Recently a friend showed me to a photo on last.fm taken in Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg during our visit there with Coil back in 2002. I haven't seen any pictures from the time, so it was an unexpected surprise, and a flashback. I realised I still do have and sometimes use those cables hanging over Geff's shoulder in the picture.. which makes me feel a little warmer now, with the winter closing in.. Another amusing thought that strikes me today is that the body of my friend, which had been turned into ash and given to the wind, by now can probably be traced in its atomic form on all continents of the planet! And I catch myself singing "Geff's in the air.."

Tourette records from Houston, Texas have now released an amusing collectable document - the recordings Andrej Kolesov made during our improvised session in his DAO studio in Russia back in 1996.

I met Andrej in late 80ies and I know him as an extremely humble and kind person, as well as a genuinely gifted and versatile musician, who can play just about any instrument he finds, or makes. There's a curious [and very sad] story related to his talents: upon listening to COH STRINGS and Andrej's oud playing on that record,  Hector Zazou's manager at the time was suggesting to the maestro that Andrej is exactly the kind of performer needed for a forthcoming Zazou Live programme. Tragically, those planned live shows never took place as the composer passed away.. On my part, I must say I feel extremely privileged to have had a chance to pass on a copy of STRINGS to Hector Zazou, and to receive his "thank you" - all because of Andrej's magical intuitive performances with oud and saz!

Back to the release: DZERZHINSK-9 has been produced by Andrej, who managed to find the old cassette tapes after all these years and after having moved his studio to a new location. He cleaned up the grainy recordings and moderately spiced them up with extra percussion and bass - which is probably what makes the pieces listenable today, as the material quite heavily refers to the music we have both been listening to in the early 90ies. :) Well, I remember we did have good time in the studio recording all that..

As a return favour, or rather out of genuine respect to Andrej's talents, I am currently helping with/producing his own solo album. This work will be entirely based around eastern string instruments treated by computers. We will try to take further the "computer-world" genre of STRINGS, this time following Andrej's vision.

Meanwhile, a curiosity from 1996: DZERZHINSK-9.  Here come a couple of images we discussed for the artwork. One of them - a photo of the actual 3BEP. - has been eventually used on the cover [no, we didn't know anything about the movie "District 9" when giving title to our album, which was about a year ago!].

Just returned from York in the UK, having stayed an "artistic resident" at the University's Music Research Centre. There is hardly anything artistic about me being anywhere, but the environment at the Centre and all the people working there have been absolutely great - with their generous help I did manage to record a substantial amount of material for a new COH album..

I have this risky plan to make a follow-up to IRON, and those references to heavy-metal are likely to be more literal this time: there were guitars, amps, pedals, microphones and wires waiting for me at the recording studio, all those things I haven't touched since the times of playing in a heavy metal band during teenage. Much fun and quite some pain in fingers..



On a rarely sunny Sunday I have been taken to Whitby, a very pictoresque town by the sea largely known in connection with the writer Bram Stoker and his novel Dracula. A very beautiful place where Life busy with some of the freshest fish'n'chips runs happily right next to a quiet cemetery on the hill, and to indifferent remains of dinosaurs occasionally popping out from under the equally indifferent remains of the ancient Whitby Abbey.





More travel notes upon return from Japan.

Sleazy was staying over a few days ago - a very productive visit, as usual. I have a strong feeling my physical presence makes him more concentrated when it comes to work. Maybe I'm just being too demanding.. 

In all cases, we have now fully developed our strategy for the forthcoming SOISONG Reunion Tour in October-November, both technically and conceptually. Sleazy, as always, has been extremely supportive towards all kinds of absurd ideas, so please watch the SOISONG space for some forthcoming news.

We have been taking new photographs during the visit, but unfortunately it will take time before I have them. In the mean time, here's a cheerful one from the xMas days of the xAj3z recordings:

I don't know how this happened, but one day Wikipedia got an entry about COH, incorrectly listing me as a former member in a Russian band called Zvuki Mu. It's a little amusing, because at some point I did, in fact, make a few unauthorised remixes for one of the one-man band's records called ELECTRO T. [i used an alter-name oxy, to distinquish from COH]. Recently I was shown to a COH page on Facebook and found that the mistake is repeated there, too.

Now, I have no clue how to edit the main entry on Wikipedia - I did try looking into that with no success. In all cases, I would like to say this:

I have never been a member of Zvuki Mu.

In fact, I have never been a member of any band that you may know of! There's an obscure live-in-studio recording made in 1996 at my friend's place in Russia [this has now been mastered by Rashad at dubplates and is scheduled for a limited edition vinyl release very soon]. For these few hours in the studio we have been a band, indeed. But even this band has no name!

Here is something I feel very happy and proud about: package design for the new SOISONG album. I admit my original intention was to make it follow the concept introduced with our first release - "disposable design" [read "making outrageously expensive package which has to be destroyed in order to hear the record"]. Luckily, this time my band-mate Sleazy persuaded me to make something that can be re-used. Now, I personally don't mind my amateur design ambitions to be ripped apart by the hands of music lovers - after all I'm not a designer in any measure. But ever since seeing the way the first record turned out, I am filled with profound respect  to the one-man company Here Ltd. that puts an incredible amount of care and passion into making my utopian school-boyish paperworks into professionally looking CD package. I guess I simply could no longer let this work of love to be destroyed, so..

Here is the result: PIANO STEALTH [TM] package, which I am happy to unveil now as our album has been announced.

The first image is the outside "shell", which was originally sketched to be "disposable"..



[Carefully] opening the shell, one finds a glossy folder which contains the actual CD. The front page of the folder portrays me and Sleazy slightly morphed into one of the photographs taken with help from Emi+ Takeuchi in Tokyo. [I must say the models look so much better in their original shapes!]



The back side of the package spells a cryptic message written in a typeface I accidentally came up with specifically for the purpose. I am very happy Peter Christopherson voluntarily took the difficult job of making a proper font out of it.. and I truly hope someone will one day be able to read what it says!




Within the folder hides a piano-laquered octagonal CD made with help from our friend in Taipei, Han Li Chiou.






Finally, the inside of the "shell" this time contains useful information one often expects to find in a record - printed credits and a drawing made for us by our webmaster Yuu Omiya - watch out for SOISONG T-shirts with this design!






In other words, the way this album looks today is a result of a very dedicated collective effort and I feel very grateful to everyone who put their love and energy into it. Myself, I have not seen the actual package yet, but I was already told it feels even better than what it looks like in the pictures. I'm not dribbling, but I'm certainly full of anticipation.


 

The COH PLAYS COSEY show at the BEMF last Sunday turned out better than expected. Not that I had low expectations.. Yet the sound system was very good, the venue beautiful and with a very impressive screen for projections. Above all, the first live interaction with Cosey gave me nothing but joy and satisfaction. Almost surprisingly, I must say, as over the past 10 years I haven't performed much with other people and I am used to having more of less full control over the sound. This time there was no possiblity to do anything with Cosey's output except to inter- and counteract - I guess that made me a little anxious. However, a few minutes into the show all of the anxiety was gone and it just felt comfortable and fun.

A special thank you is due to Chris Carter who came along and helped immensely with making the projections for the show. Originally we did not plan any, but after seeing the stage and the screen of rare size, both me and Cosey felt it would be wrong not to use it. So within an hour or so at the backstage the three of us managed to put together a simple cut-up video-sequence which I believe worked out quite well.

Below are a few shots: working on the video with Chris, a snap of the stage during the show and one at the soundcheck.

PS: there's also a very good picture someone else took during the show here, with our heads looking a bit like Björk's tears in Cosey's eyes!