Eric Andersen -- Birth Of A Stranger: Shadow And Light Of Albert Camus

27,00 €
Preis inkl. Mwst, zzgl. Versandkosten

Meyer Records
Klang 1 Pressung 1
180 g
ArtikelNr: No 222sig
Lieferzeit unbekannt, derzeit nicht lieferbar



Bei LPs bieten wir Ihnen mehrere Zusatzoptionen zur Auswahl. Der Preis versteht sich je LP und wird automatisch anhand der im Album enthaltenen LPs ermittelt und dem Produktpreis zugerechnet.
LP Hülle
LP Optionen
Menge

  • Datenschutzbedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile") Datenschutzbedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile")
  • Lieferbedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile") Lieferbedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile")
  • Rücksendebedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile") Rücksendebedingungen (bearbeiten im Modul "Kundenvorteile")
Handsigniertes Exemplar!

Eric Andersen - Vocal and guitar
Steve Postell - Rhythm electric guitar, solo slide guitar, and bass
Scarlet Rivera - Violin
Michele Gazich - piano and violin
Cheryl Prashker - Djembe and percussion
Reinhard Kobialka - Drum programming
Robert Aaron - Musical soundtrack

Mastering durch Reinhard Kobialka in den Topaz Studios, Köln.
Weitere Aufnahmen in den Katonah Studios, Del Ray (Los Angeles), Kalifornien, USA, durch Steve Postell, MacWave Studios Brescia, Italien, durch Paola Costola und Morning Star Studios, East Norriton, Pennsylvania, USA, durch Glenn Barratt.

Produziert von Eric Andersen und Reinhard Kobialka für Meyer Records.

Nähert man sich der Folk-Ikone, begegnet man einem sensiblen, zerbrechlichen, gleichzeitig aber eruptiven Künstler. Unberechenbar ist er und konsequent. Er ist der musicians musician, der auch schon von Bob Dylan gecovert wurde. Eine ganze LP ist es nun geworden mit insgesamt sechs gehaltvollen Songs. Dem Globetrotter zwischen Holland, USA, Italien und Deutschland ist wieder ein ganz großer Wurf gelungen.
Je älter Eric Andersen wird, umso intensiver wird sein Werk. Nichts zum Nebenherhören. Nein: Zuhören muss man, Hineinhören. Und dann erschließt sich der ganze musikalische Kosmos. Gut, dass der rast- und ruhelose Eric Andersen einen so kompetenten, leidenschaftlichen Reisebegleiter in der Person von Labelchef Werner Meyer hat. Er hat wieder einen erheblichen Anteil an der aufwändigen Produktion. So springt die Gestaltung des wertigen Klappcovers sofort ins Auge. Zwei Portraits veredeln die Hülle, die der renommierte Kölner Künstler Oliver Jordan gemalt hat, Andersen und Camus. Im Inneren ein wunderschönes Schwarz-Weiß-Foto-Portrait vom Meister der Optik Werner Meyer himself. Und wer Meyer kennt, weiß, dass Qualität eine Heimat in seiner Kölner Kreativ-Schmiede hat. So ist ein 7-seitiges Booklet eingearbeitet mit allen Lyrics und Hintergrundinfos inkl. weiteren Fotos. Und dann die Musik. Mystisch und magisch ist sie. Sie saugt einen förmlich ein. Eine musikalische Oase in einer aufgebrochenen und selbstzerstörerischen Welt.
„The Plague (Song Of Denial)“ eröffnet den sauber gepressten Longplayer. Die Geige von Michele Gazich und die Gibson-Akustik-Gitarre von Andersen verschmelzen gleich zu einem vorwärtstreibenden Riff. Unaufdringlich, aber auf eindrucksvolle Weise sehr präsent. Dann streicht Andersen seine Gitarre rhythmisch raffiniert im stilsicheren Groove-Drei-Klang mit dem Perkussionisten Cheryl Prashker. Seine sonore Stimme aus den Untiefen einer geschundenen Seelenlandschaft steht im Raum. „The Stranger (Song Of Revenge)“ lebt von einem Klavierspiel, das sich sofort mit seiner tief-intimen Melodik in das Herz senkt.
Hier offenbart sich auch die Güte der Aufnahme. Reinhard Kobialka hat wieder einmal die Regler seines Mischpultes in die richtige Richtung gedreht. Und wenn man meint, es geht nicht intensiver, kommt „The Fall (Song of Gravity)“ mit einem eindringlich-stoischen Rhythmus, raffiniert programmiert vom Aufnahmechef selbst. Man kann Andersen spüren wie er aufgewühlt durch Amsterdam streicht. Man geht Seit' an Seit' mit ihm, so nah ist der Klang.
Mit „Song Of Sisyphus (Song Of Rock And Roll)“ startet die Seite B der Schallplatte. Neben dem witzigen Wort-Spiel ist der Song schon ein wirklich musikalisches Kleinod. Rock'n'Roll in mehrdimensionaler Spiegelung, eine lyrisch-theatralische und schmerzhafte Betrachtung. Steve Postell bringt Farbe mit seiner E-Gitarre ins Spiel und zeigt sich als ausgefuchsten Slide-Spieler. Als Zugabe legt er noch eine saubere Bass-Spur auf. Knapp 17 Minuten lang ist „Confessions Of A Judge Penitent (Song Of Deception)“. Dieser Song hinterlässt einen sehr nach-hall-tigen Ein- bzw. Ausdruck. Camus, Jordan, Meyer und Andersen; dieses Wort-Kunst-Grafik-Art-Musik-Quartett ist zweifellos für das Monats-Highlight zwingend verantwortlich. wb


Shadow and Light of Albert Camus developed in five phases from 2012 to 2017: The initial phase was to read and assimilate Camuss works. The second was to write four new Camus songs based on his ideas. The third involved two Camus performances in Aix-en-Provence and in Bonn and the recording of the 4-song EP vinyl in Cologne, Germany. The fourth phase encompassed a three-week celebration in New York commemorating the 70th anniversary of Camuss visit to the city and the composition of two new original works (“Song of Sisyphus and “Confession of a Judge Penitent). The final phase happened in 2017, in Los Angeles and Cologne, where I recorded the last two songs for the expanded 12 vinyl and CD for a 2017 release.

I would like to share a bit of history about this album project.

In one of my college literature courses I read Albert Camuss The Stranger. I found it dry, empty and weird. A senseless story of an Arabs killing on a beach by an Algerian-born Frenchman and the slow grind to justice and his execution. The book starts with the cryptic opening line, “Mother died today, or maybe yesterday I cant be sure At the end of the trial the anti-hero Meursault is not condemned to the guillotine for the murder of a young Arab but rather for showing a callous indifference and lack of feeling at his mothers funeral.
Camuss strange tale described a world too remote for a college freshman in the Finger Lakes region of New York. At the time, I was enthralled by the descriptive
realism of 19th century Russian writers, the surreal
empires of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and the street-smart accessibility of the Beat poets. Not to mention my campus distractions of riding motorcycles, hopping on freight trains, and absorbing the roots music of Woody Guthrie, Miles Davis, Lightnin Hopkins, and The Weavers.

After my disappointing freshman read of The Stranger I drifted away from Camus until a chance meeting in Germany. While on a visit to Cologne I met the painter Oliver Jordan, and we began talking about Camus. Over dinner, Oliver discussed the centenary plans of the Camus Estate. Would I be interested in doing a joint interdisciplinary project complementing his portraits of Camus with some new songs? We would enlist Camuss daughter Catherine; in Aix-enProvence Oliver would exhibit his paintings, and I would perform my songs. The problem was he had completed most of the paintings, and I had zero songs. I had no idea that I would devote more than two years to reading, writing and composing before I even sang a note! The purpose was to create a celebration in conjunction with the centenary of Camuss birth.

I would soon find out Albert Camus remained a controversial figure in France having been born a pied-noir, or a “black-foot the pejorative term for French people born in colonized Algeria.

This included all foreign-born French citizens who were not immediately embraced by mainland France. There had been the bloody Algerian war for independence, and Arab-driven racism still lingered in France and Aix-en-Provence! Prejudice even against a Nobel Prize-winning Frenchman like Camus! His daughter Catherine found this out when trying to find an exhibition venue for our show in Provence in 2014. If truth be told, France has never quite known what to do with Albert Camus.

At Olivers dinner, I agreed at once to participate in the project. I came home, ordered all of Camus books, and plunged into his vast deep linguistic sea churning under his expanding world of atmospheres. Each book, each story, each essay became more and more fascinating and unnerving. Before long I found myself becoming intrigued and charmed by the disquieting beautiful skies of Camuss ideas sailing over waves of his unique wise words and poetical expressions. Every touch on paper with his pen started a flow of pulses and phrases that jumped alive! I felt an addiction coming on. Another world was opening up to me.

Does anyone ask to be born? Camus had one first concern: Does life have meaning or not? Is life worth living should we be content to be, live, suffer, and die, or simply phone it in, and cease to be? If there is no reason or meaning for living, why go through the motions in the first place? We will all face the end eventually but is there a choice? For those who do not believe in an
afterlife there is the option to end it sooner than later and avoid the question, “What does it mean to be born and to be alive?

To survive, while trying to find the answer to that question, is the absurd dilemma we face, according to Camus. Is it our job to “create meaning without the usual crutches of faith, religion, or family? But is it actually a Hamlet-style either/or proposition: To be or not to be?

Imagine to be haunted by a third alternative! Bob Dylan (singer/writer/deep religious philosopher in his own right (exemplified by his Christian period) conjured up an equally terrifying apparition. Imagine a no-escape nightmare-hell that exists in both the here-and-now and the beyond, “When men will beg God to kill them and they wont be able to die? * a scenario where the choice not to be, though attractive, would be an impossible option.

Dylans apocalyptical world-churning hell thwarts the option of suicide (since every day is Judgement Day!) and his abysmal scenario is not Camuss alternative solution to the question of the meaning or meaningless of existence. Its more about good behavior vs. bad.

Another solution might be, as Camus came to believe, you could roll your rock up the mountain forever like Sisyphus and see it fall down endlessly and not only accept your fate, but also become happy with it. Happy, you say? So, we pause, ponder, and wonder: now what?

These grave questions provide reasons why the thinkers/writers mentioned above win Nobel Prizes as Camus did for literature in 1957.

At the end of Camuss life, the realm of the absurd chased him like a hellhound and sat waiting patiently to meet him by a tree. Three years after the prize, on a misty January night in 1960, on his way to visit his wife and children, was there any good reason for him (or anyone) to die so tragically and senselessly in a car crash. Fog, a fatal slip on the road, destiny, being chased or pursued an accident or just dumb bad luck?

His sudden departure remains an unsettling shock and a mystery as troubling as his writings and ideas. He had made a snap decision how to travel home and it was a fatal one. On their long drive from Paris his close friend and publisher Michele Gallimard crashed his rare Facel Vega into a tree (Camuss unused train ticket to Provence was found in his pocket). William Burroughs liked to say, “There are no such things as accidents. So, what to think? Like most who never asked to be born, on that day, Camus had never asked to die.

Over the course of two years I concentrated on reading Camuss works and began the task of writing. When it came time to compose song lyrics I didnt try to recycle his novels into mini-versions. Instead I used them as stimuli and guides to explore different ways I could express his intents and ideas.

The idea was to extrapolate meaning from his books to make new songs and choose song titles. Using my poetical devices to attempt to create something original, I followed my instincts soul-to-soul style as I read and filtered the material to create something musical and new. But I always meant to keep it close to the bone to keep the feeling and meaning pure Camus! Adapting his prose into original songs was a sea adventure into deep uncharted waters but also like sailing towards a palace of treasures. I just had to choose which treasures!

It was like trying to create vintage bottles of wine out of the rolling acres of Camuss vineyards. But on some days, I felt like I was walking into a quicksand swamp. Any blind or arrogant misstep could mean failure. I had to make choices but when it came time to write, I had to start the task using my intuition and instinct.

I decided I would create new songs based on his book titles: “The Plague, “The Stranger, “The Rebel and “The Fall. These four songs were eventually released on vinyl in 2014 and on CD in 2015. However, it didnt end there. I discovered I was still missing something.

I kept being fascinated by one Camus book called The Fall. It was seductive. I was so intrigued by its elusive ambiguity that I composed a second, long recitative about the duplicitous Parisian lawyer Clamence, whose guilty conscience forces him into self-exile, to a place where he sets up shop among the itinerants, drunkards, and sailors in an Amsterdam brown bar.

This strange in-your-face novel is basically a monologue replete with rhetorical questions and colloquies (actually the heros reconstructed internal dialogues) sourced from memory. It was triggered by a young girl he saw jump to her death off a bridge into the Seine, while he, “the lawyer, continued walking in the rain, doing nothing, as her watery screams rang in his ears, then avoiding newspapers for the next three days.
I addressed this novel in my song “The Fall and now for a second time in “Confessions of a Judge Penitent.

I also realized Id overlooked a book of powerful essays called “The Myth of Sisyphus one of which was the strange story of the punished man eternally pushing the rock up the mountain only to see it fall back to the bottom. “Song of Sisyphus became the sixth and final song. This was Camuss “perfect example model of the “absurd man.

In July 2015 I was contacted by Catherine Camuss associate and Camus archivist Alexandre Alajbegovic to ask if I could help stage a three-week celebration event commemorating Camuss one and only visit to New York seventy years before. It was at Columbia University where Camus gave his famous “Crisis of Mankind speech, the powerful oration he wrote in the immediate aftermath of the war. I was in Europe at the time but made some calls and soon enlisted the help of the writer and scholar Stephen Petrus, curator of the historic “Folk City music exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York and co-author of the accompanying volume. From the outset Stephen loved the idea of a Camus retrospective, and we corresponded frequently, exchanging ideas and concocting plans.

On very short notice and with invaluable help from artists and other conspirators a three-week Camus commemoration was organized and took place in New York the end of March through early April of 2016. The programs were diverse. The performers included actor Viggo Mortensen who did a reading of Camuss Columbia University speech on the 70th anniversary to the day; writer and jazz singer Ben Sidran; Yale University Camus scholar Alice Kaplan; songwriter-poet Patti Smith, composer-pianist David Amram, and myself. One evening at the Bowery Poetry Club, David and I, preceded by Stephen, read from Camuss New York travel journals, accompanied by Robert Aaron on piano. (It should be noted that David Amram started something important and great. Putting jazz to poetry. He was the first musician Jack Kerouac asked to accompany him on his readings from On the Road in 1959. They were close friends).

During the Camus celebration Patti Smith appeared at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York to discuss her love for Camuss first novel A Happy Death. To culminate the three-week celebration, I performed my own six Camus compositions (included on this album) with my band, for a special one-night show at the beautiful National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Sometimes special projects involve collaborations with believers, record companies (in this case, Werner Meyer of Meyer Records), fellow musical comrades, recording studios and mixing engineers (Topaz Audio), and a visual artist. Werner quickly and thoughtfully suggested we expand the originally released project of the four recorded songs. And expand we did with two new songs! We pushed the boundaries of vinyl to the limit! We retitled the new incarnation Birth of a Stranger: Shadow and Light of Albert Camus!

Liner notes by Eric Andersen

DMM-Schnitt bei Hans-Jörg Maucksch, Pauler Acoustics, Northeim.
Gepresst bei Optimal in Röbel, Deutschland, auf 180 g schwerem Vinyl.

Titel:

1. THE PLAGUE (SONG OF DENIAL)

Words and Music by Eric Andersen.
Copyright 2014/2018 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA. Administered World-Wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.

Eric Andersen Vocal and guitar
Michele Gazich violin
Cheryl Prashker Djembe and percussion

Additional djembe recording engineer Glenn Barratt, Morning Star Studios, East Norriton, PA.

2. THE STRANGER (SONG OF REVENGE)

Words and melody by Eric Andersen. Copyright 2014/2018 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA. Administered World-Wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.
Music by Michele Gazich, SAIE.

Eric Andersen Vocal
Michele Gazich piano and violin

3. THE REBEL (SONG OF REVOLT)

Words and Music by Eric Andersen. Copyright 2014/18 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA. Administered World-Wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.

Eric Andersen Vocal and guitar
Michele Gazich violin
Cheryl Prashker Djembe and percussion

Additional djembe: recording engineer Glenn Barratt, Morning Star Studios, East Norriton, PA.

4. THE FALL (SONG OF GRAVITY)

Words and Music by Eric Andersen.
Copyright 2014/2018 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA. Administered World-Wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.

Eric Andersen Recitation and musical soundtrack
Michele Gazich Violin
Reinhard Kobialka Drum programming

Track 1 - 4 produced by Eric Andersen
Mixed and mastered by Reinhard Kobialka, Topaz Audio Studios, Cologne.

5. SONG OF SISYPHUS (SONG OF ROCK AND ROLL)

Words and Music by Eric Andersen.
Copyright 2018 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA. Administered World-Wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.

Eric Andersen Vocals and guitar
Steve Postell Rhythm electric guitar, solo slide guitar, and bass
Scarlet Rivera Violin
Cheryl Prashker Djembe and percussion

Recorded at Katonah Studios, Del Ray (Los
Angeles), April 2017. Steve Postell, recording
engineer.

Produced By Eric Andersen and Steve Postell
Mixed and mastered by Reinhard Kobialka, Topaz Audio Studios, Cologne.

6. CONFESSIONS OF A JUDGE PENITENT (SONG OF DECEPTION)

Words by Eric Andersen (based on the Albert Camus Novel La Chute (The Fall). Copyright 2018 Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA
Administered world-wide BMG/Chrysalis. All rights reserved.
Music by Robert Aaron 2018 Runaway Horses
(Adm. Wind and Sand Music ASCAP/GEMA and BMG/Chrysalis world-wide. All rights reserved).

Eric Andersen Recitation
Robert Aaron Musical soundtrack
Michele Gazich Viola
Cheryl Prashker African Djembe and percussion

Soundtrack recording by Robert Aaron, New York, NY.
Additional djembe recording by Paul Mills at Millstream Studios, London, Ont. Additional viola recording by Paolo Costola, MacWave
Studios, Brescia.
close

Wunschzettel