Post-(Clan of) XYMOX - Vaselyn, Hypercycle, Born for Bliss (Biographie Teil 5/5)

{jcomments off}anka_irainDer letzte Teil der Biographie beschäftigt mit den musikalischen Projekten von Anka, Pieter und Frank (inkl. Interview) nach ihrem Ausscheiden bei XYMOX. (in English)

 

Anka Wolbert
Nach ihrem Ausstieg bei XYMOX arbeitete Anka zusammen mit Toni Halliday von Curve, die sich ebenfalls gerade aufgelöst hatten, an einem neuen Projekt mit dem Namen "Bud". 1994 unterschrieben sie einen "publishing deal" mit Dave Stewarts (Eurythmics)-Label Anxious Records. [1] Aber Anka entschied sich dazu, ihren eigenen Weg zu gehen und das "Bud"-Projekt endete ohne eine Veröffentlichung. [2] Sie überarbeitete die Songs und schloss schließlich einen Vorvertrag mit 4AD ab. Alles schien sich positiv zu entwickeln, vor allem als sie in London Pieter davon überzeugte zusammen weiterzumachen. "Pieter und ich hatten noch aus den XYMOX-Tagen immer dieses besondere Etwas in unserer musikalischen Zusammenarbeit; es funktioniert einfach ganz selbstverständlich. (...) Mir wurde klar, dass wir das zusammen machen müssen und ich hoffte, dass sein und mein musikalischer Input verschmelzen würden. Dies schien ein wunderbares Rezept zu sein." [3] Pieter brachte noch eine Reihe von Tracks mit ein und unter dem Namen "Vaselyn" unterzeichneten beide einen Plattenvertrag mit dem "The Enclave"-Label, einem Ableger von EMI NY. [4] Allerdings zeigten sich wieder einmal die Schattenseiten der Musikindustrie: EMI NY wurde umstrukturiert und "The Enclave" wurde ein Teil von Virgin Records.[5, 6] Vaselyn verloren ihren A&R-Manager und damit die Unterstützung des Labels, so dass die Aufnahmen zu ihrem Album ein jähes Ende fanden. Ein Geduldsspiel begann, bei dem letztendlich Anka und Pieter auf anraten ihres Managers "The Enclave" erfolgreich auf Auflösung ihres Vertrages verklagten und so zumindest die Rechte an ihren Songs zurückerhielten. Aber ein Album wurde natürlich nicht veröffentlicht. [2]

Beide zogen sich für Jahre aus dem Musikbusiness zurück und es bedurfte erst dem Zusammentreffen mit Sophie Zeyl, um sich wieder der eigenen Musik zu zuwenden. 2006 gründeten Anka, Sophie und Pieter i-rain Records und Anka veröffentlichte endlich ihr Solo-Album "Cocoon Time". Bei der Zusammenstellung der Songs entschied sich Anka bewusst dafür, die intensivsten Versionen zu nehmen und die "bombastischen" Aufnahmen für EMI wegzulassen. [3] Und so wurde "Cocoon Time" ein intimes, warmes Album, bei dem die minimalistisch arrangierten Songs hervorragend zu Ankas fragilem Gesang passten. Zeitgleich produzierte Anka zusammen mit Pieter das Debüt Album "Two Ways of Running" der niederländischen Songwriter-Hoffung Sophie Zeyl.
Leider war die musikalische Rückkehr Ankas nur eine kurze Episode, denn seither hat sie keine neue Musik mehr veröffentlicht oder produziert und auch I-Rain Records hat den Betrieb wieder eingestellt. [7]

Pieter Nooten
nooten-4_200pxPieter, der schon länger mit der musikalischen Entwicklung bei XYMOX unzufrieden war, wandte sich nun Techno/House-Musik zu. Er wurde Resident-Producer der One4Two-Studios in Amsterdam und veröffentlichte als Teil von Hypercycle Production (Alfred Bos, Anniki Sommerville, Timo Nooten...) Musik unter verschiedenen Pseudonymen u.a. als Cyberia oder First Contact: "Hypercycle was a great time. We used to put out 12-inches almost every week. We knew some of the DJ's playing at the infamous Roxy in Amsterdam at the time. Seeing them trying out our tracks on a real audience was fantastic. We would stand on the balcony watching the crowd and when they responded in a certain way to some remix, we would go back to the studio and change things accordingly. Dance music always intrigued me because of the possibilies of extreme experimentation combined with blant, brutal banality". [8] Hypercycle produzierten House, Techno und Ambient-12inches, die bis heute noch viel von der euphorischen und experimentierfreudigen Aufbruch-Stimmung der frühen 90er behalten haben. Daneben gab es immer auch sehnsüchtigen Dancetracks ("Seizing The Moment", "I Call Upon"), die wie eine konsequente Weiterentwicklung der Idee von "Dreamhouse" (XYMOX - At the End of the Day, 12", 1991) klangen. Neben den großartigen Maxis "I Call Upon", "Albatross" oder "Open Up (wegen "Seizing The Moment - Realms And Dimensions Mix") bietet die Compilation "The Hypercycle Vegetarian Picnic" einen guten Überblick über die Musik, die zwischen 1992 und 1994 produziert wurde.

{qtube vid:=GAEiedT0uaI}
First Contact - I Call Upon (leider zu Beginn im Video-Soundspur-Destruction-Mix)


Der Dance-Music müde geworden, zog Pieter 1995 nach London, um mit Anka als "Vaselyn" musikalisch zu arbeiten. Nach dem Aus für Vaselyn machte er einen ausgedehnte musikalische Pause, schrieb nur hin und wieder Songs für Theater-, Film- Kunstprojekten, bevor er zusammen mit Anka bei Sophie Zeyl als Producer und als Teil von I-Rain records 2005 wieder auf der Bildfläche erschien. Nach dem Ambient-Album "Ourspace" (i-rain records, 2005), einer Zusammenstellung vergessener und unpolierter Tracks, erschien 2010 mit "Here Is Why" bei Rocket Girl seine Idee von elektronischer Kammermusik: großartige Musik im Geiste des This Mortail Coil-Projektes, minimalistisch, intensiv und von zerbrechlicher Schönheit.   

Frank Weyzig
bornforblissFrank gründete 1994 zusammen mit Willem van Antwerpen (aka Will Anvers) von XYMOX und Remco Herbers (ex-The Dreamside) Born for Bliss. Eine selbstbetitelte Demo CD gelangte im selben Jahr dank alter XYMOX-Kontakte ins Ruhrgebiet und ließ erstmalig aufhorchen. Denn im Gegensatz zur Musik, die XYMOX zu dieser Zeit machten, verströmte der Sound von Born for Bliss viel 80er-Wave-Flair ohne auf moderne Sample-Sounds und Beats zu verzichten. Eine ganz besondere Dimension in den Sound von Born for Bliss brachte die ganz eigene Spielweise und der Klang von Remcos Chapmann Stick.

Mit der ersten EP "Arabia" (Nuclear Blast) gelang Born for Bliss gleich ihr größter Erfolg: Der Titeltrack war ein verführerischer, dynamischer Song, dem es gelang 80er Melancholie und 90er Dynamik miteinander zu verbinden. Die Single wurde ein veritabler Clubhit und fand seinen Weg in die Deutschen Alternative Charts. 1997 erschien dann das Debüt-Album "Flowing With The Flue" (Nuclear Blast, 1997), das im Intro nicht zu Unrecht als "ein Wave-Album für die 90er" [9] bezeichnet wurde.

Das zweite Album "Between Living and Dreaming" sollte eigentlich 1999 erscheinen, allerdings führten Differenzen mit dem Management und der Plattenfirma dazu, dass sich Born for Bliss auflösten und das Album trotz fertiger Abmischung nicht mehr erschien. Nach der Trennung von Born for Bliss arbeitet Frank Weyzig und Remco Helbers weiter als Stargaze Project zusammen, zudem stiegt Frank bei White Rose Transmission ein. 2010 erfolgte dann doch noch die Veröffentlichung des zweiten Born for Bliss Albums "Between Living and Dreaming" via Echozone, auf dem als Bonusmaterial mit "Dragon" auch ein Song erstmalig veröffentlicht wurde, den Frank 1985 während seiner Zeit bei XYMOX schrieb. Bestärkt durch die guten Kritiken des Albums, arbeiten Born for Bliss wieder an neuen Songs. Doch dazu mehr im folgenden Interview mit Frank Weyzig: 

What was the motivation for you to reunite B4B?
After I joined White Rose Transmission we released the album ‘Spiders in the Mind Web’ on German Label Echozone. There I got in touch with label owner Jörg Tochtenhagen. He knew about my early work with Xymox and Born For Bliss and I suggested him to listen to the (at that time never before released) album ‘Between Living & Dreaming’.

After recording this album with Born For Bliss in 1999, the band split up due to all kinds of problems with our former management and record company. At that time, frustrated as I was with the whole business, I just gave up and never found the energy to do a final effort to release the album. Until one night, while I was working in my studio on one of the WRT tracks, I stumbled on these long forgotten B4B files on my hard drive. After playing some of the tracks, I was stunned about the freshness and the dynamics of the songs. Just one thought entered my mind… This album deserves a second chance!

And that’s what happened. Jörg decided to release the album after all on Echozone (2010)… From that point on we received numerous good reviews and I started to notice that there is still interest in Born For Bliss. That’s when I decide to blow some new life into the band. I contacted Remco and Willem and now we are writing new material for a follow up album…

B4B are working on new material. What can you tell us about this new songs and your plans for the future?
Well.. we’re in the middle of the writing process so it’s difficult to already pinpoint a certain sound or direction. All I can say is that we stay pretty close to the style that we made our own on the two previous albums… Maybe there will be some more psychedelic influences on the album this time... Perhaps the best way to describe our new music is; psychedelic wave with melodic guitars, dark layers of keyboards and expressive vocals…

There’s a slight change in approach this time. On the previous albums Remco played the Chapman Stick and I did all the guitars, keyboards and vocals. Now Remco will play the bass guitar instead of the Stick and some extra guitar and keyboard parts as well… Willem will do all the drums, percussion and drum programming. Hopefully we will finish writing and recording in the beginning of 2012 and do a fresh album release. We’re also preparing rehearsals to do some gigs later this year…


Was the label "ex-XYMOX" a blessing or a curse for the career of B4B?
Well, to be honest…. It was more a curse than a blessing. From the moment our debut album “Flowing with the Flue’ was released, every first question that came up in an interview had to do with Xymox… Even in reviews of our album they wanted to look for parallels with Xymox so hard, that they almost forgot to judge our music in a more objective way. Of course we were not Xymox. And I certainly never had the intention to be a Xymox clone. Our music is totally different. Fortunately we also had many good reviews and we did quite a few gigs in Germany that were received very well. So we got the attention that was needed to enter high in the German Alternative charts after all.

Another thing I remembered from that period was the fact that I was misquoted a couple of times. Especially in an interview I did for a German music magazine. I think it was Orkus… Again I was asked about my Xymox past and they asked me what my role has been on the first Xymox album. So I told them that I was most known for my guitar solo in ‘Cry in the Wind’ and that I mainly played some basic keyboard parts besides the great stuff that Pieter had played. There translation in German was something like this; ‘Frank played the main keyboard parts on the album’, which of course was totally wrong translated. There were more misquotes that I can’t remember anymore. Anyway, later Ronny read those interviews and I could be wrong but I feel that since then he did everything to jeopardize my Born For Bliss career and even tried to wipe me out of the Xymox history completely ;-)


How did you become a member of White Rose Transmission? Can you describe your current role there?

"White Rose Transmission" started in 1995 as a collaboration between Carlo van Putten (at that time vocalist of The Convent; now the singer of Dead Guitars) and Adrian Borland (front man of English 80's cult band The Sound). WRT did two album releases with the input and help of different collaborating artists such as Marty Wilson Piper (The Church), Mark Burgess (The Chameleons) and Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls). After the sudden death of co-founder Adrian Borland in 1999, WRT came to a halt until 2006 when Carlo decided to pick up things again and released the songs he wrote together with his friend Rob Keijzer on the third WRT album "Bewitched and Bewildered".

For the next album Rob Keijzer got in touch with me. Rob and I are long time friends and he thought it to be a good idea to hook me up with WRT. Maybe coincidence, or just faith, but I was also a huge Adrian Borland fan myself and liked the idea of doing live gigs and working together with Rob and Carlo on a follow up album for White Rose Transmission. So I joined in as producer and band member. In 2009 we did some live gigs in Germany. Later in the spring of 2010 i finished the final recordings and the production for the fourth WRT album "Spiders in the Mind Web" on German label ECHOZONE. This coming spring we also release a WRT Live album “Spinning Webs at Night”…


After the split of B4B you've started with Remco the Stargaze Project. What is the significance of this project besides B4B and WRT?

After a couple of years of silence, somewhere around 2006 me and Remco decided to join forces again to produce new music. For that new project, the main source of inspiration was the Internet. Inspired by the many mysteries of our modern times; conspiracies, alien abductions, ufo encounters and other strange events, we started to search on the internet for unusual sounds and strange recordings. These elements give shape to the StarGazing Project in a very peculiar way....

About the project:
While searching the Internet, we came across a spoken interview in which a woman claims to be abducted by aliens. This interview triggered the initial idea for the StarGazing project. The song (Stargazing) that was build around the audio recording of this interview, reflects the mood and state of mind of the woman, who is clearly emotionally affected by the experience... Writing the music for the album, it became clear that all the songs were breathing this same strange emotion. Even the lyrics are being affected in the same way and drift seamlessly from dream to reality. After editing, mixing and placing the songs in a particular order, there appears to be an underlying storyline. The story of a woman who seems to have lost her grip on reality. A story being told from the perspective of the woman's friend. But, is this woman really losing grip on reality after all?...

About the music:
The basic idea was to combine traditional songwriting with modern techniques as sampling and sounds aping. The drums, for instance, consist of chopped up live performances which were later edited and manipulated on the computer. On the album the different songs are connected with sounds capes composed on Chapman Stick using modern looping - techniques. This technique, based on long digital delays, also appears throughout the actual songs.

All the sampler sounds were painstakingly crafted to fit every song and to blend with the live played instruments as acoustic guitar, loops and vocals. Although many of the songs seem to have an electronic basis, the main chord and melody instrument appears to be the acoustic guitar. This unusual approach gives the music it's unique characteristics….
The album ‘Stargazing’ will be released in May 2011 on Echozone.


You've founded a new music platform for independent artists called with Turmoil Music.  What's the concept of Turmoil Music?
Turmoil Music is based on a music network for independent musicians (Indie / Alternative / New wave / Electronic / Ambient / Other). No annoying charts or rankings. Just free web space to promote bands or music projects.

As a musician and long time user of open music platforms such as ‘Myspace’, I started to get more and more annoyed by the everlasting growing list of other musicians trying to get my attention. Instead of getting attention from my true fans, my message board was overflowing with links to music releases and other stuff I didn’t ask for from musicians all over the world, trying to get a top position on the ranking list… Most of the time their music didn’t appeal to me at all and not seldom these same musicians were cheating by using automated click bots to have more audio plays showing up in their embedded audio players and a higher count of profile views on their home pages…
This fact together with the also annoying advertisements that showed up on my own page made me decide to try something new… Setting up a new Independent Networking site dedicated to Professional Independent Artists with a similar view and approach on Independent Music… This is the reason why Turmoil Music is only accessible by invitation or by direct request. My goal is to gather a cool family of artists coming from the same corner of "Alternative" music with the same ideas and philosophy about independent music...

On Turmoil Music you will find no advertisements and no charts and best of all it’s totally free! As a supplement to our ‘ReverbNation’ label and our ‘Facebook’ page, Turmoil Music offers a strong tool to promote music and a means to collaborate with other fellow musicians. A tool that does not have to suffer from the heavy traffic and comments from other non musicians….


part 1: Subsequent Pleasures (1983 - 1985)
part 2: Medusa (1986 - 1987)
part 3: Imagination (1988 - 1991)
part 4: Metamorphosis (1992 - 2001)

[1] Wikipedia: Anxious Records - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anxious_Records, retrieved: 09.11.2011.
[2} Mic: Anka Wolbert "In a mad devotional style" - unruhr.de, 2005, retrieved: 27.02.2011
[3] Manfred Zippel: Anka "Ex-Clan of Xymox" - Black, 45/2006
[4] Wikipedia: The Enclave (record label) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enclave_(record_label), retrieved: 09.11.2011.
[5] "EMI records label in New York closes down". 14.07.1997, Jet. FindArticles.com, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n8_v92/ai_19614058/, retrieved: 09.11.2011
[6] EMI Records Closed; Many Artists in Limbo - Billboard, 28.07.1997, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fQ8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=the+enclave+label&source=bl&ots=pQmvvE04qt&sig=D7Ib6MTX67-NcuJ5wYOVUlqdNC8&hl=en&ei=wBM3TsyMD4e3hAeC3aVz&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=the%20enclave%20label&f=false, retrieved: 09.11.2011
(7) Mic: Pieter Nooten "To be honest I never listened to pop music" - unruhr.de, 2010, retrieved: 27.02.2011
(8) Mic: Pieter Nooten "Ourspace", unruhr.de, 2006, retrieved: 27.02.2011
(9) unknown: Born for Bliss "Flowing With The Flue" - Intro #45, Juni 1997, http://www.intro.de/platten/kritiken/23021927/born-for-bliss-flowing-with-the-flue, retrieved: 28.02.2011

Links:
unruhr-Interview Ronny Moorings 2004
unruhr-Interview Anka 2005
unruhr-Interview Pieter Nooten 2006
unruhr-Interview Pieter Nooten 2010
unruhr-Interview Bert Barten 2010
unruhr-Tongrube: XYMOX - Blind Hearts

www.clanofxymox.org
www.clanofxymox.com
www.pieternooten.com
www.myspace.com/pieternooten
www.myspace.com/ankawolbert
www.myspace.com/bornforbliss
www.myspace.com/frankweyzig
www.myspace.com./stargazingproject
www.myspace.com/whiterosetransmission
http://turmoilmusic.com
www.myspace.com/thefloatingtree
www.bertbarten.nl
www.4ad.com
www.rocketgirl.co.uk