bells of the morning video

it was my great pleasure to stumble into a partnership of two of my favorite graphic designers: félicie haymoz (CH – fantastic mr. fox / girls in hawaii) and les tontons racleurs (BE – including nico belayew who does our design work).

i think it was last august, when the sun was still pumping through the front window of les tontons racleurs workshop space in recyclart, in bruxelles. nico, maud and pierre-philippe had been there for a month already and were to remain for another couple. they had hosted a few concerts, worked on collaberations with olivier vidal (portrait artist) from canada, macloud zicmuse (les hoquets and madideas man), leo vancauwenberghe (drawings) and oliver cornil (photographer) from belgium, the italian weather ladies (my band), and now it was time to bring the wonderful suisse illustratrice, félicie haymoz (character designer on fantastic mr. fox / designer of my favorite girls in hawaii t-shirt) in for a project.

when i heard this, i set up camp outside with my nose pressed against their window for weeks straight trying to catch a glimpse of what they were doing... as the 20-floor building on the opposite side of the street crashed down, they recouperated lengths of wood and constructed an immense frame which would house about 200 5x5x5cm cubes. they then silkscreened on 5 sides of about 500 such cubes - all red and blue and green - sometimes giant drawings, sometimes patterns being screen-printed onto about 40 cubes at a time, never again to find themselves beside one another, but each to be reincarnated hundreds of times over as a building block in frames of animation.



when this was done, they attached a digital-camera to the top of the structure and the stop-animation machine was complete... feeling sorry for me, standing in the dust cloud outside, nico invited me in for a cup of tea. i took it as an invitation to invade their space and for three days i moved cubes around until i had enough material to make a music video for “bells of the morning” (taken from the album “le grand discours” by aidan, released with hazelwood vinyl plastics / roughtrade, march 2012)...

please check it out and leave a word or two :)



www.floatinghome.org
www.lestontonsracleurs.be
www.feleciehaymoz.com

day 09 :: dornstadt, DE :: solo tour, november 2011

20th november 2011 :: dornstadt, DE :: obstwiesenfestival tanke solo with charlie barnes

as i was leaving yellowstone this morning, i got a phone call from timo to ask how everything was going. its with the help and hard work of timo and julian that i am on tour this month. i left the studio before anyone else arrived with a sadness that it'll be gone before i pass back through and a note to offer my engineering skills, if they ever need them!

- the broken beats -

the sun took me away this morning... it was blindingly beautiful as i drove to the ulm hbf stopping only for fried potatoes and veggies. with wallis, we always stop at the big rasthauses, this time, i'm stopping at lay-bys and smaller, more independant truckstops - so far, i've been pleasantly surprised and have even saved some pennies - every little helps :)

today, i was picking up charlie barnes. charlie is a live sampeling songwriter and pianist from leeds. he is going to be playing a set on the next three shows and joining me in the car.

- 31 knots -

its an industrial part of germany... factories billowing smoke sit next to windfarms - how long will it be before someone writes a horror movie about aoleans?! brilliant and inspired but scarily imposing!

- the miserable rich -

the last time i was in ulm, was for the ulmer zelt festival with wallis last year. it was the first show after my friend, denis, had died and it was a crazy show... the storm outside building to a volume greater than our gig during measuring cities, so we joined in and got louder and louder until it started to subside - we sat around a campfire in the backstage after the show and sheilded ourselves from the cold... a guitar was being passed around - it was a funny vibe, nice but i was distracted - my head still in the storm from earlier!

i can't remember why, but i wrote "thees uhlmann" in my notebook with no explination! charlie is a lovely guy. i can tell that we're going to have a good laugh! he films his days on shitty low quality digital cameras - watching them must be like the oft-hazy memories i have!

as we arrive at the dornstadt exit, we are directed to a very abandoned looking hotel and truckstop. in the carpark there are a few parked trucks and weeds pushing up through the tarmac. we parked and walked around the various buildings and outhouses, kind of looking for the venue, but mostly exploring! we were early, so it was a nice diversion :)

the venue turned out to be the petrol station - one of the wierdest and nicest venues i've played in - great team, great sound, great audience! we hung out with them after the show and had cake. charlie and i spent most of the evening saying "brilliant brlliant brilliaant"... it was brilliant!

on the drive to the hotel in ulm, we took backroads and realised that in this fine fancy car, i can see the stars while i drive!

we got locked out of the hotel... it's one of those little-bit-fancy, cheap, modern, horrible hotel chains that have replaced the receptionist with a computer and the key with an 8-digit code! i had written it into my notebook, but it turned out that what i had written down was my booking reference and not the door code - soooo many numbers :(

charlie eventually negociated with a guest to let him in so he could try and get the room open to get the code we need to open the carpark... the only problem being that the code he would need to open the bedroom, was in the bedroom! during his corridor wandering, i managed to coax the computer into giving me the door code, so i got in!

i went straight to bed and as charlie was getting into bed he mentioned that he likes to sleep with the curtains open to allow the morning light in - me too!!

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day 08 :: frankfurt, DE :: solo tour, november 2011

19th november 2011 :: frankfurt, DE :: occupy frankfurt demonstration solo

i must have looked odd to the many truckers wandering around the carpark, struggling to get my pants on in the back seat of a shaking car as the sun came up.

i woke up at about 8am and went for a quick walk to allow the morning air to wake me up properly. the dew hung beautifully on the autumn landscape, dressing her in faded foggy colours, but it was not a very interesting place here, so i decided to drive a bit and find somewhere more interesting to stop for breakfast.

- blah - a compilation i made (see "mixtape" blog from oct 2011 http://aidanfloatinghome.blogspot.com/2011/10/mixtape.html) -

i continued where i had left off last night. talking with claudia and ilo (2 ladies at last night's show), they asked me where i was going next.
- "i don't know! maybe mainz maybe frankfurt, somewhere around there anyway!"
i have a car, a sleepingbag, no plans and a radio full of friends!

i pulled over at a charming truckstop at sessenhausen for breakfast - there are few of these in germany, most are now horrible overpriced sanifare... all those 50cent pieces going down the toilet. this one was in the middle of a woodland set enough back from the motorway that i could sit outside over my croissant and coffee listening to the birds sing the day in, it was a lovely diversion!

on the next streatch i got flashed coming into a 100kmh zone - balls! i rarely break the limit, but here was one of those moments where i didn't slow down quickly enough! the last time i remember getting caught speeding was in hamburg, driving 45 in a 30 zone!

i arrived into mainz and parked by a lovely park out near the university for a quick walk before meeting marcus for lunch. marcus is a great friend and the soundengineer who is currently mixing my studio album and who also mixed the live and sans souci album last year.

mainz seems pretty. i went for a walk to town through the park in the low autumn sunlight... narrow streets winding down the tram tracks to the old city. i found myself in an internet café to catch up with online stuff. on the radio was elevator versions of my heart will go on and other classy hits!

i drove to the other side of town to meet marcus for lunch, so i could get straight on the road afterwards. i got stuck on the bridge at the hbf and every time i tried to get under it i was on top of it again... marcus was waiting underneath! round and around i went, until i finally gave up and phoned marcus to come and find me!!

we found a restaurant and geeked it up about wallis' and my albums, mics and preamps and general geekery - i am a geek at heart!

it was a short 30 minute trip to frankfurt. this evening, i play on the stage at the occupy frankfurt protest. willybrandtplatz, the square surrounded by enormous concrete and glass buildings housing europe's biggest banks, was taken over with tents and animations. dotted around between tents are information points some with poems and art, others with texts explaining various different banking scenarios and systems... unfortunatly there was a large percentage of drunken people - more than i like to see at this sort of event, but i suppose when you take into account that they've been camping here for two freezing cold months, the thirst can be forgiven. but still, this should be taken seriously and i had the impression that everyone i spoke had a different idea of what they were trying to accomplish - not a good start :(

i was greeted by isaac, a lovely gent who was also filming a load of stuff to put together a representative documentary of what's going on and the changes that need to come about.

i played for about an hour, with a random drummer joining me about halfway through the set!!! it was fun and ended in a long discussion about the distribution of wealth over a cup of tea, before hitting the road for hazelwood studios, wherein lies my bed for the night.

yellowstone studios is in a warehouse space converted in 1996 to this wonderful recording space. the live room is generous with a stage at one end - i was to do a show here, but unfortunatly, the studio is having financial difficulties at the moment... it's such a shame that bands don't realise the benefit of recording in a nice sounding room anymore... this struggling haven, and then you have the guy who, only last week, closes down a business with an annual profit of 4 million dollars, leaving all its workers unemployed because he feels like it - distribution of wealth, yeah? - he doesn't sell it, or pass it on, or get someone to look after it for him - he closes it down!

the hazelwood label, yellowstone's house label, is the home of daniel johnston. the guys that greet me are really lovely and take me on a tour of the studio explaining different acts that have passed through these rooms and giving me a few albums to check out... while i wish that this gig had gone ahead, i had a very interesting day... order of the evening? dinner and a beer, a shower and then bed ^_^


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day 07 :: köln, DE :: solo tour, nov 2011

18th november 2011 :: köln, DE :: lichtung solo

i arranged to get the car at 10am... i'm not sure why, i didn't need it until much later and i knew that parking it in bruxelles would be difficult and that i'd be forced to get out of bed early - but maybe that's what i did anyway!

i was a little hungover from last night's concert - it was a nice evening, and its memories and the bit that's still in my head provoke a wierd sense of lonliness... i'm not used to touring on my own, it's going to be wierd to not have anyone to share this with, so i'm writing it all down so that i know it really happened!

at the car rental desk, i was greeted by steve who upgraded me to a bigger car (welcomed as i may end up sleeping in it after a couple of the shows! while we were sitting i got talking to steve and one of the mechanics working in the garage attached. i'm not quite sure how it happened, but i ended up phoning one of their clients. a man passing through from prague whoose ball bearings are busted to tell him that it would cost 595 euros instead of 415 euros because the housing is broken too!!!

i love choosing a period of time from time-to-time and just writing everything down - i love wandering through life with a notebook, a camera and a guitar. this next month will be difficult, though - i'll probably miss alot of the random pop-in-pop-out-of-the-head thoughts that i so enjoy while i'm driving :(

- anoar braham - astrakan café -

i have decided that the best way to remember some of the stuff i want to write down is by stopping for five minutes at the end of every album to write a few words... as my first album comes to a close, i notice the sounds of the different road surfaces in the relative silence!

the train line clings to the road along a stretch of journey that i have taken time and again, but usually on the train. it's flat farming land around here, climbing gently into the ardennes mountains. the sun falls on my right hand and warms it up, it shoots into cold every time i pass a truck and plunge into shade. the citroen picasso is a pleasure to drive. its comfortable, doesn't use too much petrol and the sound system is really clear :)

a little fly got into the car and keeps me company for a few kilometers
"hello!" ... "ok, fine... ignore me!"
"i don't talk, i'm a fly!"

- deus - worst case scenario -

on this trip, everything is at my own pace. if i want to stop, i stop... if i want to eat, i eat, if i want to put on a record, i put on the record... if i want to drive slowly...

never stop asking questions... i accidently drive through the german-belgian customs looking for a place to picnic. the border at eupen/aachen is pretty - not the shack, but the area! i made some food last night at 2am after the concert and it is really good - this may be the last good meal for ten days, in germany, not everyone understands vegitarian!

- led zeppelin - I -

i love the light at this time of year, autumn is my favorite season for the mental-energy storms and the sunsets, but only when it comes after summer, and this year summer was also very autumn - the light is amazing, but i'm finding the wind less refreshing than usual! the clouds look amazing in the rear-view mirror - driving, i'm also missing a bunch of beautiful photos that i'd like to be able to share here! it's strange looking over such beautiful landscape in such a beautiful sunset and the sound of traffic louder than my thoughts!

- darwin deez -

on arriving in lichtung, i am first struck by their choice of furnature and artwork hanging on the walls - beautiful old wooden sideboards overflowing with flyers and potted plants, landscape paintings mixed up among nude photos that all work rather well together - wallis would have something to say about this - and the pet shop boys on the radio!

the stage is lovely, slightly raised in a veranda - all surrounded with glass (glad there are no cymbals this evening!) - with a piano against the wall, a painting of a garden surrounding a small garden on the wall outside and behind me. i'll be looking over people sitting in comfy couches listening to the show.

michael greets me, offers me a coffee and shows me around. an hour or so later, fabien arrives just as i have my stuff set up - perfect timing :) the sound check is quick and i'm happy to have my amp, effects and  all my toys...

dinner is the indian buffet next door - what was i thinking taking so muuch food - i wasn't that hungry but everything looked so good that i filled my plate to spilling level. i have to eat it now or i'll look really greedy!!! the music in the venue was a very eclectic mix, so asked him who was choosing it - creamy radio, the world's largest shuffle ipod - hmmm - not very creative and half of the songs that pop up are a bit shit, not sure about this idea!

just before i started, a few fans of wallis' music showed up - this makes me happy - i appreciate their coming out :)

i get talking to a gent named essa, when he comes to the bar to order tea. he is in the rock band playing in the venue downstairs after my gig... he tells me of their music, it sounds interesting, i'll pop down and have a listen... the show was nice. about 50 or so people, some sitting in the armchairs listening, some standing around listening, others waiting for the later gig - some of these found me after the show to tell me that they enjoyed it - that was nice :)

it's wierd playing on my own again. i can't find much to say about the songs, so i just played them. i felt fairly self-concious and a bit uncomfortable, especially during the louder songs, thinking like i might be going to far - i kind of just close my eyes and let myself be taken away on the air... i haven't really gigged like this in nearly 10 years!

at the end of the show, daniela passed a hat around, while looking after the bar alone - some superwoman! i hung around for a while after the show for chats and tea! one guy, michael, took a shot of me with insane eyes - i should just keep them closed!

i went downstairs for a bit of a listen before heading off. there were 2 rock bands and both sounded really good, but i only caught the last song of the first band and the first couple of the second band - the sound in the room was great! i hit the road to drive the first 100 or so kilometers towards frankfurt and pull over for the night.

- blah - a compilation i made (see "mixtape" blog from oct 2011 http://aidanfloatinghome.blogspot.com/2011/10/mixtape.html) -

i stopped in a layby off the A66. it was cold, but i was well equipped with bankets and cushions and with a quick blast of hot air to begin the evening in heat, i slipped into sleep with no problem. i kept waking up to pee and then putting the heat back on for a couple of minutes - i slept intermittantly!

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day 06 :: off day, bruxelles, BE :: nov 2011 solo tour

17th: bruxelles, BE :: engineering and partying in sssc

the sunsets are stunning at this time of year, each one seems better than the night before's... it's been nice to have a short break before the next leg of the tour. this allowed me to get some clothes washed, print some more cds - with nico, we print the inlays as we need them. this week we did about 300 or 400, half pink with glitter and the other half turquoise. we usually change the paint every 200 or so. i like this - it makes each of them a bit unique... the first 1000 are being printed like this and numbered.

... what better way to polish off a break and get me in the mood for touring, than a gig amongst friends in sans souci. i embark with my gear at 17h for a show with 3 acoustic acts... illute, antoine villoutreix and ian fisher - they were all brilliant, but i really got lost in antoine's set - beautiful!

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day 05 :: carpi (modena), IT :: solo tour, nov 2011

11th: carpi (modena), IT :: kalinka, solo with wallis bird

at breakfast, however, i was enjoying it's lingering flavour less... fuzzy-headed, i took a look around the breakfast room, took a yoghurt and went back to bed with it - the extra hour will do me the world of good!

it did! i battled with the underground carpark until she released my car and we headed for bologna... i made them listen to 80s music until they started singing along and my hangover subsided!

we arrived in bologna with enough time to sit down and eat. agata had an address for a good restaurant, so that's where we headed - trattoria del rosso, where i had a wonderful melanzane di parmiggiano - still not as good as silvio's mum's in torre al mare, but pretty damn good, all the same.

we sat and enjoyed it until the last minute possible and then rushed to radio citta fujiko, where wallis was playing a few songs on air. there are so many people on bologna's streets this afternoon, i feel like james bond or indiana jones!

we got back to the car, to the radio station in light speed and the others went up while i parked. the station was like something out of a 50s detective movie - all desks overflowing with papers, dotted around a large room with an almost entirly open partition wall down the centre of the room. each staff member walking around the room with a pen in hand, or sitting on the edge of a desk discussing stuff with the person in the office chair beside them, all this in a dimly-lit air thick with smoke!

the studio where we played was small and full of the same sort of style - i love this place :) wallis and i played three songs and went on our merry way for carpi.

the drive seemed long and we stopped several times for coffee and snacks. as we approached modena, we passed by an accident where a citroen picasso had been reduced to the size of a smart car - so dangerous, and still i drive at 100kmh :(

tonights hotel was proper de luxe - it always feels good when the hotel and sound are good on the last night of a tour (or in this case, part of a tour!)... so far, so good!

the posters surrounding tonight's venue were proper cruise-ship cabaret style - i didn't know whether to laugh or cringe. the venue is lovely, 3 or 4 booths under the windows along the left hand wall, behind it, a large L-shaped bar and at the end of that, the sound desk. the stage was large and hollow, perfect for my microphones :) we were greeted with a coffee and a smile - i love italy!

the meal was amazing. proper sit-over-the-meal-for-two-hours food! and all the staff sit down together and ate with us - i like this - it's so italian and wonderful!

the sound was great in the soundcheck, but unfortunatly, the crowd were so loud during the show, i couldn't hear it!!! i hated that gig because i had the impression that we could have easily been replaced by a cd player for all the audience cared :( ... one of the people who came to the show brought a bottle of barbera d'alba, though - mon favorit! when we got back to the hotel, we had a glass and a chat about the last few days - i loved touring with agata and rosella, they were brilliant :)

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day 04 :: milano, IT :: solo tour nov 2011

10th: milano, IT :: bitte, solo with wallis bird

i woke up in the morning early, had a shower and a walk in the garden as the sun rose over the cliff that has been exposed by the light of day, and the green rolling valley, leading away from it!

the owner of the b&b was working on his garden and as i sat down to breakfast he came in with a variety of plates prepared with the fruits of his labour. i was sat in a veranda with chillis, thyme, rosemary and baskets brimming with tomatoes, corgettes and all sorts of wonderful colours hanging from the rafters. i leafed through a magazine filled with photos of wartime france with a warm sun now falling on my back - how strange it must be to live in a war zone... my friend, zlata, published her journal when she was a child living in the war in bosnia. she also did a book called "stolen voices" a few years ago, assembling war diaries from the last century - it was very interesting to read.

before long i was joined by wallis, rosella and agata and we chatted about the various places where we live, have lived and what we miss from home - we all aggreed that if the politics and the economy of this country were better, we'd all find it very attractive! we ate with a dog wandering around giving us eyes, but turning his nose up at the string beans we dropped - picky beggar!

i sat in the garden to enjoy the first mix of the first song on my album that marcus is currently mixing in sandhausen in germany - very happy about this... it's into the future and he has made the gospel choir sound like a hug :)

we loaded up the car and hit the road... back down the windey streets towards the venue where we played last night, down to the river, left and we'll follow it until we find a nice spot to go for a walk.

we drive along the riverside, with cliffs shooting up to the sky on both sides until they recede and allow a few hills that locals have taken advantage of to grow vinyards... there is a beautiful old village climbing up the mountain on our left to a church about two thirds of the way up. we drive down to the waterside and stop for a walk as the river opens into lake garda. it's a beautiful setting and wallis and i swap the camera - capturing the sun run along the water's surface; the ducks bouncing on the small waves; the golden trees; revealing themselves briefly while they await winter's blanket; the mountains and their snowy peaks propping the sky up all around us - as we walk further into lake garda. on the way back we follow the streets winding up the mountain until we get to a square with a church (a different one a little lower on the hillside!) and a beautiful view over the valley - we stood in silence for a while - we know each other well enough, now, to feel comfortable doing this.

the next kilometers were accompanied with valerie francis' album - scoring the hills and villages to milan perfectly until, as the fog began overcoming us, agata had us discover the wonder that is carmen consoli... amazing!

we arrived in milan and went to visit the cathedral - really nice - before going for some risotto in an old school café playing sade, and the likes. walking through the streets in the fog, rosella told us about her work and some of the other bands they have organised tours with in the past and some that they hope to work with in the future... fog makes everything eerie!

by the time we found bitte and drove down the darkly lit industrial horror movie streets to get there, the fog had turned to smog. as i got out of the car, the smell slammed me instantly back to winter-time cycles to school in dublin when i was 12!

tonight's sound was going to be a challange - i have, at my disposal an 8-channel yamaha desk and 3 speakers! the room is great - a great big open space with 2 floors and a few poles dotted around for dreamers.

this evening, i have made an executive decision to drive the car to the hotel before the show and get a taxi after it so that i can have a few drinks - ray, a friend from ireland and his wife, elisa are coming, as are bruno, with whom i work in belgium and his girlfriend doudou... should be shits and giggles!

indeed it was... wallis did a killer loopything that seemed almost as though she had rehearsed it! the vibes were there and a lovely couple gave me a bottle of their home-brewed beer - it was really lovely. the bar had a barbera d'asti that i enjoyed with my dinner, and kept on enjoying during the gig, and after when ray, wallis, the dude on the bar, and i kept on jamming - i kept enjoying that fine grape... and in the taxi back to the hotel, yup - barbera!!

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