Release Zima
Delighted to present you today the release of our single ZIMA from the upcoming album STIMMEN IN PRAGUE !
You can have a listen here:
Stimmen in Prague
The release is based on an almost unabridged live recording of their remarkable debut performance at Palác Akropolis at the legendary music festival “Spectaculare” in the Czech capital at the beginning of 2022. Just as in East Berlin, State-prescribed socialism had fundamentally shaped the everyday lives of Prague citizens until 1989 such that this coming together between the German artists and their Czech audience was able to produce historical, biographical and with it also humorous parallels, and made the concert feel almost like a home crowd.
While elsewhere improvisation as an expression of disorganisation is sometimes ridiculed, in the Czech Republic, just like in East Germany, it is considered a great art. The ability to react to life’s demands with humour and creativity makes the Czech masters of improvisation – and that’s how they proudly see themselves. And it is against exactly this background that the Brueder Selke concert was for all participants on and in front of the stage one of the rare artistic rays of hope in the middle of the corona pandemic.
Musically the concert offered the first opportunity for an expansive setup – directly preceding the more intimate performance at Dresden’s “Jazzclub Tonne” which was likewise recorded on film and has already been released as the corresponding first part of the duology: BELKA & STRELKA. And so the releases move temporally backwards, contrary to the actual event dates, and serve as a (literal) trip into the past.
In the concert, Sebastian’s Klingenthal cello was played alongside Daniel’s grand piano and together with electronic modules from VERMONA as well as a wide palette of experimental sound generators from SOMA Laboratory. And so it was that in this setup dominated by synthesisers, the only acoustic instruments were the cello and piano, though the cello was of course modified by Sebastian’s well-known signature chain of effects using ping-pong and a sequenced filter.
The concert included some familiar pieces that have been further developed and some new works that meticulously sound out the potential of the acoustic as well as the additional electronic components. All are based on fragmentary compositions that become complex but at the same time recognisable unities through the mutual action and reaction in the interplay between the brothers – through “listening to each other’s Stimmen (German: voices)”.
The recordings were made directly from the stage with high-end field recording equipment and several cameras. In their Klingenthal Studio, the brothers then selected the pieces for the album and used their keen sense of the accordant lighting, the spirited stage design, as well as the increasingly euphoric reactions of the audience to reflect the emotional atmosphere of the event in their Gesamtkunstwerk.
The creative, interlocking aspects of the approach of Brueder Selke follow a central idea to which both stay deeply committed: the search for a harmony between musical profession and human existence – transported by a constant balancing of the specific elements of their work. In the process, their reductive and in part minimalistic approach is applied to a contemporary aesthetic based on their personal experiences and immanent handling of the restrictions of daily life in former, socialist East Germany.
As CEEYS (CS), Sebastian and Daniel Selke have released six albums – three duologies – that tell of episodes from their childhood in the former GDR. Together with the acoustic HAUSMUSIK as well as the corresponding rework album MUSIKHAUS, they provide a context, organisation, and at the same time also perspective for their work today.
The invitation to the festival in the Czech Republic (CZ) was for the brothers more than just a performance in the eastern hemisphere, but also brought to light the aforementioned curious parallels to their own past growing up in the real existing socialism of the GDR – from the familiar architecture of the brutalist Plattenbaus and the socialist monuments that remain very present there to the cheerful/pensive reactions of the Czech concert audience who were able to bring to the night their own historical experiences.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, encounter and exchange with like-minded people and musicians has become the fundamental drive of the Selke brothers. And so this album and concert film yearns, but with a certain lightness, to once again confront the subject of societal upheaval, especially in this time of contradictions, separations and confrontations, and at last to overcome it.
After the release of their bridging duology – THE GRUNEWALD CHURCH SESSION as CEEYS at the beginning of 2022 and MARIENBORN as Brueder Selke at the end of 2022, the end of 2023 saw the completion of their first duology as Brueder Selke with the album GO EAST, which in its line-up and production process can be seen as a turning point in the work of the collaborative duo. Now the two longstanding musical partners present a second album with concert film, and thus with the predecessor BELKA & STRELKA complete the second duology under their real names.
“These two complementary albums and the corresponding concert films underline our profound yet playful search for our own origin and identity in relation to each other in a concert setting – and at the same time in partnership with our audience.”
– Sebastian & Daniel, Brueder Selke
STIMMEN IN PRAGUE is now the second project to be recorded on a live stage, this time of an expansive performance at a music festival in Eastern Europe, preceding the more intimate session at Jazzclub Tonne in Dresden. Together with its predecessor, the album titles form the hybrid phrase: Belka & Strelka stimmen in Prague, whereby the German word “stimmen” evokes various interpretations such as voices, tuning or agreement.
The record was mixed by the exceptionally gifted Edward Sikorski at his Studio B in Dresden and mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at his boutique Black Knoll Studio in New York.