In September my new and third album Andaman Groove will be released. During my Dream Awake Tour ’19 together with LLTV, I visited the Andaman Islands for the first time. I met Thomas, who has been spending the winter there regularly for several years. During my first stay I was impressed by the beauty and unspoiled nature and I was very interested in the history of the islands too. As already mentioned in a blog article of mine, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands even have a connection to Austria.
During my second visit in winter 2019/20 I took my equipment with me to play some live gigs in bars and hotels. Of course I saw friends and familiar faces again. In the evening we had beach hut jam sessions, these were very inspiring especially for Thomas and me and some new songs came up. The Beachhut – Avenue was called Boom Shankar Avenue, as I said, most of the songs were created there. We didn’t have the intention to write an album about the Andaman Islands, but in the tracks we creatively packed some funny experiences. In retrospect, it was a very nice and special time for me, because at that time nobody could have guessed what a difficult time we would have with Corona. It remains to be seen whether we will ever be able to move so freely and uncomplicate in this world again in the future.
After we had written some new songs there on the beach, the idea came up to produce a tribute album for the natural Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This is what happened and we went to the only recording studio in Port Blair, the capital of the 572 islands. With Rajesh Kumar of Resonance Digital Studios we had found a patient sound engineer who started recording the demo tracks. His job was not exactly easy, but he laid the foundation of the recording process. The studio was very hard to find and the rickshaw drivers never took us to the desired destination in the beginning, although we used google maps to orientate ourselves. When the studio was found and nobody was there (Rajesh was busy), we naturally went to the nearest bar to wait for him. Several hours passed and when we knocked at the Resonance Studio, still nobody was there. Since we had gotten up early that day and it was already very hot, Thomas just lay down on the floor, right at the entrance right in front of the studio door and fell asleep comfortably. But only a short time later Rajesh came and greeted me friendly, at the same time he was very surprised and asked me who was lying on the floor. I told him that this was Thomas and we would mainly record his voice today. He was a bit surprised, but at the thought of recording Thomas singing he had to laugh.
Later I travelled back to my home country with the raw sound tracks. The plan was already set, with German Schwarz at my side, to finalize the album professionally in Vienna. With the technical help of German, our third album became more concrete over a longer period of time. The word OUR because I have produced my three solo albums together with German. In my opinion, that’s something special, because the productions take up more and more time and energy. Of course, there are moments when you ask yourself why you do this to yourself at all, since the income is limited. But in the end, German always stands behind the creation of music with full commitment and conviction. That’s why the recording sessions at German are always something special, because we are connected by a long, common, musical past. We’ve been working together for over twenty years and met in the band Fur Balloon in 1999. Back then, German rocked the bass and I rocked the guitar. Later we played together in the Indian fusion band Ashram. Some years later the idea came to me to travel through different countries as a street musician. I had a lot of funny experiences on the streets and some of them I set to music in songs which I have recorded with German in his studio ever since.
At this point I would like to thank again German’s girlfriend Andrea for her hospitality during the recording time in Vienna!
In the coming weeks everything should be done for my third album. Here are some infos about the new album: – The title of the album is Andaman Groove, because as already mentioned it was written and recorded on the Andaman Islands. – Feat. resp. Featuring Thomas because Thomas sings in the background on the album and has been an inspiration and songwriter. – There will be 10 new tracks released, all of them produced in beachstyle. – This time there will also be a physical product (CD). Limited edition of 1000 pieces. – The reason: it is a concept album,
the individual titles are not isolated, because the beach songs have a thematic relationship to each other. – The idea: The whole album should give the listener half an hour of beach feeling. – Not until March 2021 the digital release will be done via Spotify, iTunes etc. (the physical album, audio CD, will be available for order on my homepage in September) – The release date or main presentation will be on 12.09.2020 during a live stream concert. There will also be a concert in Kitzbühel on 29.08. and a gig in the Granit Arena on 05.09. in St.Martin im Mühlkreis – There will be music videos for individual tracks, such as the song „Purple Waves“, which is currently in progress, it´s currently being produced by Markus Mayer https://www.xipifilms.com/
08/29. @el_dorado_bar_kitzbuhel
05.09. @royal_baeckerhall | St. Martin in the Mühlkreis
12.09. Album main presentation | streaming live concert + special guests