsofparadisefestival.nl (Dave Coenen), renee@birdsofparadisefestival.nl (Renée Veenstra)
Press: johan@nieuwsmakelaar.nl (Johan Kloosterboer)
Production: jessica@birdsofparadisefestival.nl (Jessica Dassen)
Music Miners: educatie@birdsofparadisefestival.nl (Remy Alexander en Margriet Broekroelofs)
Address: Gezellestraat 36
5615 HL Eindhoven
0031-610917648
IBAN: NL84 RABO0129508578
BTW: NL 8225.10.972.B01
KVK: 50038702
RSIN: 822510972
The Birds of Paradise Foundation is a charitable organisation registered under Dutch law. Audited accounts for 2021 can be found here.
Frank Veenstra, Artistic and Managing director
Arthur van der Drift, chair
Ester Louwers, treasurer
Rian Brus, secretary
Lucas Maassen, member
Birds of Paradise wants to offer a state of the art international platform on the verge of indie pop music, EDM and contemporary classical music with all sorts of connections to other progressive (stage) disciplines and genres for the benefit of:
Even the most knowledgeable bird experts cannot really distinguish why a bird sings exactly: there are many reasons why, and the chirping can come in many complex variants. What we know for sure, is that birds like to sing – a lot. Which is exactly the phenomenon Thomas Aziers performance at Birds of Paradise is based on: the urge to speak, without being clear or distinguishable in tones or words. Azier has proven to be a multi-talent, interdisciplinary artist, and renowned performer. Also the many rooms in TivoliVredenburg aren’t unfamiliar to him: during the pandemic, Thomas has performed many out-of-the-box shows, exploring unknown territory in Utrecht. Together with Finnish experimental guitarist/producer Obi Blanche, saxophone player Maarten Hogenhuis (BRUUT!), drummer Simon Segers (De Beren Gieren) and a vocal ensemble, Thomas Azier will perform the interactive Glossolalia, a show that will blind you with its many new feathers and is unlike any other thing Azier’s done before.
Vocal ensemble: Fanny Alofs, Rianne Wilbers, Kadri Tegelman, Bianca Sallons, Laura Polence, Jorien Zeevaart, Michaela Riener and Nina Rompa
Frank Veenstra: “The Glossolalia performance seems like a new step in your artistic development. What was the immediate reason for this and do you see it as a turning point in your career? In recent years you have lost interest in fiction, mythology and narrative forms of pop music. More than the narrative as a singer songwriter, you want to take everyday reality as the starting point for your work. How did this get a place in Glossolalia?”
Thomas Azier: “During the confinement we saw many artists giving live concerts on the internet. The illusion of reality is of little interest to me. Giving a concert on the internet is, in my opinion, contrary to the principle of the concert, namely coming together, having a direct interaction with the artists, the danger. I can say that I make music for the almost religious and meditative feeling that performing gives me. It’s one of those rare moments where I’m fully involved in the present. I therefore started to think about alternative ‘shared experience’. Of course also a bit tired of the age-old concept of ‘standing on stage’ while both the audience and the artist know exactly what is to be expected of them. I’ve actually been convinced from the start of the pandemic that we should use this time to test these alternative ‘shared experiences’. Glossolalia is a research project in which I will look at how to create an experience that is more than a two-dimensional show.”
Frank Veenstra: “Glossolalia means as much as ‘Speaking in tongues’. Speaking in tongues is mentioned in the Bible as one of the ‘gifts of the spirit’. Does a kind of non-language also appear in the performance?”
Thomas Azier: “Speaking in tongues; the use of a non-language, is also called ‘Yaourt’ in French. Children use it when they try to sing an English song but don’t know the lyrics. I made my song Hold On Tight based on an improvisation in which I used my voice as an instrument, without words. I have been doing this since my first compositions. The final vocal was the very first recording I made. It led to an inner conflict about professionalism and amateurism. It took a year to accept that this first take had the right emotion. This improvisation, and the idea of Glossolalia in itself, composing in the now, I want to further investigate and use in choral compositions. In addition, there is also an interesting crossover if you mix different languages. By living in different cities in Europe I learned to speak French and German, with all the manners that go with it. I always picked up on that quickly, and enjoyed learning the nuances in a new language. By mixing proverbs, puns and sayings in French, German, English and Dutch you get an interesting sound palette. Perhaps that has made it easy for me to come up with a new language that resembles anything. Some of my Glossolalia lyrics are written out on some lyric website, but that can’t be right, because I just improvise. I find that intriguing.”
Frank Veenstra: “For Glossolalia, you were also largely inspired by (modern) classical music such as that of Morton Feldman and Gavin Bryars. How has this affected your composing process?”
Thomas Azier: “In recent years my interest has naturally shifted to freer forms of music. In classical and experimental contemporary music there is more room for individual interpretation. I slowly started to get frustrated with the format and the symmetry of western pop music. I myself had a need for music in breadth, length, and I used the confinement time, after my Love, Disorderly album, to explore this further in A Collection Of Broken Ideas. Of course I can only speak for myself, but especially at that time I had a great need for ‘healing’ music. In 3 minutes I didn’t have the time to create my own universe in which you just can wander in many directions.
I started making music on a laptop and have always seen technology as the way to work autonomously. When I started to experience its limits (symmetry, being stuck with pace, too many possibilities, no interaction, no mistakes, no challenge) my curiosity for collaboration and ‘studio’ knowledge grew. I have always admired the German and French education systems for inviting high school students for internships in renownedl studios. I believe this knowledge should be shared, especially now that laptop manufacturing is the norm. Listening to composers like Gavin Bryars, pioneers in conceptual classical music, opened doors in my head. And slowly I felt the self-imposed boundaries fade.
I am interested in the knowledge used in the classical and experimental world: orchestral section spacing and the placement of a choir in a space, orchestration, arrangement, improvisation, experiment and recording techniques. By exploring tools from other genres and disciplines, I hope that there will be space to discuss contemporary topics, and that I can find my own form of pop music in which I can work more freely and creatively.”
Frank Veenstra: “A vocal ensemble plays an important role in the performance. It is the first time that you have developed a ‘music theater production’: something that goes way beyond the collaboration with a band. What is it like for you to work with classically trained singers?”
Thomas Azier: “The communal aspect of singing together is an inspiring fact these days. What interests me in choral music is the history of community singing, the diversity and power of a voice and the placement of multiple voices in a space. In a world of perfection and modern production technology, I am more and more aware of the beauty of human impurity and harmony vs. dissonance. There is an element of danger that comes into play when working live and with a large group of people, compared to producing on laptops. A few things struck me during the preparations for the pilot show we did last year at O-dagen in Rotterdam: the classical world is not as open-minded as I had hoped for. Unfortunately, especially because of the experimental nature of this new work, there is hardly any room for improvisation and if you deviate from the path, things quickly get complicated. So you have to know in advance what you want, and I’ve learned to choose people by spending much time with them. Before we start working, I explain what the idea is and where the challenges lie.”
Frank Veenstra: “Glossolalia is not a regular pop show format, but a new type of experience concept that is roughly halfway between installation and concert. What can the public expect when they enter the world of Glossolalia?”
Thomas Azier: “What interests me is a kind of transition place. In club culture, the experience of being in the club is not just the dance floor. Transition spaces such as the hallways, the toilet or even the queue in front of the door are just as important in the experience. We basically work with a sound in motion. For example, a group of 8 choir members may walk through the audience (north to south), while another group makes a counter-movement (south to north). The 3D sound image allows you to create a situation in which clusters swell as the voices come together or weaken as they move further apart. For the audience, the sound will therefore also differ where you stand, and thus the experience is different for everyone. I find this an interesting metaphor for a reality in which multiple truths coexist. A world in which we can experience different perspectives of the same moment together. This way of working allows us to select places that are visually interesting. A large factory hall, an empty office space. Places not made for concerts. As a result, the space is part of the performance and you turn the location into a decor and an instrument through the acoustics. The public is free to come and go as they please.”
“For me Glossolalia is a modular project, we are able to improvise, do it small but also grow to a bigger performance. The show we are presenting at Birds of Paradise is a new step, as we only did one performance before in which we worked with 4 singers.
To be able to improve our work as we go along, we decided to document as much as we can of the process. We are collaborating with filmmaker Matthijs Vuijk who joins us during the performance, capturing the audience and performer so that we are able to work with the material after and improve. Here is a short sequence from our pilot that we presented at Worm Rotterdam in 2021 during the O-festival.”
Thomas Azier
Thomas Azier: You’ve always looked for ways to ‘get off the computer’ with regards to making music; The Rake (Obi’s self-build guitar, red) has been an important step for you to get some kind of freedom back, that our generation was lost in dragging midi notes around on a PC.
Obi Blanche: My electronic roots are in the Tracker world, MOD scene. This is how I learned electronic music in the 90s. We were not dragging midi notes, we were banging/coding notes into the grid with a mechanical keyboard. We never needed a mouse. The keyboard was still a tangible object and we customized them with spray paint and markers. They took a proper beating. Mine was completely cracked open on the edges, drenched in liquids, and still worked like a charm. After that came the mouse phase, which I didn’t dislike at the time much, but didn’t know better either. The way to hear music changes when you work visually or you’re staring at the music while it plays. It’s about what you concentrate on. Are you seeing the view or the stain on the window? Can the thing you’re doing elevate yourself or the moment and how does it make you feel while on it? Personally, this is important to me and I don’t reach that with a mouse and a monitor.
Thomas Azier: When I met you in 2007 on Craigslist in Berlin, we were both looking for collaboration. To get out of this lonely world of laptop music production. It still took us 10 years to get together and write music together.
Obi Blanche: I was quite closed those days, I was running with the blinkers on, just looking in one direction. I was searching for collaboration or community, but was really picky about it and didn’t yet have the tools to be a good collaborator. Didn’t see the potential to enjoy playing and see what comes out of it. This is really important to me, enjoy playing. So simple and so hard at the same time. Through enjoyment comes lightness and light that I’m looking for. Nihilists now sing in a choir that meaningful art comes through pain, but you can also enjoy pain.
When we started to work together it was fairly easy, we complemented each other and we had that 10+ years of experience to share. That was necessary for this collaboration to happen. To appreciate the other’s talent and to witness and learn from the skills of the other. I think community and sharing are crucial to elevating the output.
Thomas Azier: We always talk about Berlin -> next week Thursday saying, when we try to meet someone. Hey man, you wanna play? Yes? When do you have time? Next week Thursday. Which is a synonym for NEVER, It never happens basically. Why do you think it’s so hard for people to actually meet up these days and just play music?
Obi Blanche: We are so consumed by these machines on our hands and by making the ends meet. Should musicians and artists be paid fair for their streamed work, yes! It’s hard to experiment within this setting. Other than that, when was the last time that you felt free in the city, flanneuring around with no purpose, getting inspired, seeing strangers, feeling the asphalt, having strange conversations with the man of the streets in micro shorts? Not many people do that, there’s no time, there’s no value. Most of the time value is measured only by numbers. If there’s no value in playing together, then it’s not happening. Why not just get together and play music? Sensory overload, too much music, and too much going on already. So much waste. It’s extremely hard to get good people together sharing the same wavelength. If we wouldn’t be going down the highway way too fast with everything, people would get bored and have time to enjoy and have space to feel.
Thomas Azier: Some quick technical questions: When and why did you decide to build this guitar?
Obi Blanche: I’ve played a lot of different guitars throughout my life. Intuitively I purchased and collected guitars that at that given time I didn’t like, put them aside for over 10 years, and now lately I’ve learned a lot from these guitars, how they play, weight, balance, the form of the neck, materials used. I had wishes for my own model, I wanted it to be huge and light. This idea has been marinating in me for a long time. When I had the chance to build one with Yuri Landman at the Amplify residency in Berlin things locked in place. Yuris octave upper harmonix Jaguar styled behind the bridge, multiple outputs, kill-switches, microphonic body, all of this was spot on in my ballpark. I drew the body shape by hand and cut it out with a hand saw in 15minutes and it was perfect.
Thomas Azier: How is it tuned? What is RAKE made of?
Obi Blanche: One of the beautiful things about the medium of the guitar is that it can be tuned whichever way one desires. RAKE is a baritone with a long string length, that long, that it’s hard to find fitting strings and it’s atm tuned to normal guitar intervals starting from bottom string A. For some songs, I can easily drop tune it. I had a 7th tuner for a double the hi-string to get a sitar type of sound, but wasn’t the biggest fan of that with this particular model. We got to use the discarded pieces of wood at the Amplify shed and I went through that pile looking for the lightest piece. Little did I know that the piece I decided to use is actually really good wood for guitar body building and I was surprised how well it resonated, felt and played after the guitar was done. I asked a woodworker which wood it is and he said it’s spruce. Such a common wood for a Fin.
Thomas Azier: Is there something you want people to see or feel when they see you working that guitar live? Or is it a more about your own expression, and anyone can take away from it whatever they want?
Obi Blanche: It’s both. I want to encourage people to do what they want to do, to be brave, to sing with their own tone. But at the same time, I do this work as much for me. I do research on the topic, but at the same time, I don’t want to force words to describe it yet. I want to have stronger knowledge about the body based playing through my own practice and knowledge and then let the written word lock in to place naturally. I do have a certain urge to rationalize it, but at the same time, I do enjoy the magic and mysticism of letting go.
Sometimes after the gigs people come to me and tell me how the things I’ve published have influenced them to work on something that they have an interest in, this is humbling and rewarding to inspire.
Thomas Azier: The name The Rake, to rake the floor, is very literal as you put mics in the guitar and rake the floor with it. It creates these beautiful upperharmonics and it has a very physical touch to it. It’s more like a mix between dancing and hard labour, like building a house. Or cleaning someones pool. You also sweat a lot when you do it, it’s not like playing indie guitar and staring at your shoes for a concert wiping some black hairlock out of your face. What makes you want this guitarplaying to be a physical experience? To be hard work? Is there a link to nature?
Obi Blanche: I think for a Finnish person everything is linked to nature, to begin with. As a child we lived in the forest, it was our playfield. Our dogs could roam freely there, and often we needed to go look for them and were pushed far into the unknown parts. I had some magical moments in the forest, these sort of heaven-like, otherworldly experiences. Laying on the big rocks, on the soft hummock, being kissed by warm sun rays, oozing to the deep unknown parts of the forest, sometimes a bit scared. Feeling the moist tuft, being grounded. I remember these moments so vividly. All this and later on skateboarding translates to this tangible physicality. When you’re young and skateboarding you’re basically on the dirt most of the days, being consumed by the asphalt and concrete. Feeling the material with your body, hurting mixed with euphoria. This was the early 90’s, we weren’t yet hooked to electronics that much. These days I spend a lot of time on the computer, even if I don’t want to. To work with my body, hands, and material is an outcry to how I felt alive and by merging sound and movement together I can reach that. By doing this I want to underline the importance of movement and touch.
Thomas Azier: How does this guitar influence your writing work?
Obi Blanche: Everything is important to inspiration. How the guitar sits on you, how the straps feel, how is it uncomfortable, how the rosin of the bow makes the strings sticky and lose their sustain. This all affects the way you play. I’m leaving intentionally bad design choices to the guitar, I don’t file out some hard metal edges, I don’t retain the strings down at the headstock, I just adjust my playing to serve this guitar. I’ve learned this from my Fender Jaguar and apply this philosophy to my creation on all levels. RAKE has so many sounds in it and in conjunction with the effects it’s my own offline Splice or sample bank. I’ve done tracks with it, where every single sound from drums to ‘snoring man’ to stadium guitar solos is from RAKE. It’s a tool like any other, but it definitely has its own charisma.
Thomas Azier: What was the moment that it all clicked for you?
Obi Blanche: Being able to have an opinion has come with time. I’ve always had a strong intuition and have had no skills to put it in words. Just felt deeply. Which has had its downfalls, but at the same time, I can say that I’m talking from an experience and not from something that I’ve read or adopted. Being stubborn and somewhere deep down trusting the process has been important. Working on seeing the other perspectives, the influence of other cultures and ways of living, and asking what is important has helped to create a guideline that one could say clicks for me.
Thomas Azier: You’ve been always interested in gear, and forward thinking music technology. You always surprise me by the amount of knowledge you have of one machine. To me it is similar as skateboarding, it’s just you and your skateboard and you try to go deep with the connection with this object. Whether it’s a skateboard or a drumcomputer, you have a desire to figure it out completely and use it in unconventional ways. Also both are somehow offline. Is it true that there’s a link with let’s say, skateboarding, an analogue piece of machinery and building a guitar + guitar-playing?
Obi Blanche: My father has always been really obsessive and I’ve inherited that in good and bad. When he got bitten by the aquarium bug we had a room for aquariums and in total close to 15 of them all over the house. He’s the type to lose nights sleep over the mudskippers. I’ve the same enthusiasm when I’m interested in something. The amount of hours (days) I’ve obsessed over an Octratrack through Youtube videos is just ridiculous. And I don’t even have one, I just have an interest. The deepness, the challenge, the possibilities, exactly also offlineness of it. I like to play and have my hands on things that remind me of that visceral connection through a medium, when it feels right and gives you tingles. The way things click, how they press, how they make your tips of the fingers feel, how your chest opens up and you can gasp that extra breath of air, how you feel snappy’n’poppy, how the ball goes where you want it to go. The bottom line this comes down to being able to sense, notice how things feel, create space for being alive and love.
“A playlist where I collected my favourite work that inspired me to create the Glossolalia show. Songs are picked by me and Obi Blanche.”
Thomas Azier
The idea of a music video is a concept that has been around since the 1950s and has barely changed. In a world where people listen to music with their eyes, visual language used is often linked to advertising: all about optics and less about content. Our music industry and particularly the way we create visuals, is commercial in a sense that most budgets for music videos are often linked to production companies who develop advertising campaigns. Directors make commercials to be able to survive. Music videos are often a way to sell directors to clients. This makes it difficult to question the visual language that is being used, as there is an underlying different goal of a music/director collaboration.
I find it important to look for a different visual language, that isn’t rooted in advertising, in the form of collaborations with other artists outside of this production-making-system. Where there is a freedom and space to experiment with each other, the budgets are smaller, so that there is a greater chance that the work takes on a new dimension. I like to work with young people who are interested in making art films and are able to create work independently, not relying on bigger companies.
I want the work to make sense as much in their form as in what they mean. Engagements (collaborations) or beliefs have to resonate with my final product and how I work, hence the importance of the people I choose to work with. The collaboration relies not necessarily on the result but on the way we work and how we think, it is therefore based on a shared philosophy.
The short film was shot by Taiwanese director Ayoto Ataraxia, who drove through the streets of Myanmar for this filming. Thomas says: “Hold On Tight was shot after exchanging Taiwanese films with Ayoto (e.g. ‘Tsai Ming Liang’s The River’, ‘I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone’ or ‘Rebels Of The Neon God’). My original vocals on this track, which were really only meant for the demo, inadvertently created the right emotion that I wanted to convey. It was a process but in the end I chose to keep these vocals. With this music and vocals in his pocket, Ayoto Ataraxia traveled to Myanmar with a small film crew and intuitively shot Hold On Tight at 16mm.”
Director Ayoto Ataraxia says of Hold On Tight: “The film is the result of a long conversation with Thomas about friendship and kinship. This prompted the thought of reminiscing and recreating a series of memories of riding a motorcycle with his father. The need for freedom within all the chaos, acceptance of danger and despite everything to start a new day. The footage is my intuitive response to the many conversations with Thomas that resulted in a film where the people of Myanmar were observed during their daily commute.”
Thomas Azier
The idea of a music video is a concept that has been around since the 1950s and has barely changed. In a world where people listen to music with their eyes, visual language used is often linked to advertising: all about optics and less about content. Our music industry and particularly the way we create visuals, is commercial in a sense that most budgets for music videos are often linked to production companies who develop advertising campaigns. Directors make commercials to be able to survive. Music videos are often a way to sell directors to clients. This makes it difficult to question the visual language that is being used, as there is an underlying different goal of a music/director collaboration.
I find it important to look for a different visual language, that isn’t rooted in advertising, in the form of collaborations with other artists outside of this production-making-system. Where there is a freedom and space to experiment with each other, the budgets are smaller, so that there is a greater chance that the work takes on a new dimension. I like to work with young people who are interested in making art films and are able to create work independently, not relying on bigger companies.
I want the work to make sense as much in their form as in what they mean. Engagements (collaborations) or beliefs have to resonate with my final product and how I work, hence the importance of the people I choose to work with. The collaboration relies not necessarily on the result but on the way we work and how we think, it is therefore based on a shared philosophy. If I would produce this in a classic way (which I have done in the beginning of my career) I wouldn’t have the same process. The three videos Hold on tight, Love, disorderly and Entertainment form a trilogy and are a result of this way of thinking.
Thomas Azier: “In recent years I have lost interest in fiction, mythology and working in narrative form; I find the world around us, as it is now, much more complex and interesting. News gives me a boost like social media or entertainment. The more I observe this, the more I have gotten to make my music a space in which I can explore and question this world. I’m interested in my reaction, the fear, the excitement, the numbness. Gradually I have started to feel more comfortable with work that I do not immediately understand. I think I am influenced by Nils Edstrom (director) his Instagram and a strong identity in his work. We approached him with the idea of making something personal and different from music videos in general and decided together to use footage from his iPhone from the past few years.
Thomas Azier
The idea of a music video is a concept that has been around since the 1950s and has barely changed. In a world where people listen to music with their eyes, visual language used is often linked to advertising: all about optics and less about content. Our music industry and particularly the way we create visuals, is commercial in a sense that most budgets for music videos are often linked to production companies who develop advertising campaigns. Directors make commercials to be able to survive. Music videos are often a way to sell directors to clients. This makes it difficult to question the visual language that is being used, as there is an underlying different goal of a music/director collaboration.
I find it important to look for a different visual language, that isn’t rooted in advertising, in the form of collaborations with other artists outside of this production-making-system. Where there is a freedom and space to experiment with each other, the budgets are smaller, so that there is a greater chance that the work takes on a new dimension. I like to work with young people who are interested in making art films and are able to create work independently, not relying on bigger companies.
I want the work to make sense as much in their form as in what they mean. Engagements (collaborations) or beliefs have to resonate with my final product and how I work, hence the importance of the people I choose to work with. The collaboration relies not necessarily on the result but on the way we work and how we think, it is therefore based on a shared philosophy. If I would produce this in a classic way (which I have done in the beginning of my career) I wouldn’t have the same process. The three videos Hold on tight, Love, disorderly and Entertainment form a trilogy and are a result of this way of thinking.
Thomas Azier is more than just a musician; he approaches music in a unique way, more like a visual artist or painter would approach his or her art form. For ‘Love, Disorderly’ he was inspired by media such as photography and film in order to try to influence the structures of the song and create a new experience.
The song was composed and recorded together with Finnish experimental guitarist and producer Obi Blanche and musicians from various Dutch orchestras. The compelling documentary-style short film consists of footage shot by French director Laurent Chanez during his travels around the world. Chanez is known for the music video for Aufgang’s ‘Backstabbers’ – nominated for ‘Best Editing’ and ‘Best Cinematography’ at the UKMVA and won ‘Best Cinematography’ at last year’s Berlin Music Video Awards. His visuals depict chaos and connections within a troubled society.
“I feel that Laurent has managed to capture the ‘soul of the world’ in a series of observations he made in 2019. It’s almost like flipping through the pages of a book or a National Geographic magazine or scrolling through Instagram Stories or watching the news. It shows a state of the world without judgment or narrative.” explains Thomas.
Thomas Azier