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FRONT COVER ELENA SAHNOVA. My windows in winter HOM JAN LAUWERS. THE ART OF ENTERTEINMENT The ego‟s hunger
1 NAU ESTHER FREIXA. MEDEA (A LA CARTA) The other‟s look
KRAUSE. NO GUTS NO GLORY Towards the light
CÉLINE RENOUX. LA FILLE DES ASTRES The fallen angel
NUA YURIY NORSHTEYN Body and soul
ENVERS BETH THORNLEY. WASH U CLEAN Rebirth songs
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VERA. LEAVE A LINE Home‟s acoustics
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ESBÓS ÀNGELA FALCÓ Silence
ANDREA POSADA 25:12 Lisboa
CÉLINE RENOUX Les amours liquides
BORN HIGH TONE Musical bonzeye
NAU NUA November 2010 Issue number 2 Published by NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE DL B-42.495-2010 ISSN 2014-0002 Edited and written by Juan Carlos Romero All contents used under license. All rights reserved to their legal owners and signatories for all the contents in this publication.
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THE EGO’S HUNGER Jan Lauwers The debate between art and entertainment is long and tiring. The prejudices always emerge with amazing effrontery. But with the creations of Jan Lauwers everything is exposed. The ghosts are reduced to mere buffoons of the ruling intelligentsia, the one that runs like a dog when one throws the bone of easy applause, but they are applauding themselves and the rest are just watching. Jan Lauwers is an artist that knows no borders. His artistic training goes so far as his own vision of expressiveness. He plays in every artistic room for his own pleasure and free expression. The Needcompany was born from this attitude, a theater company that draws on all the arts and all languages. Few nests of creativity as vigorous and counter have been in the theater scene since 1986 this company was founded in Belgium. The name comes from his own need: I need company. Creative in solitude and in collective, he has taken his work to the field of literature, painting and film. Along with Grace Ellen Barkey, his partner with her own creations, founded the company and all converge in the theater, dance and performance. Two minds, two enormous talents.
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Before the Needcompany was born, he created in 1979 in Ghent along with other artists the Epigonenesemble movement that led to the ZLV Epigonentheatre, being ZLV leiding zonder van, in Dutch, under the nobody’s direction. That’s very funny now when the world is desperately seeking new leaders. Thus, from the beginning he stressed the flamenco renovating scene from the eighties coming up today. With him, interpretation and game are facing each other.
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Now Needcompany presents The art of entertainment (2010) and he tastes the darkness again. Needcompany plays the death of Martin Wuttke, a very distinguished career actor on the European stage. New creative step for Jan Lauwers and Martin Wuttke, united for the first time. The work shows a Wuttke who wants to die because he’s losing his memory. Memory is the soul without you is nothing. Then, he decides to approach a reality show with millions of viewers around the world called The art of entertainment in order to end his life. He wants to show his own death but shows the decay of a Western world that does not see beyond the ego.
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Again, the Needcompany teaches us the other side of the mirror with a constant sea force, as that CSong that according Lauwers "is constructed as a composite sensory that awakes in the audience very specific feelings in an abstract way�. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photo 1 by Miel Verhasselt Photo 2 from The lobster shop by Eveline Vanassche Photo 3 from The deer house by Miel Verhasselt Photo 4 from Needlapb by Luc Galle/Needcompany Photo 5 The deer house by Maarten Vanden Abeele Photo 6 by Phile Deprez
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THE OTHER’S LOOK Esther Freixa 8
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NAU Why don‟t you laugh? That‟s a comedy, laugh! But we see our image reflected on the mirror and it hurts so much. That’s a fragment from her piece Medea (a la carta), a project thought to make the audience becomes an element of the play beyond its performance. Here, illusion of a live theatre after the curtain’s fall becomes a reality because Esther Freixa has no curtain. She’s between us and challenges us to wondering about our audience role which we play with passivity and, probably, with a comfortable premeditation.
Esther Freixa hasn’t ceased to investigate the scenic language since she graduated from Institut del Teatre de Catalunya. Then, she has travelled across Europe experimenting life and theatre as one thing. She has gone from Berlin to Amsterdam and Barcelona, again. But probably she began earlier when all her questions were born. Medea (a la carta) is a play in four pieces which she combines following her actual feelings. They’re pieces in a constant evolution thanks to her direct experience with audience on stage and beyond when she creates a dialog with them. She has performed in private homes, civic centers and now the Antic Teatre de Barcelona. It’s just for an audience over fifteen people. The mass would dilute the experience because it’s always a refuge. The duel between desire and fear, between appearance and essence, between convention and nature, is suffering and miserable. It’s an abyss that leads us to live in a prison in which we are victims and tyrants at the same time. Esther used the myth of Medea to make the audience face up all the pain inside. As Ovidi Montllor sang, a greenish-brown liquid that surrounds us and comes from our guts. And indeed, the experience she presents us has no respite. She doesn’t provoke, she challenges you because once you're sitting there you rest alone with your own questions. And loneliness is the only true mirror. Her silences are areas where the questions emerge, her gestures are elegant in a beautiful minimalist style, and her expressions of pain close to the audience, showing her naked body and soul, sometimes explicit and other red dressed in order to celebrate existence, show that life is waiting in the drawer of society. As usual, life is indifferent there. Esther Freixa gives us air and more.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos courtesy of Esther Freixa
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TOWARDS THE LIGHT Krause 10
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From the starting Something to write home about until the final Can‟t shut me up, it’s clear that Susanne Clermonts is very self-confident on stage of electronic pop. Her debut No Guts, No Glory (Sony Music, 2009) has emerged from a contract with a multinational company when she had already performed with the best of the club scene like Vive la fête, CSS and The Ting Things. What’s next? Now she’s going to share stage with Kelis. Electronic music has always enjoyed good health in Europe. Actually, it's the only genre in which they highlighted many proposals coming from outside the UK. There’s a long tradition in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Holland. Therefore, Krause began in punk, with rage and unbridled energy. Her talent has become more sophisticated but the challenge is there. Her first album and live shows are just the beginning. She is much more. Its sound is largely urban. You get the feeling of being immersed in the organized river of the masses who survive in the cities. She is smart and bright at the start, almost dreamlike. But it’s just a mirage. Suddenly we fall into the hardness of a robotic rhythm. Perhaps it’s hypnotic but much more real. But the dream is still possible singing Do it again. It’s a bright and dance theme in the best sense of the words. Night becomes the star. City seduces and deceives after so many doors to open, but it doesn’t matter because we always want more and more.
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No guts, no glory, first single from the album, is challenging. No guts, no glory, here there’s no choice. At the end of the night a new day always peeks and the farce is over. No cry, no pain, no way, no eyes... The dead end of despair corrodes our minds without remedy. There’s no hope. The music expresses perfectly that feeling and her voice sounds as an echo and leads us to feel really trapped. A great song even if it hurts. Perhaps sky is the only way out. Soaring Through the starlight seems that life can be something more. The desire for getting out ourselves is inevitable and possibly necessary. That song has a nuanced electronic sound, a perfect proof of best pop. The rhythm is an essential element in Follow me. It’s a great work of electronic minimalism in favour of a fabulous vocal creativity. I want a pony is instead visceral. Krause sings from her deep punk energy and challenges us. She is literally shouting her desire for a pony saying a lot of our capricious society. Our sickness is our emptiness and she hits us with it. There’s no possible indifference to an overwhelming force like Krause. She makes us face up to the real question, our desires and taboos. She transforms night life energy into a vital engine that makes us believe in ourselves. She is pure talent and she won’t stop. Can‟t shut me up is devastating, as it should be.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photo 1 by Ramon Putman Photo 2 and 4 by Harmen Piekema Photo 3 by Thianthup Iamsam-ang
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THE FALLEN ANGEL Céline Renoux 14
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Écrire…comme une terre à modeler, à réinventer, en perpétuel mouvement...le goût de la vie dans toutes ses couleurs, ses variations infinies, son parfum d'aventure. Céline Renoux amazes even with her life’s attitude. She has created the intense blog called Lafilledesastres where she publishes texts that move passionately across the vital road. The night enfolds us thanks to her verses full of desire, feeling every beat as one, as an impetus to continue despite the injuries. Sky mustn’t expect. If we walk along her Ligne d'horizon (2010) we get into the uncertainty we all reject. People feel comfortable in society just because it’s nothing more than a minimal agreement that most people can easily achieve. Céline reminds us that existence is uncertain and exciting. The light we all see is just a glimpse of reality and our own body wants to live all senses away from conventions. Thus, the trembling of her lips is a vertiginous and very seductive horizon. A view of her Nu le jardin, la nuit bleue (2010) is full of impatience to a rebirth after pain. The naked body is looking in every earth’s root for a response to any misunderstanding. The ice of imposed solitude fades any encouragement and we are all exposed to the other’s gaze that we once desired and suddenly it becomes a desperate jail from which we are completely unable to escape. We need to feel desired desperately and that’s in a difficult balance with true passion. A few years ago, La naissance du rêve (2008) invited us to discover from the unconscious. Two persons were just letting go and discovering each other and themselves gradually. Each new door can bring us the highest pleasure but also the most intense pain, perhaps increasing that pleasure. When life faces death it has possibly an even more breathtaking beauty. It’s captivating the false fears wavering balance on the rope of desire. It becomes ridiculous just because that’s the way it is, and it always has been. And we see our faces reflected in what it could be but it is not, we just get what we deserved. But Céline also finds hidden treasures in mediocrity. The oddly lewd hand caressing the unknown is a higher existence, as her poems. Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Céline Renoux
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BODY AN SOUL Yuriy Norshteyn 16
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There once lived a fox and a hare. Fox had a house made of ice and Hare had a house made of wood... And a snowy forest surrounds the hare’s free screaming while the fox is happy thinking his ice palace is fantastic. The artist's hand can create caresses of an eternal permanence and Yuriy Borisovich Norshteyn is a master caressing stories and spectators at the same time, uniting us in the realm of suggestion. His movies are soul to the artistic experience. He was born in 1941 near Moscow during a full evacuation of the city because of the war. Then, he lived difficult circumstances that undoubtedly influenced his love for delicacy. He studied at an art school, he worked in factories, studied animation and collaborated on a fifty films until he directed his first job, Day 25, the first day (1968), sharing the direction role with Arkadii Tyurin and using some Soviet revolutionary artists works to commemorate the October Revolution. He continued working in the co-direction in films like The Battle of Kerzhents (1971), where he used medieval frescoes to recreate the resistance against the Tartars. He is always perfecting his technique of animation based on the use of plate glass in order to create a dreamy atmosphere. The stories always go to a magical dimension that makes them unique despite their traditional origin. A story in the hands of Norshteyn comes alive and has special dimensions. Its skies are born from his particular imaginary world always creating new universes from the popular culture. Probably is the most certain manifestation that illusion is typical of childhood but not exclusive to it. People often have no enthusiasm for life over the years but Norshteyn paints his stories with a fascination for existence. Every detail is important and he feels illusion but also creates it.
Day 25, the first day, directed by Tyurin & Norshteyn
The Battle of Kerzhents, directed by Ivanov-vano & Norshteyn
Hedgehog in the fog, directed by Norshteyn
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Works like The Fox and the Hare (1973), The heron and the crane (1974) and Hedgehog in the Fog (1975), show all his sensitivity always well accompanied by Meyerovich Mikhail’s music and Viktor Khokhryakov as an off voice. They all won the admiration of the film world even in the days when the Iron Curtain had not yet fallen. Their colours, mosaics and landscapes have an own world of intense and evocative feelings, and take us to a place where our imagination seems to fly freely. Everything is possible in Norshteyn films, even tenderness. Then his most famous work arrived, The Tale of Tales (1979), a marvel that lives up the title itself. After awards on both sides of the wall, he was fired in mid-eighties because he was working on his new project too slowly. His craftsmanship wasn’t going with the times, but his works survives as the most brilliant one now. Then he was working in what is his latest film project called The overcoat, for which funding has not succeeded yet. Now he is dedicated to the dissemination and teaching as well as the publication of books like his recent exquisite illustrations Snow on the Grass (2005), extensive work that I hope will be helpful in order to finish his unfinished project. Yuriy Norshteyn is the tale in body and soul.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photo 1 by Nikita Pavlov http://nikitapavlov.com Other photos courtesy of Yuriy Norsheyn
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REBIRTH SONGS Beth Thornley 20
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Wash U clean (2010), the new album of Beth Thornley starts in a powerful way saying goodbye to everything in her life that doesn’t stimulate her future. Here she breaks up with all that things thanks to her lyrics and her music. U got a blue feather bird in a golden swing. She sings strong pounding hard the piano and surrounded by a wind section in a hectic rhythm. Therefore, the beginning of that break up couldn’t be more seductive. From there to the subtlety in Still can‟t hide where she appears fragile but also full of energy to reborn everything, absolutely everything 'cause you know what's not said will tell the tale. And so, but she sings it loud and clear in a perfect pop tune. The trajectory of her record is rich in details and here we complement it with some personal views about solitudes living together. Are you always ok alone? I like to be alone and then I like to visit with friends. A little of each. But I don‟t need exboyfriends to rescue me if that‟s what you‟re wondering. (I think you‟re referring to a lyric in a song) Wash u clean is really powerful and you mention a very special monkey. John Lennon sang once Everybody‟s got something to hide except me and my monkey. Is it your case? The monkey in my song is used to represent a gift my ex-boyfriend thinks would make me feel better. It‟s an offering from him to me to make himself feel less guilty for breaking up with me. So, no, my monkey isn‟t similar to John Lennon‟s monkey. Unless John Lennon would like to give me his monkey and then we can talk.
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Still can‟t hide is so moving. Your voice sounds as a hurt echo. We are all fugitives and refugees but from what? From life. Life is difficult sometimes. When we hide from life, we‟re fugitives. Sometimes we are displaced by life and then we are refugees. Most of us, at some point, are fugitives and refugees of life. But, eventually we all have to face things. No matter how much we try to hide, no matter how many places we go, we still can‟t hide. It seems there’s no exit for you because Everyone falls. Please, give me some hope. Even though Everyone Falls sounds like a sad song, it is also a song about realizing we‟re not alone. There is some comfort in that, yes? We share the experience of life and we should be kind to each other because we all have difficulties. As Plato said “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I just said it a little differently in my song. What kind of signs you need to feel you’re living a good time? Someone once said that happiness is when you don‟t notice time. I like that definition so I‟ll go with that one. Can buy me love? Or just a pony? Neither. But I know a couple of songs that you can listen to about it.
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I was talking about her song You‟re so pony in comparison with The Beatles song Can‟t buy me love. She asks talking about another Beatles song, Dig a pony. She once recorded a splendid cover of Beatles Eleanor Rigby. You walk across intimate sounds and very powerful ones. Is that reflecting your own personality? Maybe. I‟m actually very quiet on the outside. But on the inside, it‟s more like a rollercoaster; and then a ride in a boat on a quiet river, and then back to the rollercoaster. 23
Do you always listen to what your heart says? No. I try to balance it with my brain, too. And with what other trusted people in my life might have to offer. Someday they'll find your eyes under the stove crying for what they have been shown. Do you regret some things? Probably no more than anyone else. But in that song, those lyrics don‟t refer to my eyes. They belong to another person who regrets the past. You sing Never your girl. First of all, I hope you will change your mind someday, but returning to the interview, is life so fragile as the thin line between here and gone you sing? Sometimes it is that fragile. Sometimes, when you‟re done with something, you‟re done. Where does your strength come from? Chocolate and tall boots. Now's a good time. I have to wonder is it just me? Or everybody? I think it's me. And I also believe it’s her. Sometimes it's strange how so elegant and honest proposals have no greater recognition. Beth Thornley is herself, just herself, radiating good pop, wasting energy and a voice deeply attractive always touching us slowly behind each chorus, reserving a loud and clear verse at every corner of her songs to give us the final blow. I knew already chocolate, now I'll must try the boots, to see if they are as tall as she says. For now, What the Heart Wants is to stay with her. However, I just have her songs but they’re so much...
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by Heidi Ross
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HOME’S ACOUSTICS Vera 24
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When Not lost sounds around one feels that having a cup of freshly brewed coffee in hand watching the rain beating against the window can be a great time. Vera Jessen Juhrend’s debut gives us this and many other sensations. She introduces herself just as Vera and her humility and good taste is a treasure to discover. One would like to think that life is to find places like her Leave a line (2009) where we could set aside the weight of our own contradictions and cry for all worthwhile things. Sometimes, it’s good to clean the wounds with a simple home, sweet home, and the songs of Vera embrace us as rarely happens in our daily grind. Life can be rough, especially when we forget the true priorities, like chatting with an author open to folk and jazz in the heat of a band that understands her better than herself. Leave a line (2009) is your debut album and it has a deep homelike aroma. No place like home? Definitely! I really think that there is no place like home. But home is also where your heart is! „How cliché‟, you might say, but in this time we often forget that we can find comfort when we are at home. We are often chasing after so many goals and forget what really is important. To me a lot of that lies at home. In that song your voice sounds tender while you say I‟ve been everywhere but I still haven‟t found what I‟m looking for. Do you really feel you’ve been everywhere? Tender? Oh... ;-) You cannot possibly have been everywhere, it‟s more about a somewhat „powerless‟ feeling, like you feel that you have done what you could and don‟t know where to go from there.
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It’s easy to think that you need an intimate ambient to feel good and it’s probably the same thing in your creative process. Do you feel more comfortable playing in the studio or performing live? Both are totally different things as far as I am concerned. When recording in a studio, sound is all you have to tell your story. While playing live you have so much more to work with (sometimes less, but that depends on the gig itself ;-)). In the studio you’ve got do-over’s but on stage you have to carry on regardless. I don’t have a favorite between the two. I like playing live because you can see the reaction from the listener immediately, but I do like the fact that people will play our CD at their home or in the car! Always something is a hopeful song with an imaginative promotional video. It’s really lovely. Here you sing there’s always something new so your songs are as contradictories as life itself. If I say emotion, what do you think of? Thanks for the compliment! We worked our asses off for this video!! Emotion is what drives us to do what we do. It is how we feel that makes us decide where we go. Emotion means movement I guess. What’s your most bedtime recurrent worry? Right now it‟s all the politics in Holland. I don‟t know if you have heard, but they are planning to really cut back on culture. I‟m wondering what is going to happen next… High heels has a more obscure sound. Have you often feel lost in life? I don‟t see how an obscure sound means that I am lost in life... I’m talking about its lyrics and its obscure sound. Good question, pretty lost sometimes, even in my own songs. I just really like a different sound sometimes. Also my band -especially my guitarist- bring out that side of me. They are awesome at translating what I feel into sound. The sound of a trumpet gives a jazz style to that song. What kind of music do you prefer? I like lots of music! I like to see big concerts of classical music but I also like to go to living room concerts. Different music, different places, the most important factor is that there has to be something authentic about it. I guess I‟m not ready is part of another deeply touching song, Bathroom door. Here, home is presented as a place where our own contradictions can hurt a relationship. And a trumpet leaves us alone with our fears. Is it hard to find a perfect balance in a life together?
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ENVERS I feel that life consists of the search for a perfect balance. Life together can be tough, but also very pleasant. I guess the trick is to be as open and honest as one possibly can, even if is means hurting each other‟s feelings every now and then. In Not lost your voice sounds most brilliant than ever and hope returns again in your songs. What’s the meaning of wondering for you? Wondering... that is what I do. I ask questions, try to find a balance, learn as much as I can. Wondering means having an open mind to me. Probably is again a song about fears. Solitude, loneliness...don’t you ever need to be alone?
I am born a twin and I hardly ever need to be alone. I can enjoy it though, but it‟s something that I have had to learn. She sings Always something from the hope of who sees life as an eternal challenge of learning. Its promotional video is a gem of craft directed by Dirk Pot Mark who has been honored thanks to this marvelous creation. And the Vera’s whisper is going away little by little from the interview to leave us alone with her songs and our own experiences with them. Second by second through her album, I have an increasing desire of seeing one of her concerts. That would be a very good reason to visit her native Holland. I hope there was always something of Vera’s music sounding around.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photos by el Panouli
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ÀNGELA FALCÓ Silence 28
Blind door
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Far
White reflection on black
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Grey-green
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Nebula horizon
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Outside crater
Roots
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CÉLINE RENOUX Les amours liquides 38
baisers de pluie et bouche d’argile frotte silex sur les amours liquides nage sans relâche pour rejoindre l’île quitte les murs nus de la maison vide des amours sublimes il ne reste qu’elle qui trébuche se cogne maladroite et frêle contre les parois ici se rejoignent les lignes et les yeux aveugles aux visions assassines d’une main délicate elle dessine les courbes qui relient les ombres aux corps détachés les fleurs de la nuit aux senteurs trop lourdes s’y entrelacent sauvages en terrain brisé et la voix silencieuse d’entendre encore le chant la musique le fragile animal les promesses qui tardent à s’envoler des corps plus légères de sens elles n’en font pas moins mal il est des baisers de pluie qui jamais ne s’effacent des morsures trop profondes pour en ôter la trace frotte silex sur les amours liquides pour toujours à jamais sur la bouche d’argile
Text and photo by Céline Renoux
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HIGH TONE Musical Bonzeye 39
High Tone is one of the main bands in the French dub scene, one of the richest scenes in the world talking in dub music. In fact, probably they are the fathers of French dub style with some partners like Le Peuple de l’Herbe and many others. They are sampling masters creating new atmospheres from old sounds that come from every time and space. From Lyon comes the electro-dub French touch. In 2005 they published the album Wave digger (Jarring Effects, 2005) including the track Musical Bonzeye as the ending piece. Its sound comes from China and Japan and it takes us to a period so far away from the past but painted in a new tone, their high and personal tone. We can hear voices and laughs surrounding old sounds and a hypnotic rhythm going in crescendo. The video is in a Zen style and it was created by Nico for their Wave digger Tour. It’s a wonderful piece to accompany this suggesting and mysterious music. Past has gone but High Tone members are here between us with a talent hand to reborn our personal sounds.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero Photo from Musical Bonzeye‟s video by Nico
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REFERENCES Jan Lauwers & Needcompany http://www.needcompany.org Esther Freixa http://medealacarta.wordpress.com Krause http://www.thisiskrause.com
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Céline Renoux http://lafilledesastres.wordpress.com
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Yuriy Norshteyn http://norshteyn.ru Beth Thornley http://beththornley.com Vera http://www.veralive.nl Àngela Falcó http://www.openart.com/artistas/angela-falco Andrea Posada http://andreaposadafotografa.blogspot.com High Tone http://www.hightone.org
NAU NUA NOVEMBER 2010 EDITION NUMBER 2 PUBLISHED BY NAU NUA ART MAGAZINE http://naunua.blogspot.com CONTACT naunua@live.com
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LET YOU ART